Stylistic Analysis Of Mrs. Dalloway

Stream of consciousness style that came into being under special environment is generally considered as a composition of fragmentary pieces and a disordered mess. So style study of it has usually been done from perspective of deviation from the traditional norm. It seems that stream of consciousness style finds best expression in fragmentary pieces of language.Different studies have been done on Mrs. Dalloway, a famous stream of consciousness masterpiece written by Virginia Woolf in 1925. It is studied from literature, with emphasis on the character image analysis. It is studied from pragmatics, with focus on the flow of thought. The study from narratology shows that stream of consciousness is mainly achieved through direct and indirect speech. Style study of it has been done from perspective of deviation from traditional norm. The study shows that the fragmentary pieces present suitable expression for stream of consciousness style.We accept the view that the problem of 'being appropriate' is the core of stylistics. Functional perspective of stylistics argues that as long as the features are appropriate in expressing the theme generated by context of situation, they are the stylistic features of the text.The structures in Mrs. Dalloway differ from both the fragmentary pieces and the compact and well-trimmed grammatical language in traditional writings. They are the clause structures to the notion of functional grammar. What is worth mentioning is the fact that the clauses are mostly marked off by semi-colons and commas. Do they not represent the stream of consciousness writing? The answer is positive.We apply the functional systemic grammar to the analysis mainly for the following reasons: functional definition of clause as ' any stretch of language consisting of a verbal group' offers a flexible way for explanation; clause complexes offer a second possible explanation to those clauses with continuous commas and semi-colons in Mrs. Dalloway; accepting the Hallidyan view of 'text as an on-going process', we shall analyze the text through clause complex projection and cohesion. We analyze clauses, clause complexes as well as cohesion of the text.The thesis is divided into four parts. Chapter I is a literature review of previous studies on Mrs. Dalloway. Chapter II is our reason for application of the systemicfunctional stylistics to the text. Chapter HI is a functional analysis of the text at clause level and clause complex level as well as cohesive devices, and some of the features are obtained through the analysis. Part IV is the interpretation and evaluation of the stylistic features. We obtain the following results through the analysis:Field is the subjective impressions of life The transitivity structures generated by ideational meaning are mainly the mental processes at the clause level and mental projection at the clause complex level. And the phenomena and projections present varied and continuous structures. We think the transitivity system best displays psychological time in the stream of consciousness as well as Field of the context of situation.Tenor refers to relationship between friends, acquaintances, lovers, husbands and wives. And the low & median modality that shows uncertainty and hesitation and the non-finites that show no feelings bring the reader into contact with the moods of the characters in the text. With the assistance of modality and non-flnites generated by the interpersonal meaning, the readers are brought into contact with the characters' moods without author's interference. Relationships among the participants are thus revealed.Mode takes the written form for careful readers. Well-planned clause structures underlying the seemingly vague and ambiguous loose structures of thematic progression and lexicon cohesion coincide with the fact that Mrs. Dalloway is written for readers to follow the consciousness flow of the characters. This feature also coincides with what modernist writers expect to achieve.The results show that the features reflect both the str...