Scarlett in Gone with the Wind：An Ecofeminist Perspective

生态女权主义视角下对《飘》女主人公的研究

1. Introduction of the novel and the author

This paper is intended to introduce Scarlett in Gone with the Wind in ecofeminist perspective. So far much research has done on the feminism of novels. But little has been done on the relationship between Ecofeminism. This study is aimed at making a profound research of Scarlett in ecofeminist perspective.

Ecofeminism is a term that links feminism with ecology. Its advocates say that paternalistic/capitalistic society has led to a harmful split between nature and culture. Early ecofeminists propagated that the split can only be healed by the feminine instinct for nurture and holistic knowledge of nature's processes. Modern ecofeminism, or feminist ecocriticism, eschews such essentialism and instead focuses more on intersectional questions, such as how the nature-culture split enables the oppression of female and nonhuman bodies.

Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following the destructive Sherman's March to the Sea. This historical novel features a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson.

Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in the year it was published and in 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.

Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 1900. Her father was a lawyer and the president of the Atlanta Historical Society. Her mother was a suffragette who advocated women#8217;s rights to vote and strove for the equality of gender. Mitchell#8217;s life and work were deeply influenced by her family. She had a keen sense of Atlanta during the Civil War because many people who lived through that war often told her. Mitchell attended Smith College, a women#8217;s college in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1919, she returned to Atlanta and began to live a life considered wild by the standards in 1920.

She is renowned for her masterpiece--Gone with the Wind and is regarded as the "Southern plantation legendary encyclopedia" by American literature. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her life time. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, Gone with the Wind is a literary classic and one of the best-sellers among many countries. Since first published in 1936, it has been translated into 29 versions with total sales of a good 30 million. The film adaptation of "Gone with the Wind" held its premiere in Atlanta on December 15, 1939, which caused a sensation in Hollywood, and quickly gone viral.