A Literary Stylistic Analysis Of The Noir Style In The Postman Always Rings Twice

This thesis emphasizes on the noir style of an American novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by means of literary stylistic theory and methods.As the masterpiece of the noir works by American writer James M Cain,The Postman Always Rings Twice not only ranked in the top 100 of the best English novels of the 20 th century chosen by New York Times,but also has been adapted into films time and again for seven times,exerting a remarkable influence on the noir fiction and film noir of later generations.With trenchant techniques,concise sentence patterns,glittering cold humor and the limited but particular first-person narration(Kong Yalei,2011:101),this fiction tells readers a story of love and betrayal mixing with murder,in which the black atmosphere can be seen everywhere.Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts in regard to their linguistic features.As a branch of stylistics,literary stylistics is a stylistic school that aims at interpreting the thematic meanings and aesthetic values of literary texts.Literary stylistics puts a high value on the description of linguistics as well as the interpretation of literary criticism,focusing on how the author adopt s different choices of language to express and strengthen the thematic meanings and aesthetic effects of a literary text.This thesis stresses on the literary stylistic analysis of the noir style reflected in the whole text from the explicit level and implicit level with the specific illustration and exemplification of the chosen paragraphs.The explicit level mainly researches the image-building,fast-moving plot and fictional tension from the narrative rhythm,narrative perspective and conversation analysis.The implicit level mainly focuses on the imagery,metaphor,irony and textual analysis to reveal this fiction's themes of fragile love,absurd life and doomed destiny.Therefore,the distinctive aesthetic values of the novel which has been considered as one of the classic noir works will be revealed and exhibited clearly through the detailed stylistic analysis.The combination of literary stylistics and noir fiction not only provides a more convincing research for the noir style,but broadens the research field of literary stylistics.This combination can help readers have a deep understanding of the theme and aesthetic values of this fiction and has a realistic importance of arousing the acceptability of this fiction to Chinese readers and audience.