Observing Power, Unlearning Authority, and Resisting Anthropocentrism: A Critical Discourse and Socio-Cognitive Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s “The Bird Came Down the Walk”

Abstract

Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Bird Came Down the Walk” is frequently viewed as a serene nature lyric focused on perceptual awareness and psychological insight. This analysis, however, reinterprets the poem as a nuanced yet continuous critique of anthropocentrism. Utilizing Critical

Discourse Analysis through Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach and van Dijk’s sociocognitive framework, the examination investigates how metaphor of violence, surveillance, paternalism, and flight convey the conflicts between human control and nonhuman autonomy. A detailed, line-by-line analysis uncovers the speaker’s shifting mental models, revealing the fragility of human-centered beliefs regarding authority, understanding, and moral superiority. The bird’s defiance against domestication and scrutiny ultimately challenges the speaker’s epistemic power, highlighting the ethical constraints of human perception. By combining CDA with close reading techniques, this analysis positions Dickinson’s poem as not only an artistic work but also a venue for ideological struggle, thereby broadening the use of CDA within the field of literary discourse analysis.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis; Socio-Cognitive Model; Metaphor; Ideology; Anthropocentrism; Power; Paternalism;

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18638425