1.Introduction 1.1 Research background David Nicholls has rich working experience as an actor and screenwriter, whichmakes his words delicate, dramatic, graphic, thus penetratingly depicting the characters. Once published, his works were strongly recommended by the famous media such as The Guardian, The Times, Daily Mirror, etc. His major works includeStarter for Ten (2003), The Understudy (2005), One Day (2009), and US(2014). Inspired by Tomas Hardy, Nicholls said, One Dayhonestly expressed the reality.The story is set in England. Since 1988, after spending together on the night of their college graduation, Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley cannot stop thinking about one other. Over twenty years, snapshots of their relationship are revealed on the same day--July 15th#8212;of nearly each year. Emma loves Dexter. However, Dexter is such a play boy and a cynical person as a TV programmer that breaks Emma#8217;s heart. Then their relationship becomes tender with Dexter#8217;s marriage and Emma#8217;s cohabitation with Ian, a person Emma doesn#8217;t really love and a looser comedian and waiter in restaurant. Moving out of Ian#8217;s place and putting more energy into her writing, Emma finally has her first children#8217;s bookpublished and moves to Paris, where she finds an outstandingboyfriendfrom France. At the same time, Dexter, betrayed by his wife and divorced, comes to Paris and express his love for Emma. The fact that Emma falls in love with an excellent artist makes Dexter embarrassed, depressed and about to leave. Before Dexter#8217;s departure day, Emma chooses Dexter and decides to get back to his side. They get married and live a happy life soon. They decide to have a baby but in vain. One day as normal, when Emma finds out that she is still not pregnant and goes to work by bike in depression, she has an accident. Emma dies and Dexter loses his faith and confidence. With time going by, the pains and hurt in Dexter#8217;s heart recover and he opens ahouse to start his new life withoutEmma around. Taking love as the main line, the novel depicts an actual picture of people#8217;s growth in England in the 1980s, which shows their understanding of the harsh reality. It is not only about love, life and growth, but also full of laughter and tears. In 2010, it was adapted into a movie One Day with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess playing the leading roles. 1.2 Need for the study As for the need of study, few critical essaysstudy the theme of growth under this love tragedy. We can see the protagonistschange a lot in their psychology and gain a lot in the process of their life. This paper will on the one hand interpret the aspects of their growth and explain the relevance between their growth and love tragedy. On the other, the analysis of growth caused by the love tragedy can help readers get some inspirations of avoiding the similar tragedy and creating advantageous factors for growth. In detail, they should always pursue progress not only after their failure or loss; if not, they may face regret or sorrow. Anyway, truth and braveness rather thanvanity and retreat, are of significance, which can help them attain genuine happiness and diminish regret as much as possible. 1.3 Layout of the thesis This thesis consists of five chapters. Following this introduction in Chapter One, Chapter Two reviews extant literature including previous studies on One Day, tragedy, initiation story and the initiation theme in One Day.Chapter Three depicts the protagonist#8217;s growth in psychology as well as in the view of love and their life attitudes.Chapter Four explains the reason why their growth exists under the mask of a love tragedy.Chapter Five summarizes the study and focuses on both pedagogical and pragmatic implications. 2. Literature review One Dayhas been the subject of widespread praise since its very publication in 2009. According to Daily Mirror,”Nicholls has both a very deft prose style and a great understanding of human emotion. His characterization is utterly convincing#8230;.One Day is destined to be a modern classic.”The mass media and critics viewOne Day as one of the most hilarious and emotionally riveting love stories we have ever encountered. 2.1 Tragedy 2.1.1 Definition In Poetics, Aristotle comments that the ending of a tragedy is anatharsis (purgation, cleansing) of tragic emotions of pity and fear. Katharsis is a term that has generated considerable debates. The word means ”purgation”, and by employing a medical metaphor-tragedy Aristotle seems to arouse the emotion of pity and fear so as to purge away their excess, and to reduce these passions to a healthy, balanced proportion. Aristotle also talks of ”pleasure” that is proper to tragedy, apparently meaning the aesthetic pleasure one gets from contemplating the pity and fear that are aroused through an intricately constructed work of art. This is the original definition of tragedy in the social sense.In Webster#8217;s Dictionary, tragedy has three separate meanings: a very bad event that causes great sadness and often involves someone#8217;s death; a very sad, unfortunate, or upsetting situation: something that causes strong feelings of sadness or regret; a play, movie, etc., that is serious and has a sad ending (such as the death of the main character). This paper intends to adopt the first meaning according to Webster#8217;s Dictionary. 2.2 Initiation story Initiation traditions in European literature last a long time and have developed with maturity by the 20th century.Zhang Na (2015) draws the conclusion that David Nicholls#8217; One Dayfocuses on the theme of growth. 2.2.1 The definition The initiation story originates from Bildungsroman.It can be considered the novel that narratesthe growing experience of the protagonist;in other words, this kind of novel bearsthe subject of the Protagonist's growing process. In fact, the word "initiation" derives from the Latin word. Mordecai Marcus explained the derivation of the "initiation" in What is an Initiation Story (1960). He points out that the word"initiation"derives from anthropology. It refers to the adolescent#8217;s requirements of the knowledge ofability and confidence after a series of ordeals and sufferings in their lives, and then the hero enters into a new stage of life#8212;#8212;adulthood. He also points out that the definition of the initiation story has two aspects:"It describes the initiation as the knowing process of the adolescent towardsthe outside world; it interprets initiation as the process ofknowing self-identity and values, and also the process of adjusting the relationshipbetween self and society"(Marcus 222). In short, initiationstoryisnarration around growth and maturity of people; it focuses on narrating thetheme of the growing process of the protagonists which reflects the changing process ofthe characters from naivety to maturity, from individuality to flexibility, and from innocence toexperience in thoughts and mentality through the narration of one person or severalpersons, and the protagonists in the story are dynamic. 2.2.3 The characteristics Initiation stories have an old-age tradition in Europe as well as in America.Through theanalysis of some typical initiation stories in the three countries, a lot of features can be found in these stories. There do exist some different features of this kind of literary genre, which characterize the initiation story. In terms of the contents of the novel, initiation storiesshould include the following features. The first is autobiographical element.Naturally, an author does bring something of his or herownlife into the works,especially in which childhood recollections are important to the development of the protagonist.The second is the theme of initiation.An initiation story is a representation of individual experiences and bewilderment in the course of growing-up. Through the experience in the initiation story, the protagonist becomes mature, forms his individual thought and realizes himself value. The third is the openending. The author does not plan the hero's future atthe end of the novel. The ending just provides for the maturation and the future life ofthe protagonistand does not keep on describing his experiences. In other words, theprotagonist prepares to face but not to experience his fate. 2.3 Previous studies on One Day Literary critics have made numerous comments on David Nicholls#8217;s writings for about recent ten years. However, we must acknowledge the fact that David Nicholls is a great writer for his distinct style#8212;absorbing, smart, funny and heartbreaking. The key to David#8217;s success lies in his creation of many tragic but moving scenes and the tragic beauty draws plenty of readers#8217; attention. Tragedy, as one kind of drama, reveals itself in the social life to the attendees with stagecraft. David writes the social tragedy, and shows the sufferings and deaths of leading roles by means of tragic conflicts.Just as Lu Xun says, ”To destroy something valuable in life before other people”. In this way David expresses his ideas concerning British reality and aesthetic evaluation. Some studies focus on the destinedlove tragedy between Emma and Dexter. Zhang Na focuses on the interpretation of love between two protagonists. ZhaiShanshan(2016) studies the reasons fortheir tragedy,including fate, characterand social environment.What#8217;s more, Alit Mahardika (2013)explains the defense mechanisms which contributes to the complicated love relationship in One Day.Through analyzing the reflection of defense mechanism in the contact between Emma and Dexter, the author concludes that defense mechanism is leashed with anxiety, which sourced by the unconsciousness and consciousness where the id, the ego, and the superego play within human self in addition to researching the function of defense mechanism in shaping the characters and the relationships of people through psychoanalysis theory. In other words, it is the defense mechanism that causes conflict between Emma and Dexter#8217;s love relation. Other researchers center on the novel from some theoretical perspectives. For instance, Li Qian(2013) studies the book from the perspective of pragmatics, i.e. he gives a report on the translation of One Day while WangShuyi (2015)interprets the book from the aesthetic perspective.Zheng Wei (2015) studies the cultural default and translation strategy in the translation ofOne Day. 2.4 Problems in the previous studies In a word, love, tragedyand initiation are the major themes that have been studied by researchers, but neither of which can totally summarize the meanings that the author wants to express. One Day, not a traditional initiation story, doesn#8217;t have the characteristics like autobiographical elements.The previous research has just studied the changing characterization of the novel but not initiation.Therefore, this paper will research the theme of initiation under the mask of the protagonists#8217;love tragedy. 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