摘 要

西方女权主义运动的起源可以追溯到十八世纪法国大革命时期，1789年法国的人权宣言颁布后，1791年玛丽古兹发表《妇女和女公民权利宣言》，提出了女性需要得到与男性相等的社会地位，如选举权，受教育权，财产继承权，公民权等，这标志着西方女权主义正式登上历史舞台。半个世纪后，第一波美国女权主义浪潮随着1848年《权利和意见宣言》的发表开启，直到今天一共存在三次美国女权主义运动，这三次运动为美国女性地位的提升，权利的获取产生了重大影响，《飘》是一部优秀的表现女性意识崛起的文学作品，作者是玛格丽特米切尔，小说描述了美国南北战争期间南方人民的生活，其中南方女孩斯嘉丽热烈追求自由，爱情，金钱与事业，对当时男权社会的不满与反抗，从一个无忧无虑的富家小姐成长为独当一面的家庭支柱，这是美国女权主义意识的觉醒的真实写照。

本文从小说《飘》入手，通过分析三次美国女权运动时期的社会背景，以及斯嘉丽，梅兰妮，艾伦的性格特征与行为，还有小说作者的经历，讨论美国女权主义的觉醒与发展过程。

关键词：《飘》；女性主义；女性权利；反抗与斗争；社会背景

Abstract

The origin of the western feminist movement can be traced back to the French Revolution in the 18th century. After the promulgation of the French Declaration of Human Rights in 1789, Marie Gouze issued the Declaration on the Rights of Women and Women in 1791. It is proposed that women need to get equal social status with men, such as the right to vote, the right to education, the right to inherit property, the right to citizenship and so on, which marks the formal appearance of western feminism on the historical stage. Half a century later, the first wave of American feminism began with the publication of the Declaration of Rights and opinions in 1848. Until today, there have been three American feminist movements, which have promoted the status of American women and had a great impact on the acquisition of rights. Gone with the Wind is an excellent literary work showing the rise of female consciousness, written by Margaret Mitchell. The novel describes the life of the people of the South during the American Civil War, in which Scarlett, a southern girl, enthusiastically pursued freedom, love, money and career, and her dissatisfaction and resistance against the patriarchal society at that time. Growing up from a carefree rich lady to an independent family pillar is a true portrayal of the awakening of American feminist consciousness.

This paper starts with the novel gone with the Wind, through the analysis of the social background of the three American feminist movements, as well as the character and behavior of Scarlett, Melanie and Allen, as well as the experience of the novelist. Discuss the awakening and development of American feminism.

Key Words: Gone with the Wind; feminism; women's rights; resistance and struggle；social background

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Objectives 1

1.3 Research Significance 2

1.4 Research Innovation 2

2 Research Methodology 3

3 An Introduction to Three American Feminist Movements 4

3.1 A Brief Introduction to the First Feminist Movement in the United States 4

3.2 A Brief Introduction to the Second Feminist Movement in the United States 4

3.3 A Brief Introduction to the Third Feminist Movement in the United States 5

4 The Introduction of Gone with the Wind 6

4.1 The Basic Plot of the Novel 6

4.2 The Character of Ellen 8

4.3 The Character of Melanie 8

4.4 The Character of Scarlett 8

5 The Relationship Between the Expression of Feminism in Gone with the Wind and its Historical Background 10

6 The Relationship Between the Historical Background of Margaret's Creation of Gone with the Wind and the Development of Feminist Consciousness 11

7 Conclusion 11

7.1 Major Findings 11

7.2 Limitations 12

7.3 Outlook 12

References 13

Exploring the Relationship between the Awakening and Development of American Feminist Consciousness and the Social Background—Taking Gone with the Wind as an Example

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

At present, there are more and more scholars studying the feminist movement, feminism has become a hot topic in contemporary society, and the United States is in the period of the third feminist movement.

Feminism, which originated from the French Revolution in the 18th century, is now developing rapidly in the United States.

In the process of the development of American feminism for more than one hundred years, the social background has acted as an inseparable condition. The feminist movement has its ups and downs due to the influence of social background, and makes American feminist consciousness full of controversy.

The American feminist movement in the 1960s was a social activity with the largest scale and the largest number of participants in the history of the United States in the 20th century. In this movement, feminists set up many organizations and put forward their own goals, although each organization had different names and different views, but they all called for the elimination of gender discrimination and equality between men and women in terms of job opportunities, occupation and so on. Many housewives are also involved to make all women in society realize that the social status of men and women is equal and that discrimination against women must be put to an end. After this feminist movement, some women entered professions previously monopolized by men after the 1970s and 1980s.（王河江,吴振刚,张虹萍，2015）

However,The Equal Rights Amendment, which advocates equal rights for men and women, was not passed in the absence of approval by three states. Secondly, women's legal right to abortion has been greatly damaged by the Hyde Act.(潘迎会，2019)

In the face of the attack of conservative forces on feminism, the third American feminist movement blew the horn of counterattack, which shows that the awakening and development of feminist consciousness can not be separated from the social background.

1.2 Research Objectives

Even in the United States, due to the change of social background, the development of feminism is not plain sailing, from the initial national political movement to more focused on feminist theoretical research. In some countries where the consciousness of feminism awakens later, such as in China, the development of feminism is even more difficult. at present, the word feminism has almost become a derogatory term in China, especially it is easy to cause conflicts between men and women. Fundamentally speaking, the main reason for this current situation is that we do not have a correct understanding of the feminist movement and have no historical experience. Under a completely different social background, copying the feminist movements of other countries is bound to lead to social contradictions.

Therefore，only by combining Chinese characteristics and carefully studying the feminism in different social backgrounds and different stages of development of other countries in history can we explore a road of women's rights with Chinese characteristics. Finally, the social status of women can be improved.

1.3 Research Significance

Although in different social backgrounds, there are many excellent female literary works at every stage of the development of American feminism. On the one hand, these works promote the development of American feminist thought, on the other hand, they also absorb spiritual nutrients from the development of feminist thought; the two promote each other and develop together. In addition, the development of feminist literature and feminist thought has gathered a large number of participants for the feminist movement and reserved the spiritual strength. Exploring the close relationship between the American feminist movement and its social background is of great guiding significance to the development of the contemporary global feminist movement. This paper will take the famous novel gone with the Wind as an example, starting from the first stage of American feminism，to explore the development of American feminism in different historical stages and different social backgrounds.

1.4 Research Innovation

At present, with the awakening and development of feminist consciousness, there are more and more scholars studying feminist movement in the world. Most of them study western feminism. However, starting from the famous literary work gone with the Wind, this paper focuses on American feminism, which is the most active at present.

Many scholars only study the personality characteristics of Scarlett in gone with the Wind. By studying the personality characteristics and behavior of the three women in gone with the Wind, this paper reflects the awakening and development of feminist consciousness under the social background of the novel.

The specific information of the three American feminist movements can be easily obtained, and scholars generally start with all kinds of feminist factions, such as ecological feminism and radical feminism. However, this paper can explain the development process of the feminist movement more clearly from the perspective of social background in connection with the awakening and development of feminist consciousness.

2 Research Methodology

The author consulted a large number of papers and historical materials about the American feminist movements, and spent two weeks analyzing and integrating these materials into an outline, and obtained information about the social background, limitations and results of the three American feminist movements according to the timeline.