An Analysis Of Babylon Revisited From The Perspective Of Functional Stylistics

F. S. Fitzgerald is one of the greatest American writers in the twentieth century, leaving four novels and over one hundred and fifty short stories for readers to ponder over. In the academic field, most research has been focused on his The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1992), while Babylon Revisited, his most cherished short story, has not received due attention. Under such circumstance, the author intends to make a study of Babylon Revisited from the perspective of functional stylistics to explore and reveal the loss and cry inside Fitzgerald.Functional Stylistics is a theory based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar, the core of which is the three meta-functions of language in analyzing texts, namely, ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. The theory of Functional Stylistics emphasizes the sociality of language, function application and functionality of language. Functional Stylistics relies on the observation and the data statistics to verify our assumptions and therefore it is highly persuasive.This thesis will make a detailed analysis of Babylon Revisited on the basis of functional stylistics. From the perspective of three meta-functions, the main characters in this short story are analyzed in detail. The author will analyze and compare specific sentences to highlight the hero Charlie’s contradictory inner world. The ideational function of the short story manifests in the field of the transitivity system, which is reflected in the material process, mental process and relational process on the basis of Functional Stylistics. The interpersonal function of the short story is reflected by the mood and modality, mainly in indicative mood and modality additional words. In terms of textual function, it mainly refers to unmarked theme and some essential cohesion. According to the specific text analysis, we can find that the hero Charlie’s tragedy is not only his personal tragedy, but also the tragedy of the "Jazz Age". It is a microcosm of the early twentieth century American social life, and is typical of a generation’s tragic fate.Reading the short story from the angle of functional stylistics helps vivify the characters. It gets the personal tragedy and era background, emotion and reality, expectation and helplessness revealed perfectly. It shows more intuitive performance of the theme of the short story, and provides a new interpretation for contemporary readers.