“HOW STARS STOLE ALL NIGHT AWAY”: A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PERSONIFICATION IN MOVIE TROLLS’S SOUNDTRACKS

Abstract

The placement of songs as soundtracks in a movie must be in line with the atmosphere, characters, and themes that are offered in the movie. By understanding the meanings of the songs, the selection of the songs can closely match with the atmosphere being represented. Personification adds the aesthetic values of a song as it is a type of figures of speech that requires creative cognitive process to understand its meaning. This study is a stylistic analysis of the soundtracks of a movie focusing on the use of personifications and their contexts. It examines the types and contexts of use of the personification used in the soundtracks of Movie Trolls. Using Zhu’s (1991) framework, the study is set to classify all the personification use into three categories: Living Creature Personification, Non-living Creature personification, and Abstractions Personification. The study analyzed lyrics of 11 songs that were selected to feature the movie: Hair Up, Can’t Stop the Feeling, Move Your Feet, Get Back up Again, Sound of Silent, Hello, I’m Coming Out / Mo’ Money Mo’ Problem, They Don’t Know, September, and What U workin’ with. The research design used in this study was qualitative research using document analysis in the process of data collection with the researchers were the main instrument of the research. The findings showed that of the 23 expressions containing personification found in soundtracks of movie Trolls, 12 occurrences were categorized into Non-living Creature personification, and 11 occurrences were found to belong to Abstraction Personification. Contexts, meanings, and the absence of the first type of personifications used are discussed in the light of the movie theme and the original theme of each soundtrack. The discussion is hoped to add knowledge to how personification use in movie soundtracks is related to the theme of a movie.