《飘》中斯佳丽的性格魅力分析
05-24, 2014
I. About Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind, written by American woman writer Margaret Mitchell, was first published in 1936, for which she was awarded the world-famous Pulitzer Prize. The success of the masterpiece lies in the descriptions of the protagonist with vivid character. Set in the backdrop of the American Civil War in the eighteen century, Gone with the Wind tells the story of the people’s fight for survival during the War and the Reconstruction Period through sheerly shrewd wits and cunning business methods. Through Scarlett’s fights during the war and the six years of Reconstruction that followed, we can observe Scarlett's controversial character against external and internal conflicts, her losses, gains, and hopes.
When it comes to Scarlett, people often have different opinions. Someone states that people think she has certain kinds of shortcomings, which are considerably wicked. While others stress that although she has undeniable defects, she also has many good traits in character, which deserve people to learn from. In this essay, I will try to prove that Scarlett is a brave and independent woman who has diversified types of character. She could be brave, intelligent, strong-willed, selfish, cruel and self-assurance at the same time. All of these contrary personalities make her be different from other women in her age, even be different from the women in our age. The present thesis attempts to analyze Scarlett’s character to reveal her charm and the significances of this role.
II. An Analysis of Scarlett’s Character
2.1 Rebelliousness
2.1.1 Rebelliousness of Behavior
Scarlett is born in a planter’s family in southern America in civil war times. In her growing environment, she has a gentle but capable mother, an outside stern but inside honest father, a Mammy① loving her so much but treating her so strict, and two sisters having characters totally different from her. Normally, Scarlett should have been a lady with elegant temperament and gentle behaviors like other Misses, but in fact, she is contrary to other’s expectation. Actually, Scarlett is a female with a rebel character.
Scarlett’s rebelliousness firstly reflects that she revolts the whole etiquettes and custom. She has shown her differences since she was young. Among the three girls, Scarlett is the best loved by Mammy, but she is also a headache to her. Her playmates are not her demure sisters or some well brought-up girls but the negro children on the plantation and the boys of the neighborhood, and she can climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them.
Because of this, Scarlett is often taught by her mother and Mammy. By their concerted efforts, she finally learns to be a lady, but as the book says: “but she learned only the outward signs of gentility. The inner grace from which these signs should spring she never learned, nor did she see any reason for learning it.” (Chapter 3, p.71) Learning these proprieties, she is just to make herself well received by others. In fact, in her heart of hearts, she never likes these behaviors.#p#分页标题#e#
I’m tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I’m tired of acting like I don’t eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it…… (Chapter 5, p.94)
From those behaviors we can easily know that Scarlett’s inside is full of rebelling and resisting.
2.1.2 Rebelliousness of Thought
Scarlett’s rebelling seems much stronger in her thought of marriage. In her father’s opinion, the best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. About his daughter’s marriages, he thinks if his daughter: “marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together.” (Chapter 2, p.40) Of course, he considers the things just from the realistic profit, and he ignores his daughter’s real feelings. Though objectively to say, young Scarlett’s emotion is quite childish, and it is right to Gerald to stop her. However, from Scarlett, she thinks that her father stands for the outdated conventional ideas, and these forbid her to pursue love. Undoubtedly, she detests the etiquettes which bind up her and this produces a great impact on her shaking off her former life style and finding new life.
When Scarlett leaves her parents and has her own family, she still cannot keep her heart calmly. The love and life style which she yearns for is never giving up calling her.
Scarlett’s first husband Charles Hamilton soon loses his life in the war; therefore, Scarlett becomes a widow. Since there is no love as the base supporting their marriage, Scarlett, who even feels no love for her child, ignores the fetters of being a widow. In southern people’s mind: “Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled, it must be a sad, tragic smile.” (Chapter 7, p.161) However, Scarlett thinks that: “So widow might as well be dead.” (Chapter 7, p.161) Does she will spend her life with the title of Widow? Of course not, because she is Scarlett, she does not submit to this situation, and she will try her best to change it. In the second year she as a widow, in a bazaar party, she accepts Rhett’s invitation and dances with him. Meanwhile, she begins her new life. From now on, she does many things to make people unbelievable: in order to keep the Tara alive, she robs her sister’s love, and married with a person whom she does not love; in order to earn more money, she ignores the rules and manages a sawmill…… However, she does not care other people’s views, and she just wants to live more comfortable, and never poor and hungry.#p#分页标题#e#
2.2 Courage
2.2.1 Her experience
In this novel, Scarlett’s courage is mainly reflected on the road of escaping back to Tara and after coming back to Tara facing such bad situation. The author gave detailed description of Scarlett struggling to accept all the hard facts and to overcome those hardships, in which Scarlett’s courage is presented totally, vividly and incisively.
Rhett helps Scarlett escape out of flames of war. And then he leaves her after he is sure that Scarlett is safe, because his patriotism breaks out and he will go to join the army. It is so good to have a man like Rhett beside her, because he is safe and comfortable. It seems that he stands between her and unnamable terrors. But he has gone, leaving her alone in a night as black as blindness with the Yankee army between her and her home. Any other girls who are not as strong as her couldn’t endure this shock in such bad situation and may give up and wait death. While Scarlett does not give up and overcomes those unimaginable troubles —— the nightmare journey after Rhett goes away: the endless night, the black road full of ruts and boulders along which they jolts the deep gullies on either side into which the wagon slips, the unwilling horse, unknown footsteps and so on. But she overcomes them! That terrible night passes finally!
If we say Scarlett has the courage on the road back to Tara because of her belief towards home－she thinks home is safe and she can lay down her burdens there, the situation she faces after coming back home gives a big shock to her, or to her courage. She originally thinks that once she goes into their house, she can reach the kind arms of Tara and Ellen, see her mother’s kind, tender face, feel once more the soft capable hands that drives out fear, clutch mother’s skirts and bury her face in them and lay down her burdens, far too heavy for her young shoulders－the dying woman, the fading baby, her own hungry little boy, the frighten negro, all looking to her for strength, for guidance. But when she arrives at home, the facts she faces are that her mother died, her father lost his mind, all food were robbed by the Yankees and all family members are depending on her. Her hope to come home to lay down her loads has been broken. There are just more loads for her to carry. But she endures it and becomes stronger. She tells herself that her shoulders are strong enough to bear anything then. She has the courage to stand anything, even when she hears the news of her mother’s death. She does not faint though weariness and hunger has made her knees tremble at that time. Moreover, she even can manage to ask the situation of home then and later manage to make plans and give orders. Then the scene of her going out to search foods makes us more feel her courage. Scarlett--- a girl, who has never raised her hand even to pick up her discarded stockings from the floor, walks around for food and picks up cabbages with a faint body. After a long time, she lays weakly on the earth as soft and comfortable as a feather pillow. She is too sick and too weak to move, and no one in the world knows or cares. And she is still too weak to fight off memories and worries. She feels that she has no strength to say “I will think of all this later. Yes, later when I can stand it.” She feels she cannot stand it then. But at last she arouses! Seeing again the black ruins of Twelve Oaks, her head raises high and her potential tenderness has gone out of her face forever. She knows that the old days are gone, never to return. As Scarlett settles the heavy basket across her arm, she has settled her own mind and her own life. She says to herself, “I’m going to live through this and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again.” (Chapter 36, p.761) Her courage can be strongly felt through this. There is no going back and she is going forward!#p#分页标题#e#
When a Yankee enters, her first terrified impulse is to hide in the closet, crawl under the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp, anything to escape him. But then the thought of the Yankee’s eating their meager meal and stealing makes her shake with anger. She must protect her family, their foods and their home. Then, she kills the Yankee with Charles’ pistol. Then, she decides, “it’s over and done with, I won’t think about it any more.” In the back of her mind, whenever she is confronted by an unpleasant and difficult task, the idea lurks, giving her strength: “I have done murder and so I can surely do this.” She changes swiftly to meet this new world for which she is not prepared because of her courage, though she does not think of it consciously.
2.2.2 Do as She Wants to
Everyone has his or her own thoughts which can reflect one’s characters. Scarlett’s courage can also be reflected in her several thoughts.
She never cares how others talk about her. She just does what she wants to do. Though she has misgivings at first, she still finally does as she wants to instead of caring other’s saying.
Sitting at home for a long time after being a widow, she finally goes to dance after a long struggling. “Oh, I don’t care! I don’t care what they say!” “I know I’m crazy but I don’t care. I don’t care a bit what anybody says.” It must be crazy for a widow to dance at that time - and dance with a man in public place! It needs courage to think about it and do it.
When she is managing the mill by herself, she knows Atlanta is talking but she does not care. People at that time cannot accept this. Especially men are always against discovering that a woman has a brain. She thinks, “Let people talk. There wasn’t anything immoral. I have too many other matters to occupy my mind.” When she decides to marry Rhett, many people do not agree, because Rhett has bad reputation then. But she does not care. What they say or do can not hurt her. She does not mind what people say about her. She has the courage to walk her own way!
2.3 Strong Wills
2.3.1 Scarlett’s “Tomorrow” Consciousness
There is an obvious character in Scarlett’s changeable life experience, which is her “Tomorrow” consciousness. When she is baffled, she will comfort herself with “tomorrow”. Indeed, in people’s opinions, tomorrow means hope and happiness. Because no matter how splendid or gloomy yesterday is, it just belongs to the past. And no matter how happy or miserable today is, we have to take it and fight it against. Only tomorrow is the space-time that we can never stride across. “Tomorrow” consciousness runs through the whole story.
From the beginning of the book, Scarlett can not bear Ashley and Melanie’s engagement, she says, “I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” During the war, she suffers a lot of sadness and difficulties, but she does not give up and comforts herself with “tomorrow”. At the end of the story, Rhett decides to leave her, this consciousness develops to the top: Scarlett uses a sentence to finish the whole story which is “I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.” This sentence contains a great amount of Scarlett’s understanding and expectation of life. Finally Scarlett realizes that she only loves an imaginary version of Ashley and that she loves Rhett, but it is too late. Rhett’s love for her has worn out. However, she does not give up her love for Rhett. The Civil War makes her lose her husband and her plantation, and also makes her brave and independent. In experiencing love and war, she grows up from a little girl to a mature woman. Scarlett can adapt to the changes brought about by the war and the reconstruction.#p#分页标题#e#
2.3.2 Scarlett’s Belief in Tara
The hand of Fate and a hand of poker combines to give Gerald the plantation, which he afterwards calls it Tara, and at the same time moves him out of the upland country of north Georgia. Tara is a beautiful place with the long red road that leads down the hill to the river and the red fields with springing green cotton.
Growing up in Tara, Scarlett understands that land and Negroes are all the resources of her big family. As a Southerner, she also hates the war and the Yankees, although she does not like to discuss the war. However, during the war, she volunteers to take care of the wounded in Atlanta. Like many white women, she takes an active and educated part in the movement to separate the South from the North. To protect south means to protect her family and the plantation. After Sherman’s campaign, Atlanta is completely lost from South. Many people desert their lands and families and escape to other places.
Scarlett loves her family and the whole of Tara. Tara is her land and her backbone. She can lose Ashley or Rhett, but she cannot live without Tara. She stays and tries her best to preserve Tara no matter what will it cost. She deludes Frank Kennedy, her sister’s beau, a successful merchant in hardware, furniture, and lumber, and marries him to save Tara---the family’s plantation, her home. She relies on it to practice usury, run sawmill, and illegally employ Negroes. She is abused by the southern royalty to be greedy, selfish, shameless, cruel and cold. It does not matter, because those features are just the qualities of the ascending bourgeoisie. And she follows the improved bourgeoisie. She is an adventure, an upstart and a great heroine who has survived in the war. She is a belle in the turbulent days. Factually, all the people in Tara including the Ashleys are living on Scarlett’s shoulders. Without her cruelty and coldness, how could there be so many virtues in Melanie? Without Scarlett to be an evil, how could Melanie be respected as an angel? Therefore, Scarlett is the real respectable person. She is a heroine in the campaign at the terrible times.
At the end of the novel, Rhett loses confidence in her, and leaves her away. The only thing that can comfort Scarlett is the land---Tara. Tara is her physical and emotional home to perch; Tara gives her life and energy. At this time her father’s words occurs in her mind “Land’s the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.” From the beginning to the end, the land---Tara is the center in Scarlett’s heart, though she once gives up peasantry and runs after commerce during the war. Tara gives her the confidence to live on to win back her soul---Rhett again. This is where she always goes when her problems are too many for her to bear. Tara is her heaven as she finally understands what her father meant---the land is the only constant thing. She does whatever she can to hold on to it, and she is able to have it for comfort. It is the only thing she has left at the end of the story.#p#分页标题#e#
2.4 Independence
2.4.1 Independence of Behavior
The Civil War destroys Scarlett’s world, sweeps her out of her bed of down. And Tara, which is used to be a heaven that gestates her lots of golden dreams, turns to be a silent and stark wasteland. The Negroes run away, the plantation is ruined, her mother died, her father lost his mind, and her two sisters suffered from diseases. Scarlett sees such a sad situation when she returns to Tara from Atlanta.
But she never shrinks back. During this period, Scarlett turns to an independent and capable mistress from a freewheeling and self-partial frail. She shows a talent in building new life and being charge of the menage. Even Ashley as a man can not compare with the accomplishments that Scarlett has received. She has become a real powerful person to face the hard life in this time. She takes care of Melanie and her son and shoulders the whole family’ burden. She leads the rest Negroes and family to rebuild Tara. For living, for saving her Tara, she who has never in her life been out in the sunshine without a hat or veils, picks cotton, milks cows, chops firewood, cultivates land and such rough works. Everyday she has to worry about the food and fight for protecting her cotton fields. She almost loses her life to put out a fire, uses to keep her penates to kill a Yankee who wanted to rob, and also to visit Rhett in prison for 300-dollars land tax. In this time, Scarlett has been, just like she says “not just a woman”, more daring and more talented than a strong man. She realizes that if a person wants to live and live well in the cruel society, the independence and strong belief are indispensable factors.
2.4.2 Independence of Mind
Scarlett’s behaviors come from her inside life-force and strong character, and also depend on her independent mind.
Scarlett is not depression or fall down because of the adverse circumstance and the traditional idea that woman can only be the dependency as man’s. The anneal of blood and fire changes Scarlett’s original minds. She realizes deeply that wide, fertile soil raises her, so she will never pose herself as inherent owner of the land. In this measure, she envisages reality and makes effort to adapt to and the new world, then strive for a room to stand. Compare with Ashley’s depression and her another way that to be a man’s dependency and parasite, the attitude that she tries to control her own faith is a precious, independent personality.
And also, her independence shows the disdain to the ethics of her own class, the deep and clear understands to her life, the sane attitude to the reality. In that changeful age, the old social orders have been destroyed; the new orders have not yet been built. The faiths of those weak tiny individual are driftable and fickle. Scarlett has seen that the departed resplendence had gone with the fall of the south, the former aristocrat’s pride and value can not help her family be rich and comfort. She knows clearly that she only face this new utilitarian world; she can protect herself, her family and her Tara. Under this kind of opinion, money becomes more and more important for her. In order to earn much money, she never scruples the traditional ideas, and even buys a sawmill and runs it by herself. She is not only trafficking with the Yankees but was giving every appearance of really liking it! She disregards people’s censure to employ the criminals for making more profits. Her behavior is a kind of opposite regular. But she walks her own way at ease completely, not only because of life pressure. It indicates that from her behaviors to minds, she has advanced a pace to the opposite side of her own class. She uses her extraordinary courage in face of insults, threat and strikes from the conservative force. She accommodates the age and the society with her astuteness and determination. #p#分页标题#e#
2.5 Contradictory Disposition
2.5.1 The Influence from Scarlett’s Parents
Scarlett’s father, Gerald O’Hara is a bold and unconstrained Irish. He decamps to America, and depends on his shrewd Irish brain to set up a large establishment. And Scarlett’s mother, Ellen O’Hara is an elegant French aristocrat. Because of a sad bygone, she married with Gerald O’Hara. So Scarlett mixes two opposite blood: one is a kind of tender and genteel blue blood, while the other is a kind of enthusiastic and manful Irish blood, which forms her mixed-blood temperament.
At the beginning of the book, we have seen that Scarlett’s forthright Irish blood run upon her exterior grace and puerility.
But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own. (Chapter 1, p. 3)
She yearns towards lighthearted life, she wants to be the wind in the country, going everywhere she wants to. She is so exclusive that she does anything she wants. Her love to Ashley just incarnates thoroughly this kind of personality. From her behaviors, we find nothing that a gentlewoman should have; we just feel a fiery-hot girl’s heart. But Ashley does not accept her love, she suffers unprecedented failure. After her pride is hit, she slaps Ashley and hurls bowl,
her rage broke, the same rage that drove Gerald to murder and other Irish ancestors to misdeeds that cost them their necks. There was nothing in her now of the well- bred Robillards who could bear with white silence anything the world might cast.” We now see a discomfited utterly girl did not get what she thirsted for. (Chapter 5, p.73)
Scarlett also learns generosity and care to Negroes from her father. After her father dies, Scarlett gives her father’s watch to a valet. When she runs the sawmill, a Negro slave goes to her for shelter, the first thought comes to her mind is to protect him. From these, we can see Scarlett’s father influenced her a lot. At the same time, she inherits her father’s adamancy. In such a changeable troubled times, Scarlett does not yearn for the splendid and exquisite life after a series of hurt and beats, and also takes the whole family’s living sturdily. She gets the black fortitude on red Tara. Just like her father says, “Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for this the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! This the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.” The land of Tara is Scarlett’s hope. This strong power and her inherent rebelliousness from her Irish blood drive Scarlett to persist her own way, never care about people’s opinions. For reforming the family property, Scarlett takes love and marriage as counters. In her three marriages, no one proceeds from true love. She does not mind the bondage of moral. She deals with Yankees who destroyed her hometown, even does not care a rap whether her husband Frank feels ashamed. Scarlett is just like a tumbler that will never be beaten down, no matter where the difficulties come from; she will never give in.#p#分页标题#e#
We can find that Scarlett’s idiographic Irish personality is in the highest flight from her psychological growing process and character development. But she is also Ellen’s daughter. Ellen’s splendor which is as saintly as the Virgin Mary influenced her deeply. Scarlett’s mother Ellen is not a generally able and virtuous mother. Actually, she is a whole ethics that Scarlett faces. When Scarlett is with her mother, who can be called woman model, her attitude is very contrary. On the one hand, she can not bear her mother’s reproachful eyes, so she always shows her best expression and gentlewomanly behavior. When she does something indecorous or wrong, she will think of her mother’s edification and her disappointed look, and then feels guilty. In Scarlett’s eyes, all women are natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey—man. But her mother is the exception. To her, Ellen represents the utter security that only Heaven or a mother can give. No one can compare with her mother. She knows that her mother is the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom—a great lady. She wants very much to be like her mother. On the other hand, there is such conflict as frequently rages in Scarlett’s bosom where the blood of a soft-voiced, overbred coast aristocrat mingled with the shrewd, earthy blood of an Irish peasant. She wants to respect and adore her mother like an idol and to rumple her hair and tease her too. Under the influence of these complexities, she takes shape of her unique contradictory disposition.
2.5.2 In Pursuit of Material and Spirit
Scarlett wants two things in her whole life: Ashley and to be rich enough. Since she goes upon her life stage, she always pursues money and fortune. She is a pure and simple materialism, and at the same time she is also an excellent successful woman. The Civil War like a tornado sweeps her from a comfortable life to a miserable situation. She is aware of that the times are rude and hard. She is not going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She is going to rush into life and wrest it. When she takes money as the most important thing in the world, she devotes into the economic life without hesitation. She buys the sawmill and runs the store at the same time. She spurns totally the traditional idea that women should be depend on men, and takes risk to get into men’s world to compete with them. Even she depends on her carefulness, brave and ambition to beat those competitors.
Generally, she should satisfy with her fortune. However, Scarlett is hagridden by nightmare.
Suddenly she was running, running through the mist like a mad thing, crying and screaming, throwing out her arms to clutch only empty air and wet mist. Where was the haven? It eluded her but it was there, hidden, somewhere. If she could only reach it! If she could only reach it she would be safe! (Chapter 28, p.570)
Obviously, the “haven” in Scarlett’s dream is a symbol, symbolizing the soul home she looked for in her subconsciousness. She is satisfied with the material, while her spirit is losing. To Scarlett, the spirit pursuit is unconscious and indistinct. She may know things, but she does not know the thoughts of herself. She wants to get the real things in her life, but the things what she needs in her heart and mind, she does not know. She just thinks blindly that: “If I’d had money and security and you (Ashley), that would have been where I wanted to get……” Ashley is Scarlett’s dream; she devotes her blind and pure love completely, even though she never gets him. This love is not about money or intentions. The love is duteous, clinging, and self- sacrificial. This kind of love is so inconceivable for Scarlett such a selfish and utilitarian person. She can do anything for Ashley. When Ashley will go back to battle, she takes risk of looking after pregnant Melanie because of her promise to Ashley. The love incarnates human spiritual desire, namely truth, good and beauty. Actually, just this love supports Scarlett to get over many dark and hard times. Until Melanie dies, she realizes that Ashley is just a pilgarlic, a recreant. Her love to Ashley is a beautiful imagination. She put a beautiful coat on her love. At the same time, she feels how much she loves and needs Melanie who is considered as rival by her. Melanie is her sword, her shield, her comfort and her power headspring. But now, she losses Melanie’s support. She feels lost and guilty. In the turn of a hand, Scarlett’s spirit pursuit suffers double loses. She falls the mist again like her nightmare. She is driven by a nameless dread, running without aim. She wants urgently to find a haven through the mist. Suddenly, it appears the bright light which can blow the mist away. “Home! That was where she wanted to go. That was where she was running. Home to Rhett!” Now she knows the haven she has sought in dreams, the place of warm safety which has always been hidden from her in the mist. It is not Ashley, it is Rhett. But it’s too late. Rhett has decided to leave her.#p#分页标题#e#
The conflict of two opposite pursuits on Scarlett is the conflict between soul and flesh in human, and also the conflict between old and new culture, two kinds of value. In the bottom of Scarlett’s heart, though she is rebellious, the traditional culture leavens her profound still. So as to the scale of her heart often lean unconsciously to the tradition side. So she always looks down on Rhett who is the same with her, and always adores Ashley and Melanie who are opposite with her, and show the traditional value and culture.
III. A Complicated and Spellbinding Woman
Gone with the Wind actually is a book that describes the effect of war to peoples’ soul. It is published in 1930s when America was in Great Depression. In that period, American economy was slow, especially South of America still carried out the plantation economy. Due to this kind of politics, economy, and culture, people’s thoughts at that time were still in an unenlightened state. The traditional ideas, value were ineradicable. So the representative of excellent woman should be like Melanie in Gone with the Wind: gentle and cultivated, loyal and kind, virtuous and generous. But Scarlett breaks the fetter of old system and old ideas in thought. She overcomes many difficulties, crosses over handicaps, fights against the density and gains success. It’s worth learning from her spirit which just shows the qualities that women in new times should have. Women in new times need to be dogged, independent and brave. Scarlett has taken a good example for us. This novel is very popular with many readers since it is published. Her story accommodates the historical tide, and close to readers’ mind. People’s wish to get the inspirer and psychological consonance from literature is satisfied with Scarlett’s image in some measure.
Scarlett is rebel and brave, willful and firm, crafty and sympathetic. She has commonness and particularity. She is a complicated and spellbinding woman. Maybe not everyone likes her, but she must impress each one after reading this book. Scarlett deserves the praise of artistic representation.
Bibliography
[1] Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. 浙江文艺出版社, 1991.
[2] Sun Yu. The Analysis of Scarlett's Realistic Characteristic. Journal of Harbin University, Vol.24, No.10, 2003. 006.
[3] Xie Jingzhi. On the Charm of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. Journal of Henan University, Vol. 45, No.2, 2005.
[4] Zhang Zhijie. A Survey of Scarlett’s Contradictory Disposition. Journal of Tonghua Teacher’s College, Vol.27, No.1, 2.
[5] 陈良廷译.《飘》. 上海: 上海译文出版社. 1997.
[6] 邓华. 论郝思嘉的性格特征. 《邵阳学院学报》,2003年第6期. 2003.
[7] 《飘》的背景和人物性格分析.#p#分页标题#e#
Gone with the Wind, written by American woman writer Margaret Mitchell, was first published in 1936, for which she was awarded the world-famous Pulitzer Prize. The success of the masterpiece lies in the descriptions of the protagonist with vivid character. Set in the backdrop of the American Civil War in the eighteen century, Gone with the Wind tells the story of the people’s fight for survival during the War and the Reconstruction Period through sheerly shrewd wits and cunning business methods. Through Scarlett’s fights during the war and the six years of Reconstruction that followed, we can observe Scarlett's controversial character against external and internal conflicts, her losses, gains, and hopes.
When it comes to Scarlett, people often have different opinions. Someone states that people think she has certain kinds of shortcomings, which are considerably wicked. While others stress that although she has undeniable defects, she also has many good traits in character, which deserve people to learn from. In this essay, I will try to prove that Scarlett is a brave and independent woman who has diversified types of character. She could be brave, intelligent, strong-willed, selfish, cruel and self-assurance at the same time. All of these contrary personalities make her be different from other women in her age, even be different from the women in our age. The present thesis attempts to analyze Scarlett’s character to reveal her charm and the significances of this role.
II. An Analysis of Scarlett’s Character
2.1 Rebelliousness
2.1.1 Rebelliousness of Behavior
Scarlett is born in a planter’s family in southern America in civil war times. In her growing environment, she has a gentle but capable mother, an outside stern but inside honest father, a Mammy① loving her so much but treating her so strict, and two sisters having characters totally different from her. Normally, Scarlett should have been a lady with elegant temperament and gentle behaviors like other Misses, but in fact, she is contrary to other’s expectation. Actually, Scarlett is a female with a rebel character.
Scarlett’s rebelliousness firstly reflects that she revolts the whole etiquettes and custom. She has shown her differences since she was young. Among the three girls, Scarlett is the best loved by Mammy, but she is also a headache to her. Her playmates are not her demure sisters or some well brought-up girls but the negro children on the plantation and the boys of the neighborhood, and she can climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them.
Because of this, Scarlett is often taught by her mother and Mammy. By their concerted efforts, she finally learns to be a lady, but as the book says: “but she learned only the outward signs of gentility. The inner grace from which these signs should spring she never learned, nor did she see any reason for learning it.” (Chapter 3, p.71) Learning these proprieties, she is just to make herself well received by others. In fact, in her heart of hearts, she never likes these behaviors.#p#分页标题#e#
I’m tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I’m tired of acting like I don’t eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it…… (Chapter 5, p.94)
From those behaviors we can easily know that Scarlett’s inside is full of rebelling and resisting.
2.1.2 Rebelliousness of Thought
Scarlett’s rebelling seems much stronger in her thought of marriage. In her father’s opinion, the best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. About his daughter’s marriages, he thinks if his daughter: “marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together.” (Chapter 2, p.40) Of course, he considers the things just from the realistic profit, and he ignores his daughter’s real feelings. Though objectively to say, young Scarlett’s emotion is quite childish, and it is right to Gerald to stop her. However, from Scarlett, she thinks that her father stands for the outdated conventional ideas, and these forbid her to pursue love. Undoubtedly, she detests the etiquettes which bind up her and this produces a great impact on her shaking off her former life style and finding new life.
When Scarlett leaves her parents and has her own family, she still cannot keep her heart calmly. The love and life style which she yearns for is never giving up calling her.
Scarlett’s first husband Charles Hamilton soon loses his life in the war; therefore, Scarlett becomes a widow. Since there is no love as the base supporting their marriage, Scarlett, who even feels no love for her child, ignores the fetters of being a widow. In southern people’s mind: “Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled, it must be a sad, tragic smile.” (Chapter 7, p.161) However, Scarlett thinks that: “So widow might as well be dead.” (Chapter 7, p.161) Does she will spend her life with the title of Widow? Of course not, because she is Scarlett, she does not submit to this situation, and she will try her best to change it. In the second year she as a widow, in a bazaar party, she accepts Rhett’s invitation and dances with him. Meanwhile, she begins her new life. From now on, she does many things to make people unbelievable: in order to keep the Tara alive, she robs her sister’s love, and married with a person whom she does not love; in order to earn more money, she ignores the rules and manages a sawmill…… However, she does not care other people’s views, and she just wants to live more comfortable, and never poor and hungry.#p#分页标题#e#
2.2 Courage
2.2.1 Her experience
In this novel, Scarlett’s courage is mainly reflected on the road of escaping back to Tara and after coming back to Tara facing such bad situation. The author gave detailed description of Scarlett struggling to accept all the hard facts and to overcome those hardships, in which Scarlett’s courage is presented totally, vividly and incisively.
Rhett helps Scarlett escape out of flames of war. And then he leaves her after he is sure that Scarlett is safe, because his patriotism breaks out and he will go to join the army. It is so good to have a man like Rhett beside her, because he is safe and comfortable. It seems that he stands between her and unnamable terrors. But he has gone, leaving her alone in a night as black as blindness with the Yankee army between her and her home. Any other girls who are not as strong as her couldn’t endure this shock in such bad situation and may give up and wait death. While Scarlett does not give up and overcomes those unimaginable troubles —— the nightmare journey after Rhett goes away: the endless night, the black road full of ruts and boulders along which they jolts the deep gullies on either side into which the wagon slips, the unwilling horse, unknown footsteps and so on. But she overcomes them! That terrible night passes finally!
If we say Scarlett has the courage on the road back to Tara because of her belief towards home－she thinks home is safe and she can lay down her burdens there, the situation she faces after coming back home gives a big shock to her, or to her courage. She originally thinks that once she goes into their house, she can reach the kind arms of Tara and Ellen, see her mother’s kind, tender face, feel once more the soft capable hands that drives out fear, clutch mother’s skirts and bury her face in them and lay down her burdens, far too heavy for her young shoulders－the dying woman, the fading baby, her own hungry little boy, the frighten negro, all looking to her for strength, for guidance. But when she arrives at home, the facts she faces are that her mother died, her father lost his mind, all food were robbed by the Yankees and all family members are depending on her. Her hope to come home to lay down her loads has been broken. There are just more loads for her to carry. But she endures it and becomes stronger. She tells herself that her shoulders are strong enough to bear anything then. She has the courage to stand anything, even when she hears the news of her mother’s death. She does not faint though weariness and hunger has made her knees tremble at that time. Moreover, she even can manage to ask the situation of home then and later manage to make plans and give orders. Then the scene of her going out to search foods makes us more feel her courage. Scarlett--- a girl, who has never raised her hand even to pick up her discarded stockings from the floor, walks around for food and picks up cabbages with a faint body. After a long time, she lays weakly on the earth as soft and comfortable as a feather pillow. She is too sick and too weak to move, and no one in the world knows or cares. And she is still too weak to fight off memories and worries. She feels that she has no strength to say “I will think of all this later. Yes, later when I can stand it.” She feels she cannot stand it then. But at last she arouses! Seeing again the black ruins of Twelve Oaks, her head raises high and her potential tenderness has gone out of her face forever. She knows that the old days are gone, never to return. As Scarlett settles the heavy basket across her arm, she has settled her own mind and her own life. She says to herself, “I’m going to live through this and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again.” (Chapter 36, p.761) Her courage can be strongly felt through this. There is no going back and she is going forward!#p#分页标题#e#
When a Yankee enters, her first terrified impulse is to hide in the closet, crawl under the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp, anything to escape him. But then the thought of the Yankee’s eating their meager meal and stealing makes her shake with anger. She must protect her family, their foods and their home. Then, she kills the Yankee with Charles’ pistol. Then, she decides, “it’s over and done with, I won’t think about it any more.” In the back of her mind, whenever she is confronted by an unpleasant and difficult task, the idea lurks, giving her strength: “I have done murder and so I can surely do this.” She changes swiftly to meet this new world for which she is not prepared because of her courage, though she does not think of it consciously.
2.2.2 Do as She Wants to
Everyone has his or her own thoughts which can reflect one’s characters. Scarlett’s courage can also be reflected in her several thoughts.
She never cares how others talk about her. She just does what she wants to do. Though she has misgivings at first, she still finally does as she wants to instead of caring other’s saying.
Sitting at home for a long time after being a widow, she finally goes to dance after a long struggling. “Oh, I don’t care! I don’t care what they say!” “I know I’m crazy but I don’t care. I don’t care a bit what anybody says.” It must be crazy for a widow to dance at that time - and dance with a man in public place! It needs courage to think about it and do it.
When she is managing the mill by herself, she knows Atlanta is talking but she does not care. People at that time cannot accept this. Especially men are always against discovering that a woman has a brain. She thinks, “Let people talk. There wasn’t anything immoral. I have too many other matters to occupy my mind.” When she decides to marry Rhett, many people do not agree, because Rhett has bad reputation then. But she does not care. What they say or do can not hurt her. She does not mind what people say about her. She has the courage to walk her own way!
2.3 Strong Wills
2.3.1 Scarlett’s “Tomorrow” Consciousness
There is an obvious character in Scarlett’s changeable life experience, which is her “Tomorrow” consciousness. When she is baffled, she will comfort herself with “tomorrow”. Indeed, in people’s opinions, tomorrow means hope and happiness. Because no matter how splendid or gloomy yesterday is, it just belongs to the past. And no matter how happy or miserable today is, we have to take it and fight it against. Only tomorrow is the space-time that we can never stride across. “Tomorrow” consciousness runs through the whole story.
From the beginning of the book, Scarlett can not bear Ashley and Melanie’s engagement, she says, “I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” During the war, she suffers a lot of sadness and difficulties, but she does not give up and comforts herself with “tomorrow”. At the end of the story, Rhett decides to leave her, this consciousness develops to the top: Scarlett uses a sentence to finish the whole story which is “I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.” This sentence contains a great amount of Scarlett’s understanding and expectation of life. Finally Scarlett realizes that she only loves an imaginary version of Ashley and that she loves Rhett, but it is too late. Rhett’s love for her has worn out. However, she does not give up her love for Rhett. The Civil War makes her lose her husband and her plantation, and also makes her brave and independent. In experiencing love and war, she grows up from a little girl to a mature woman. Scarlett can adapt to the changes brought about by the war and the reconstruction.#p#分页标题#e#
2.3.2 Scarlett’s Belief in Tara
The hand of Fate and a hand of poker combines to give Gerald the plantation, which he afterwards calls it Tara, and at the same time moves him out of the upland country of north Georgia. Tara is a beautiful place with the long red road that leads down the hill to the river and the red fields with springing green cotton.
Growing up in Tara, Scarlett understands that land and Negroes are all the resources of her big family. As a Southerner, she also hates the war and the Yankees, although she does not like to discuss the war. However, during the war, she volunteers to take care of the wounded in Atlanta. Like many white women, she takes an active and educated part in the movement to separate the South from the North. To protect south means to protect her family and the plantation. After Sherman’s campaign, Atlanta is completely lost from South. Many people desert their lands and families and escape to other places.
Scarlett loves her family and the whole of Tara. Tara is her land and her backbone. She can lose Ashley or Rhett, but she cannot live without Tara. She stays and tries her best to preserve Tara no matter what will it cost. She deludes Frank Kennedy, her sister’s beau, a successful merchant in hardware, furniture, and lumber, and marries him to save Tara---the family’s plantation, her home. She relies on it to practice usury, run sawmill, and illegally employ Negroes. She is abused by the southern royalty to be greedy, selfish, shameless, cruel and cold. It does not matter, because those features are just the qualities of the ascending bourgeoisie. And she follows the improved bourgeoisie. She is an adventure, an upstart and a great heroine who has survived in the war. She is a belle in the turbulent days. Factually, all the people in Tara including the Ashleys are living on Scarlett’s shoulders. Without her cruelty and coldness, how could there be so many virtues in Melanie? Without Scarlett to be an evil, how could Melanie be respected as an angel? Therefore, Scarlett is the real respectable person. She is a heroine in the campaign at the terrible times.
At the end of the novel, Rhett loses confidence in her, and leaves her away. The only thing that can comfort Scarlett is the land---Tara. Tara is her physical and emotional home to perch; Tara gives her life and energy. At this time her father’s words occurs in her mind “Land’s the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.” From the beginning to the end, the land---Tara is the center in Scarlett’s heart, though she once gives up peasantry and runs after commerce during the war. Tara gives her the confidence to live on to win back her soul---Rhett again. This is where she always goes when her problems are too many for her to bear. Tara is her heaven as she finally understands what her father meant---the land is the only constant thing. She does whatever she can to hold on to it, and she is able to have it for comfort. It is the only thing she has left at the end of the story.#p#分页标题#e#
2.4 Independence
2.4.1 Independence of Behavior
The Civil War destroys Scarlett’s world, sweeps her out of her bed of down. And Tara, which is used to be a heaven that gestates her lots of golden dreams, turns to be a silent and stark wasteland. The Negroes run away, the plantation is ruined, her mother died, her father lost his mind, and her two sisters suffered from diseases. Scarlett sees such a sad situation when she returns to Tara from Atlanta.
But she never shrinks back. During this period, Scarlett turns to an independent and capable mistress from a freewheeling and self-partial frail. She shows a talent in building new life and being charge of the menage. Even Ashley as a man can not compare with the accomplishments that Scarlett has received. She has become a real powerful person to face the hard life in this time. She takes care of Melanie and her son and shoulders the whole family’ burden. She leads the rest Negroes and family to rebuild Tara. For living, for saving her Tara, she who has never in her life been out in the sunshine without a hat or veils, picks cotton, milks cows, chops firewood, cultivates land and such rough works. Everyday she has to worry about the food and fight for protecting her cotton fields. She almost loses her life to put out a fire, uses to keep her penates to kill a Yankee who wanted to rob, and also to visit Rhett in prison for 300-dollars land tax. In this time, Scarlett has been, just like she says “not just a woman”, more daring and more talented than a strong man. She realizes that if a person wants to live and live well in the cruel society, the independence and strong belief are indispensable factors.
2.4.2 Independence of Mind
Scarlett’s behaviors come from her inside life-force and strong character, and also depend on her independent mind.
Scarlett is not depression or fall down because of the adverse circumstance and the traditional idea that woman can only be the dependency as man’s. The anneal of blood and fire changes Scarlett’s original minds. She realizes deeply that wide, fertile soil raises her, so she will never pose herself as inherent owner of the land. In this measure, she envisages reality and makes effort to adapt to and the new world, then strive for a room to stand. Compare with Ashley’s depression and her another way that to be a man’s dependency and parasite, the attitude that she tries to control her own faith is a precious, independent personality.
And also, her independence shows the disdain to the ethics of her own class, the deep and clear understands to her life, the sane attitude to the reality. In that changeful age, the old social orders have been destroyed; the new orders have not yet been built. The faiths of those weak tiny individual are driftable and fickle. Scarlett has seen that the departed resplendence had gone with the fall of the south, the former aristocrat’s pride and value can not help her family be rich and comfort. She knows clearly that she only face this new utilitarian world; she can protect herself, her family and her Tara. Under this kind of opinion, money becomes more and more important for her. In order to earn much money, she never scruples the traditional ideas, and even buys a sawmill and runs it by herself. She is not only trafficking with the Yankees but was giving every appearance of really liking it! She disregards people’s censure to employ the criminals for making more profits. Her behavior is a kind of opposite regular. But she walks her own way at ease completely, not only because of life pressure. It indicates that from her behaviors to minds, she has advanced a pace to the opposite side of her own class. She uses her extraordinary courage in face of insults, threat and strikes from the conservative force. She accommodates the age and the society with her astuteness and determination. #p#分页标题#e#
2.5 Contradictory Disposition
2.5.1 The Influence from Scarlett’s Parents
Scarlett’s father, Gerald O’Hara is a bold and unconstrained Irish. He decamps to America, and depends on his shrewd Irish brain to set up a large establishment. And Scarlett’s mother, Ellen O’Hara is an elegant French aristocrat. Because of a sad bygone, she married with Gerald O’Hara. So Scarlett mixes two opposite blood: one is a kind of tender and genteel blue blood, while the other is a kind of enthusiastic and manful Irish blood, which forms her mixed-blood temperament.
At the beginning of the book, we have seen that Scarlett’s forthright Irish blood run upon her exterior grace and puerility.
But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own. (Chapter 1, p. 3)
She yearns towards lighthearted life, she wants to be the wind in the country, going everywhere she wants to. She is so exclusive that she does anything she wants. Her love to Ashley just incarnates thoroughly this kind of personality. From her behaviors, we find nothing that a gentlewoman should have; we just feel a fiery-hot girl’s heart. But Ashley does not accept her love, she suffers unprecedented failure. After her pride is hit, she slaps Ashley and hurls bowl,
her rage broke, the same rage that drove Gerald to murder and other Irish ancestors to misdeeds that cost them their necks. There was nothing in her now of the well- bred Robillards who could bear with white silence anything the world might cast.” We now see a discomfited utterly girl did not get what she thirsted for. (Chapter 5, p.73)
Scarlett also learns generosity and care to Negroes from her father. After her father dies, Scarlett gives her father’s watch to a valet. When she runs the sawmill, a Negro slave goes to her for shelter, the first thought comes to her mind is to protect him. From these, we can see Scarlett’s father influenced her a lot. At the same time, she inherits her father’s adamancy. In such a changeable troubled times, Scarlett does not yearn for the splendid and exquisite life after a series of hurt and beats, and also takes the whole family’s living sturdily. She gets the black fortitude on red Tara. Just like her father says, “Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for this the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! This the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.” The land of Tara is Scarlett’s hope. This strong power and her inherent rebelliousness from her Irish blood drive Scarlett to persist her own way, never care about people’s opinions. For reforming the family property, Scarlett takes love and marriage as counters. In her three marriages, no one proceeds from true love. She does not mind the bondage of moral. She deals with Yankees who destroyed her hometown, even does not care a rap whether her husband Frank feels ashamed. Scarlett is just like a tumbler that will never be beaten down, no matter where the difficulties come from; she will never give in.#p#分页标题#e#
We can find that Scarlett’s idiographic Irish personality is in the highest flight from her psychological growing process and character development. But she is also Ellen’s daughter. Ellen’s splendor which is as saintly as the Virgin Mary influenced her deeply. Scarlett’s mother Ellen is not a generally able and virtuous mother. Actually, she is a whole ethics that Scarlett faces. When Scarlett is with her mother, who can be called woman model, her attitude is very contrary. On the one hand, she can not bear her mother’s reproachful eyes, so she always shows her best expression and gentlewomanly behavior. When she does something indecorous or wrong, she will think of her mother’s edification and her disappointed look, and then feels guilty. In Scarlett’s eyes, all women are natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey—man. But her mother is the exception. To her, Ellen represents the utter security that only Heaven or a mother can give. No one can compare with her mother. She knows that her mother is the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom—a great lady. She wants very much to be like her mother. On the other hand, there is such conflict as frequently rages in Scarlett’s bosom where the blood of a soft-voiced, overbred coast aristocrat mingled with the shrewd, earthy blood of an Irish peasant. She wants to respect and adore her mother like an idol and to rumple her hair and tease her too. Under the influence of these complexities, she takes shape of her unique contradictory disposition.
2.5.2 In Pursuit of Material and Spirit
Scarlett wants two things in her whole life: Ashley and to be rich enough. Since she goes upon her life stage, she always pursues money and fortune. She is a pure and simple materialism, and at the same time she is also an excellent successful woman. The Civil War like a tornado sweeps her from a comfortable life to a miserable situation. She is aware of that the times are rude and hard. She is not going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She is going to rush into life and wrest it. When she takes money as the most important thing in the world, she devotes into the economic life without hesitation. She buys the sawmill and runs the store at the same time. She spurns totally the traditional idea that women should be depend on men, and takes risk to get into men’s world to compete with them. Even she depends on her carefulness, brave and ambition to beat those competitors.
Generally, she should satisfy with her fortune. However, Scarlett is hagridden by nightmare.
Suddenly she was running, running through the mist like a mad thing, crying and screaming, throwing out her arms to clutch only empty air and wet mist. Where was the haven? It eluded her but it was there, hidden, somewhere. If she could only reach it! If she could only reach it she would be safe! (Chapter 28, p.570)
Obviously, the “haven” in Scarlett’s dream is a symbol, symbolizing the soul home she looked for in her subconsciousness. She is satisfied with the material, while her spirit is losing. To Scarlett, the spirit pursuit is unconscious and indistinct. She may know things, but she does not know the thoughts of herself. She wants to get the real things in her life, but the things what she needs in her heart and mind, she does not know. She just thinks blindly that: “If I’d had money and security and you (Ashley), that would have been where I wanted to get……” Ashley is Scarlett’s dream; she devotes her blind and pure love completely, even though she never gets him. This love is not about money or intentions. The love is duteous, clinging, and self- sacrificial. This kind of love is so inconceivable for Scarlett such a selfish and utilitarian person. She can do anything for Ashley. When Ashley will go back to battle, she takes risk of looking after pregnant Melanie because of her promise to Ashley. The love incarnates human spiritual desire, namely truth, good and beauty. Actually, just this love supports Scarlett to get over many dark and hard times. Until Melanie dies, she realizes that Ashley is just a pilgarlic, a recreant. Her love to Ashley is a beautiful imagination. She put a beautiful coat on her love. At the same time, she feels how much she loves and needs Melanie who is considered as rival by her. Melanie is her sword, her shield, her comfort and her power headspring. But now, she losses Melanie’s support. She feels lost and guilty. In the turn of a hand, Scarlett’s spirit pursuit suffers double loses. She falls the mist again like her nightmare. She is driven by a nameless dread, running without aim. She wants urgently to find a haven through the mist. Suddenly, it appears the bright light which can blow the mist away. “Home! That was where she wanted to go. That was where she was running. Home to Rhett!” Now she knows the haven she has sought in dreams, the place of warm safety which has always been hidden from her in the mist. It is not Ashley, it is Rhett. But it’s too late. Rhett has decided to leave her.#p#分页标题#e#
The conflict of two opposite pursuits on Scarlett is the conflict between soul and flesh in human, and also the conflict between old and new culture, two kinds of value. In the bottom of Scarlett’s heart, though she is rebellious, the traditional culture leavens her profound still. So as to the scale of her heart often lean unconsciously to the tradition side. So she always looks down on Rhett who is the same with her, and always adores Ashley and Melanie who are opposite with her, and show the traditional value and culture.
III. A Complicated and Spellbinding Woman
Gone with the Wind actually is a book that describes the effect of war to peoples’ soul. It is published in 1930s when America was in Great Depression. In that period, American economy was slow, especially South of America still carried out the plantation economy. Due to this kind of politics, economy, and culture, people’s thoughts at that time were still in an unenlightened state. The traditional ideas, value were ineradicable. So the representative of excellent woman should be like Melanie in Gone with the Wind: gentle and cultivated, loyal and kind, virtuous and generous. But Scarlett breaks the fetter of old system and old ideas in thought. She overcomes many difficulties, crosses over handicaps, fights against the density and gains success. It’s worth learning from her spirit which just shows the qualities that women in new times should have. Women in new times need to be dogged, independent and brave. Scarlett has taken a good example for us. This novel is very popular with many readers since it is published. Her story accommodates the historical tide, and close to readers’ mind. People’s wish to get the inspirer and psychological consonance from literature is satisfied with Scarlett’s image in some measure.
Scarlett is rebel and brave, willful and firm, crafty and sympathetic. She has commonness and particularity. She is a complicated and spellbinding woman. Maybe not everyone likes her, but she must impress each one after reading this book. Scarlett deserves the praise of artistic representation.
Bibliography
[1] Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. 浙江文艺出版社, 1991.
[2] Sun Yu. The Analysis of Scarlett's Realistic Characteristic. Journal of Harbin University, Vol.24, No.10, 2003. 006.
[3] Xie Jingzhi. On the Charm of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. Journal of Henan University, Vol. 45, No.2, 2005.
[4] Zhang Zhijie. A Survey of Scarlett’s Contradictory Disposition. Journal of Tonghua Teacher’s College, Vol.27, No.1, 2.
[5] 陈良廷译.《飘》. 上海: 上海译文出版社. 1997.
[6] 邓华. 论郝思嘉的性格特征. 《邵阳学院学报》,2003年第6期. 2003.
[7] 《飘》的背景和人物性格分析.#p#分页标题#e#
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