STYLISTIC ANALYSIS : “A CUP  OF  TEA” by K.Mansfield

         The common view  that a  literary text is likely to be comprehended better if it is studied in parallel with stylistic analysis which emphasizes the crucial role of the linguistic features of the text   contributes much to the development  of  literary criticism. M.A.K.Halliday is one of the text linguists who sees ‘grammar’ as a network of systems of relationships which account for all the semantically relevant choices in language, which is the standpoint of the stylistic analysis as well.

        In the light of M.A.K.Halliday’s  discipline, I will try to analyse  a piece of literary text written by Katherina Mansfield  in the format of a short story titled “A CUP OF TEA” and try to criticise  the text objectively in  relation to its grammatical (functional) features .

        Before this , I’d like to give a brief information about the content of the story.

 A.INFORMATION  ABOUT THE  STORY

      Scanning the story first, we come across with a rich couple named Rosemary and  Philip leading an untroubled, desirable life and they  seem  to love each other since- we have no implication whether they love each other for money or not – and  everything goes well in their lives.Rosemary spends money without getting into trouble and giving no reason or excuse to her husband in doing this. Everyone in a society admires Rosemary not maybe for her beauty but for her remarkable features such as  being interested in current movements from every aspects, seeming as an intelligent young woman, reading the modern books.Philip is not as bright as Rosemary  but he makes himself realize as soon as he enters the story towards the end.

        Apart from the couple, there is a girl who meets Rosemary in a street by asking for money to have a cup of tea then  is picked up by her to have a cup of tea at her home  and begins to be directed by her. We infer this from the fact that whenever Rosemary wants her to enter the scene she is there but when, at the last scene, Rosemary is jealous of  her, the girl is easily disappearad without giving no sign for us to follow the reason of her disappearance.

       And we have one more character  having a part in the story :the shopman.He is also under the effect of Rosemary; we can understand this from his polite behaviours which are made obvious in the text with circumstantial features. But he is the person also who utilizes by  the weakness of her.He tries to draw her attraction on the enamel box and succeeds it; he promises her to keep the box for her because he knows her and he knows that she will come to buy it; she has the power of money and gets whatever she desires without acconting for anything to anybody.

       Not only  we  encounter with her weakness in her dialogue with the shopman but also in her being  jealous of Miss Smith  when he utters lovely words for  this girl and behaves as it is predicted by Philip who knows directing her and makes her behave as he desires taking advantage of  her faulty character  successfully.In that sense Philip is an intelligent man and effective on Rosemary who is also obviously the symbol of possessive female by being jealous of the girl she has met in the street; so she has no self-confidence ,she is a little bit credulous. She asks directly-having no hidden meaning in her words- ‘Am I PRETTY?’, which ironically reveals her ex-behaviours to Philip  even she supposes that Philip is not aware of the truth.

 B.ANALYSIS

      When we look at the story from the point of  ‘transitivity functions’ included in the stylistic analysis which tell us about the language and its reflection on processes ,participants ,circumstantial functions we realize that main  participant is ‘ Rosemary’ and  most of the processes  are acted by her.When we count all the sentences describing her or the ones in which she takes place  we realize her dominancy  at once. The other participants I’d like to analyse on this text  -apart from  ‘Rosemary’- are the girl,Miss Smith, and Philip.  Even though Philip hasn’t got as many turns as Rosemary and Miss Smith, I’d like to examine  the processes of him  in order to display the currents of events as a whole- he is the efficient figure in the sequences of events in the story-; in other words it is vital to handle it here to maintain the entirety of the text.

       To do this I will follow  M.A.K. Halliday’s process  in which   ‘Ideational’, ‘Interpersonal’, ‘Textual’ Functions of language are daelt with  in order to support  all my commentations on Katherine Mansfield’s work.

                                               IDEATIONAL FUNCTIONS

       In order to relate the cognitive realities of the text  with its language and give the accurate meaning it is  essential to deal with the ideational functions of language of it.By this way we will have a deep knowledge of how these characters are seen as , what their mental processes are, what about the circumstantial features, and so on.  

1)Rosemary as a participant

 *Relational processes:

       In many ways she is presented us very active .There are descriptions  both   for  her physical appearance and for her characteristic features and  interests:

    “She was young  , brilliant , extremely modern, exquisitely well dressed, amazingly well  read in the newest of the new books ...”

        Even the words describing her are  beatifully chosen ones  and there is nothing which makes her inferior-as it is obviously  seen -she is not a woman adored for her goddess beauty but  she is an active figure in a society with her doings; however  it is not clear whether she makes it to be seen like that or she is really the one known in a society .

      “Her hat, really no bigger than a geranium petal, hung from a branch...”

 The writer of the text here uses metaphorical phrases while describing  Rosemary’s hat. Infact the writer doesn’t generally use such things , the language of the text is direct but here , in describing her appearance,she does this . Infact it is to reflect the prominence that is given for her.

 *Material processes:

      She is mostly ‘the actor’ where the girl is the goal or sometimes the beneficiary recipient:

 “I want you to. To please me.”

  Here ‘I’ , Rosemary, takes part as an actor whereas ‘you’,Miss Smith, is the goal and ‘want’ is the process which is stated by Rosemary. We may infer that Rosemary is dominant and makes others do  whatever she wants to.

 “I  only want to make you warm...”

    This time what she desires to be made by her is something good as a concept ; but even it is good for Miss Smith, it is directed by Rosemary and shows her power on  her  by regarding Miss Smith as a helpless creature which is to be pitied and looked after. 

 “Come and sit down,” she cried, dragging her big chair up to the fire,”in this comfy chair.”

     And the circumstantial features where the actor is Rosemary gives clues for her rich ,comfortable life style.

To give more examples:

 “And ‘there!’ cried Rosemary again , as they reached her beatiful big bedroom with the curtains drawn, the fire leaping on her wonderful lacquer furniture, her gold cushions and the primrose and blue rugs.”

   “She turned impulsively.’                (She is accustomed to speking freely in a society thanks to the power of the money .)

 *Mental processes:

  Looking at how she sees the world around her, we realize that she can mention about what she likes or dislikes and  reveals her ideas directly and freely; we have lots of verbs telling us about  her cognition and affection:

 “Yes, she liked it very much, she loved it.”

 “Rosemary admired the flowers.”

 “Rosemary gave no sign.”

 “Rosemary  laughed out.”

 “She decided...”

 “She wanted to spare this poor little thing...”

 “She saw alittle battered creature with enormous eyes...”

 “I hate lilac.”

 2)The girl as a  participant

 *Relational processes:

 Physical descriptions are used to introduce  her and these descriptions  sometimes tell us about the life style of her  and mostly  show us inferiority of her when compared with ‘Rosemary’ basically:

  “...Rosemary turned. She saw a little battered creature with enormous eyes , someone quite young , no older than herself...”

 “...a light , frail creature with tangled hair, dark lips, deep lighted eyes,...”

 “...thin ,birdlike shoulders.”

 “...poor little thing.”

 And we have implications about her manner which are presented us from the eyes of the writer:

 “...she seemed dazed.”

“she seemed to stagger like a child,...”

 *Material processes:

 She is ‘the goal’  where Rosemary is the actor:

Rosemary says:

 “I simply took her with me.”

 “I want you to.To please me.”

 “She wanted to spare this poor little thing from being stared at by the servants.”

 “She applied the poor little creature with ,everything,...”:

And here she is the beneficiary  recipient.

 Even the girl says (accepting her power):

 “You are not taking me to police station.”:

                Here the actor is again Rosemary even the sentence is uttered by the other , she will act the process; the girl is aware of this  and she  is the recipient again.

 “Rosemary drew the other into the hall.”      ‘the other’is the girl.

 *Mental processes:

 Although her acts are mostly led by Rosemary,  we have  implications about her feelings  as  follows:

 “The girl almost cried out .”

 “...burst into tears”

 “the girl gazed back at her.”

 “she felt how simple and kind her smile was.”

 3)Philip as a  participant

 *Relational Processes:

   There is no sign for his  physical appearance and no utterance for his personality also . But we can only guess  something by means of the sentences as follows:

 “Philip smiled his charming smile.”               

The we can say that he has charming smile that makes effect on Rosenary.

 “But what an earth are you going to do with her?cried Philip.”

So, he  accounts for something and she behaves in line  with Philip’s desires.

 *Material Processes:

 Even though he enters at the last scene , he is ‘the actor’ in the sentences where Rosemary is ‘the goal’:

 “I wanted you come...’  Here Rosemary is the goal.(‘You’= ‘Rosemary’)

 “He came in...he said, and stopped and stared.”                Here the events are acted by him but this time ,unlike Rosemary’s statements, there are some intransitive verbs.In Rosemary’s statements ,there are generally recipients and goals(In short there are objects) affected by the process.

“Philip jumped her on his knee.”                This is the statement in which Rosemary is the recipient whereas Philip is the actor.

 *Mental Processes:

 As soon as he takes a part in the story, he behaves like an observor as it is understood from the sentences below:

 “..he said curiously, still   looking at that listless figure, looking at its hands and boots...”

 “..I wanted you to come...”

 “Philip smiled..”

 “... cried Philip.”

                                          INTERPERSONAL FUNCTIONS

      Looking at K.Mansfield’s story from the point of the language use between the participants, we come across with variability making the text closer to real,authentic usage  by means of questions, answers, requests, imperatives,exclamations and so  on.