Transitivity Analysis of Character Agency in A Rose for Emily

Keying Lin

doi:10.54097/89td1s81

Authors

Keying Lin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/89td1s81

Keywords:

A Rose for Emily, Transitivity, Stylistic Analysis

Abstract

As an important representative work of William Faulkner, a leading figure of the Southern Renaissance, A Rose for Emily has long been a focus of literary research. This study analyzes this short story by applying the transitivity system in Halliday's systematic functional grammar, exploring how Faulkner alters Emily Grilson's role in the transitivity process within the five sections of the story, aiming to reveal the functions of process type patterns and participant roles in shaping character agency, social power relations, and thematic meaning. This study shows that although Emily is the protagonist, in most sentences she is deprived of active social actions, and the people of the town, as collective narrators, occupy the dominant position of Actors, Sensers and Sayers, confining her to a symbol of the southern nobility. Faulkner's language choices led to this imbalance. The static description at the end makes Emily a tragic subject shaped by patriarchy, social customs and the decline of the Southern nobility. This study verified the interpretive ability of transitivity system for literary works and provided theoretical and practical inspirations for the analysis of literary discourse.

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