文 献 综 述 A Tentative Analysis of the Feminism in Gone with the Wind 《飘》中女性主义思想之浅析 1.Introduction 1.1 Research background In June 1936, a blockbuster of a book was published; it gave the world a sense of the Old South, an unforgettable heroine and (in the movie version) the phrase "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Margaret Mitchell#8217;s Gone with the Wind has long been termed an ”epic” of the American South. Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 #8211; August 16, 1949) was an American author and journalist. One novel by Mitchell was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel, Gone with the Wind, for which she won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. Margaret Mitchell, a native of Atlanta. Mitchell briefly attended college to study nursing and went by the nickname of Peggy. After a year of college she returned home to live her life as a flaunty debutante. Mitchell was married twice; it was during her first marriage that she worked for the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine using the byline name of Peggy Mitchell. In 1926 out of sheer boredom from a physical injury that Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind. After a decade of writing the book was finally published as a great success for Mitchell and the Southern United States. When Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind she wrote it as a tribute to her Southern roots (PBS Masters). Her novel became a vehicle for the genre of the plantation romance, which became synonymous with the identity of the South. Mitchell said in a 1936 radio interview, ”The sorrow and hardships and poverty of the Civil War changed Scarlett O#8217;Hara from a spoiled and selfish but otherwise normal Southern girl into a hardened adventuress.” (American Masters, PBS). However, at the time her novel was published in the 1930#8217;s society. Gone with the Wind is a novel which 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 Sherman's destructive "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 1936 and 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. Written from the perspective of the slaveholder, Gone with the Wind is Southern plantation fiction. Its portrayal of slavery and African Americans has been considered controversial, especially by succeeding generations, as well as its use of a racial epithet and ethnic slurs common to the period. However, the novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture. 1.2 Need for the study As for the need of study, firstly, as a masterpiece of Mitchell#8217;s, Gone With the Wind can make readers experience Civil War age and feel the author#8217;s criticism of the society in the United Stated during the 1930s. And Scarlett O#8217;Hara relatively close to real life. In today's society there are many women in the life and Scarlett very close, can resonate. Thus, this thesis is to analyze the feminism in Gone with the Wind, which can provide scholars with more information about feminism and Gone with the Wind. May it can help people know that freedom and independence are of great significance for females, which can help them attain genuine happiness. 2.Feminism Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to ensure access to legal abortions and social integration, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.Changes in dress and acceptable physical activity have often been part of feminist movements. Feminist campaigns are generally considered to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women's rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender neutrality in English, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women's rights, some feminists, including bell hooks, argue for the inclusion of men's liberation within its aims because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender. Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years and represent different viewpoints and aims. Some forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle class, and college-educated perspectives. This criticism led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of feminism, including black feminism and intersectional feminism. Feminism started with the idea that human rights should be given to women. This idea was put forward by some philosophers in the 18th and 19th centuries such as Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. Later feminists in the early 20th century also said that women should be allowed to vote in a democracy. Many women felt very strongly that they should be allowed to vote and there were many protests. These women were called Suffragettes. This is because they were fighting for Universal suffrage which means everybody is able to vote. The Suffragettes staged many protests for their rights. Some women even committed suicide to show how wrong it was that they could not take part in politics. After women received the vote, feminism worked to make all of society more equal for women. Not all female politicians have been welcomed by feminists, with Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann being clear examples. Feminism is generally acknowledged to have "waves" as different time periods focused on different aspects of feminism, often working off the ideas presented by the wave before. 3. Literature Review Mitchell#8217;s novel was published as Gone With the Wind on June 30, 1936. Scarlett#8217;s story of survival amid the brutalities of war and its aftermath struck a chord with readers around the world. Fifty thousand copies were sold in one day; within six months, one million copies had been printed. The book went on to sell more copies than any other novel in U.S. publishing history. By the turn of the 21st century, more than 30 million copies had been sold worldwide in more than 40 languages. 3.1 Previous studies on Gone with the Wind Opinions vary from person to person when scholars analysis the characters in Gone with the Wind. Li Pin(2014) provided that in "Gone with the Wind", American female writer Margaret Mitchell successfully shapes the excellent female character, Scarlett. The personality of Scarlett can be analyzed from such three stages as pre-war, while-war and post-war. Before the war, she is a traditional but rebellious southern female; in the war, she is a female actively struggling and pursuing true love; after the war, she is an economically independent female without being confined to the family. Chen Mei(2010) puts forward that Margaret Mitchell portrays in her successful novel the inferior position of women in South America during the nineteenth century, confirms their contribution to the society, praises their pursuit of self-consciousness and decision making power as well as their fraternity selflessness and rebellious spirit which reveal the author 's belief that women should be liberated from families. From the perspective of Chang Hong(2010), In Gone with the Wind, the female and nature have many similarities. They have both femininities and they are both regarded as others. Besides, their relationship is so close that they could be the supporter when in difficulties. Facing with the depress of the patriarchal society, the two characters in Gone with the Wind have the different choices. One chose to adopt, and the other chose to resist, thus ending to a different life. Despite the passage of three-quarters of a century since its publication in 1936, critics and biographers still grapple with how to place Margaret Mitchell#8217;s Gone with the Wind within southern literature. While some hail Gone with the Wind as an American Civil War example of the ”Great American Novel#8217;, others see the work as contributing to the perpetuation of destructive stereotypes concerning African Americans, as well as a nostalgic distortion of life in the nineteenth-century South. Nevertheless, Gone with the Wind remains an important text because of the insight it provides into numerous aspects of southern culture. The novel is replete with direct and indirect references to the culture of the South in which this culture interacted with racial and gender constructions. According to Madonne M. Miner, Gone with the Wind is not simply a southern bildungsro-man tracing the journey of Scarlett O#8217;Hara. Rather, it is a novel that is ”preoc-cupied with improvident mothers, hungry daughters, and empty houses#8217; (Miner 1986: 193). Gone with the Wind critics, many of whom have deployed feminist epistemologies, have focused on the figurative meaning of this observation for decades #8211; in other words, on the spiritually, emotionally and psycho-logically neglected female characters who reside at Tara. 3.2 Previous studies on the feminism in Gone with the Wind Much more analyses have been done on Gone with the Wind from feminist perspectives since the publication of the novel. Most of them are concerned with Scarlett#8217;s feminist consciousness, and a few are about Martgaret#8217;s, and French feminist critic Simore de Beauvoir and American feminist critic Kate Killet#8217;s arguments are their main theoretical foundation, on which Scarlett was considered as a brave example to break the bonds of the patriarchal society. Zhang Lin made an analysis on Scarlett#8217;s feminist consciousness from her different personalities and her affection toward home, and Tang Lina reinforced it from Scarlett#8217;s role played in the male-dominated society. Meanwhile, some analyses are about Martgaret#8217;s own feminist consciousness. For example, Fu Xiuping and Xu Shengya not only displayed Scarlett#8217;s feminist consciousness, but also elaborated the writer#8217;s from the social background and her personal experience. Ding Chaoxia(2012) proposes that the American Civil War evokes Scarlett#8217;s feminist consciousness, and it forces her to give up her traditional role in family and society. Subjectively, her hard work and strong will are also important in realization her feminist consciousness. The greatness of the growth is that she tried her utmost to lay economic foundation for her feminist consciousness to develop. It is obvious true that without economic independence, the growth of feminist consciousness is empty in nature. It is held by Wang Sisi(2013), Margaret Mitchell, a woman writer with ambition in literature, offered us an insightful portrayal of an entrancing and controversial female character#8212;Scarlet O'Hara, who is a woman with strong de#8259; termination and courage to survive and support her family in the troubled times. Two issues has been reflected in this novel, that are the Darwinian idea of "survival of the fittest" and feminism. Darwin's ideas of evolution and the concept of "the survival of the fittest" tells people that we should keep changing with the alteration of the society. And another important issue is feminism which has been attracting people's attention throughout so many centuries. So far, Feminism has made many achievements, for example, many women in modern times go out to work, they have gained many rights that only owned by men in old times and so on. Today, there are so many successful women in various fields. Despite all feminists' achievements, the majority of feminists are sure that they still have plenty of work to do. References Barkley, Danielle. ”No Happy Loves: Desire, Nostalgia, and Failure in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind” The Southern Literary Journal, 47(2014):54-68 Chang, Aimin. [常爱民]，斯嘉丽的女性主义解读. 电影文学，2010，（12）：103-104. Chang, Hong. [常虹]，女性理性主义的觉醒#8212;#8212;浅析《飘》中斯嘉丽的性格成长过程. 考试周刊，2010，（34）：38-39. 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