| The Red Badge of Courage is a novel about American civil war written by naturalistic writer Stephen Crane. Since the publication of the novel, it has incurred incessant controversy around its theme. Most of people read it as a typical Bildungsrom in which the protagonist grows from a bewildered young man into a conventional hero. However, another group of people think that it is anything but a simple Bildungsrom. The pervasive naturalistic description, together with the protagonist's constantly altering mind and consistently preoccupation with self-image make them believe that the protagonist's final assertion of himself as a'man'is loaded with the irony.This paper intends to employ Functional Stylistics to explore the theme in The Red Badge of Courage. Functional Stylistics is based on Hallidayan Systemic-Functional Grammar which considers language system a meaning potential. Functional Stylistics analyzes language in terms of Hallidayan three metafunctions, namely, Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function and textual function.By picking numerous language material from the original text, this paper analyzes the transitivity system in Ideational Function as well as modality system and interpersonal comments in Interpersonal Function in the novel. Through analysis of transitivity system, it can be seen that no matter when the protagonist is fleeing away or fighting barbarically he is harshly controlled by outer forces and inner forces with his cognitive mechanism incapable of functioning normally. He hasn't grown up into a mature man who can think and act rationally even to the end of the novel. In this sense, the final assertion of protagonist that he has grown up into a man is loaded with the author's irony towards the conventional idea of heroism. Additionally, numerous modality expressions in the protagonist's represented thoughts and some interpersonal comments scattered in the author's narration both contribute to revealing the ironic theme of the novel.
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