TransitivityandCharacterization：AnalysisonDickinTenderisTheNight

陳云嬌　郭繼東

1.Introduction to Transitivity System

According to Halliday，three meta-functions of language are al are reflected by means of subsystem of language.And in English，the form of expression of three meta-functions are （1） Transitivity System； （2） Mood System，Modality System； （3） Thematic System，Information System and Cohesion.[1]

Whats more，those systems need expressing by some more specific semantic components.For instance，the Transitivity System could be reflected by Actor，Goal and Beneficiary.The transitivity system construes the world of experience into six types of process：material，mental，relational，behavioral，verbal and existential.[2]

2.The Characterization of Dick

Tender is the Night is the last novel of Fitzgerald，an outstanding American writer in“the jazz age”； it was published in twentieth century and 30 years.The novel described the process of a humble origin but talented young doctors pursuing of the fantastic ideal but eventually failed and the hero became decadent and depressed.We will mainly discuss this from the perspectives of processes of transitivity system.

There are about twenty processes of behavioral of Dick.They are “shouted，bidding，stared，mourned，emptied，laughed...” There are some illustrations.When Dick was telling Nicole his special plan about the dinner，“...he shouted...”.In this sentence，Dick is the behaver，and “shouted” is the process of behavioral but there is no range and no circumstance.This explains that Dick was naive，just like a child，expressing his emotions easily from his movement.Mental processes of Dick（Dick functioned as the senser） in this part are not so many as behavioral processes.It is mainly about perception processes.In these perception processes Dick was the senser，and Rosemary was mainly the phenomenon.When Dick was having a vague attitude toward Rosemary，the phenomenon of perception processes （Dick was the senser） was always Rosemary.We could understand that in the deep inner heart of Dick，he had the instinctive impulse to Rosemary，he cared about her，and that is why he always “saw” her.The verbal processes in this part is more interesting.When Dick talked to Rosemary，there were usually verbal processes and diverse verbal processes，but when Dick talked to Nicole or his friends，the verbal processes are little and monotonous，for example，“But what is this？” and “It most certainly is not.” This revealed that Dick had a weak character of little vitality and had a lack of courage to accept the fresh young things in life.And this kind of character is the origin of his tragic fate.Material processes in this part are mainly demonstrated after the trip to Europe，when Dick was remembering the last days.For example，“He was rendered so uncertain by the events of the last forty-eight hours that he was not even sure of what he wanted to do...he was yet swayed and driven as an animal.” In this passage，Dick was always the actor，and the goal was the memories of what happening between him and Rosemary in last forty-eight hours.When Dick recalled this，his attitude was hazy.We could see this from the circumstance“uncertain” and the process“swayed and driven”.This shows that Dick was wobbly about his relationship with Rosemary，even after he kissed her and spent more time with her secretly，he was still not sure about his feeling.

3.Conclusion

After all the analysis above，we could know that Dick was such a man of a weak character，but in his inner heart he was virtuous and responsible.He was so nice that he would sacrifice himself to heal Nicole，and give her the most pure care.But the weakness in his character doomed that he was abound to lose himself and be abandoned by the upper middle class society.In the portrayal of Dick，we could see clearly that the motivated prominence was prominent in the number，and many static verbs were used in this novel.These are conductive to characterizing the hero and revealing the theme.

References：

[1]Halliday M A K.An introduction to Functional Grammar[M].London：Arnold，2004.

[2]Halliday，M A K.Exploration in the Function of Language[M].New York：Elseiver，1973.