A Functional Stylistic Analysis Of Tender Is The Night

Stylistics is a subject,analyzing the stylistic feature of literary works.As an important part of stylistic studies,functional stylistics plays an irreplaceable role in the study of modern stylistics.It is an interdisciplinary subject,which studies the language features in literary works based on systematic functional grammar.Halliday insists that language consists of three meta-functions:The ideational function which is embodied by transitivity and voice systems;the interpersonal function which is achieved by mood and modality system;textual function which is realized by thematic structure and cohesion.Based on Halliday’s systematic functional grammar,by analyzing the novel Tender Is the Night,this paper aims to achieve the following three purposes:firstly,to reveal the personality of the protagonists;secondly,to explore how to convey the thematic meaning through language;thirdly,to testify the applicability of SFG in analyzing literary works.As one of the greatest works in Jazz Age,Tender Is the Night is deeply loved by readers since its publication,which describes a story about a young but talented man Dick who devoted all his life to pursue impractical ideals but failed and became decadent and depressed eventually.For the convenience of analysis,the novel can be divided into three parts.The first part covers the events happened in 1925,describing Dick couple and Rosemary spending their vocation on Riviera beach;The second part covers the story happened in 1917-1919,depicting the love story between Dick and Nicole as well as the memories of their life.The third part covers the plot that Dick got divorced and depraved.This thesis picks out the climax plot of each part for further in-depth analysis.First of all,we analyze the transitive system via the six processes so that to interpret the ideational function.Secondly,we decode the interpersonal function of the novel through the mood and modality analysis of the dialogue between Dick and Nicole.Finally,the text function of the novel is interpreted via the thematic structure and cohesion.The study finds that the personality of Dick is kind,considerate,passive and conservative.He is self-cultivated with lofty dream but he degenerates eventually and his great dream is also shattered in the gentle village.The two heroines have similarities in character:beautiful,brave,rebellious,rich and independent new women image.They seem to rely on men but in fact,they are longing to be independent,hoping to overthrow their patriarchy and even control them.In the end,Dick wandered around aimlessly,while Rosemary gained career success and Nicole also recovered,overthrowing patriarchy and gaining love.In the novel,although the American dream of the hero is broken,the American dreams of the heroines come true and the breakdown of Dick’s American dream is inextricably linked with the feminism.The significance of this study is as follows:firstly,Tender is the Night attracts many researchers’ attention since its publication.The research on this novel is mainly from the perspective of American dream.However,a functional stylistic analysis of it is almost a blank.This thesis makes up for this deficiency and provides a new perspective for the interpretation and analysis of the novel.Secondly,most scholars are very interested in the hero Dick,but the analysis of the heroine is very limited.So,this thesis mainly focuses on the personality of the heroines through the analysis of systematic functional grammar,which provides a new insight for the interpretation of this novel.Thirdly,through a functional stylistic analysis of this novel,the study explores how the theme of the novel conveys meaning through language,which proves the validity and operability of functional stylistics in literary analysis,and helps readers understand the works more objectively.