A Comparative Stylistic Study of two Historical Novels

This book investigates the similarities observed in the depiction of common themes of war, corruption, immorality and superstition by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Hilary Mantel in their novels -- Half of a Yellow Sun and Bring up the Bodies, respectively. It analyses these themes with a view to establishing common traits of authorial presentation in the two novels. It does this comparative stylistic analysis using the Systemic Functional Grammar as model. Since the work is text-based, the methodology adopted involves a purposive selection of data at the graphological, lexico-semantic and syntactic levels of language description. Four chapters were purposively selected from each of the novels. The study finds that the manner of deployment of graphological resources in language is similar in both texts, with regards to the frequency in the occurrences and functional purposes of these graphological features. Although Adichie and Mantel are from different cultural, geographical and educational backgrounds, their writings are similar in terms of themes, lexical choices and sentence types. They use similar styles.