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摘 要

美国作家玛格丽特·米切尔的《飘》一经问世就在文坛引起轰动，在作品塑造的众多富有特色的人物中，最成功的莫过于对女主人公斯嘉丽这一集勇敢，独立，爱国于一体的核心人物的塑造。本文从三个方面对斯嘉丽的性格特征进行分析。一是斯嘉丽内战时期的坚强勇敢。二是作为一个独立女性，分析其在性格和经济上对独立的追求。三是探究斯嘉丽的爱国情怀。联系小说的时代背景，斯嘉丽作为南方女性，代表了当时女性群体对国家振兴的作用。本课题分析斯嘉丽独特的性格特征，希望更多的读者能够对《飘》这本小说及女主人公有更深层次的理解。

关键词：斯嘉丽；勇敢；独立；爱国

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 3

3. Scarlett’s Unique Characters 5

3.1 Braveness of feelings 5

3.2 Independence of career 7

3.3 Patriotism 10

4. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

The novel Gone with the Wind is about a woman whose whole life is based on the Civil War. Scarlett O’Hara is the main character in the novel Gone with the Wind. In the story, Scarlett is the oldest daughter. From the south of America, She is a brave and independent woman. And she also is selfish, but in the background of war she is patriotic. Her father is an Irish immigrant and her mother is a French aristocratic wife in mid-nineteenth century Georgia. However, for a long time, many readers regarded Gone with the Wind as a popular theory of emotion, fascinated by its tortuous and moving story, but ignored the value of thought and price contained therein. From the perspective of Scarlett’s character, this paper tries to analyze the progressive thinking given to the novel by the author. In this novel, the author portrays a strong and brave image of woman, expresses her appreciation to women, and believes that women have the ability to go out of the family, get rid of the status of appendages and seek women’s autonomous power. Women’s autonomy is based on economic equality, including independent personality, female self-consciousness and the realization of self-worth value. As a woman, Margaret Mitchell, looking back on this period of history, shows concern about the fate of women and praise for women’s pursuit of self-sovereignty.

In a person’s life, the length of life is basically the same. However, each person in their own length of life, the high degree of life is not the same. The value of life, embodied in the height of life, is the essential difference between man and man. Although in the novel Gone with the Wind there is also a kind of satire on the life of the society at that time, we can still see Scarlett’s awe and love of life from the origin of her words. Adhere to the ideal and do not give up, for their hometown nostalgia and reluctant to give up. In essence, it is a process of emotional expression to realize the transfer and expression of the author’s own emotional thoughts by means of all kinds of creative techniques and expressive techniques.

Because each creator lives in a different environment, his literary education and edification are different. Therefore, the process of literary creation is a process of revealing his personality. With the help of flexible means of expression, the vivid literary image successfully interprets the deep feelings in the heart. It is these words rich in human nature that make Scarlett’s emotional realm in Gone with the Wind sublimate and improve, and it is also one of the main reasons why the works can still impress the readers to this day. This kind of human nature charm can cross the river of history. This kind of human charm can let the work in the time and the historical precipitation, and exudes more like the aging general fragrance.

The thesis mainly introduces Scarlett’s spirit of freedom, courage, independence and realistic attitude. Those features left an indelible impression on the reader. Her series of anti-ethical behaviors in the great social upheaval of the South transcended the traditional society’s orientation and restraint on women and demonstrated her strong self-consciousness, which is in fact a challenge to the patriarchal society of the 19th century. It also reflects the germination of society.

Besides, the thesis analyzes the causes of these characters. Because the novel was published at the end of the first feminist movement, the second part mainly combined feminism to analyze her brave, independent and patriotic character. Scarlett’s character reflected a strong sense of femininity, though stubborn, she was brave.

2. Literature Review

In this part this thesis will make a detail introduction of the research directions and viewpoints of predecessors about Gone with the Wind, and compare the advantages and disadvantages of their research results, and introduce the uniqueness of the thesis’s points.

A large number of scholars study the background of the novel. They focus on the Civil War how to influence southern women. Such as “Scarlett O’Hara: An Increasingly Maturing Southern New Woman” (Liu 2014), the author describes many weak southern women going out of their families to take care of the wounded soldiers and raising money for the war. They changed as a result of the bloody war and became strong and brave. From the author’s paper, it is obviously that the American Civil War is a cruelty war, but this paper is not very detailed about the change of women in the South.

From the perspective of translation methods, some writers mainly study the different versions of "Gone with the Wind" in Chinese translation. For example, “A Comparative Study of Translation Strategies in the Two Versions of Gone with the Wind ”(Hou 2014), the present study is based on domestication and foreignization translation strategies and the results of the translator’s subjectivity-related study. By reviewing the original one, definition and argument of these two translation strategies, as well as a comparative study of the two Chinese versions of Gone with the Wind, the author finds that translation is more like a compiled work. The author concentrates on a large number of pen-ink introducing translation methods, but the analysis of the content of the novel itself is not much.

Of course, most authors pay attention to the feminism embodied in the Gone with the Wind. Margaret Mitchell portrays the southern social life in the mid-19th century from a female perspective, giving a central position to women in the novel, while men are concealed under the glare of female sex. The author gave praise and pity to the traditional women represented by Melanie, and placed great hopes on the rebellious ones represented by Scarlett (Wang 2003). Wang successfully introduced the feminism reflected in the novel, reflecting the author’s profound interpretation of the significance of the novel.

As for the heroine of the novel, many authors study her marriage. Scarlett O"Hara had experienced three marriages that ended in failure. Analysis of Scarlett’s Marriage in Gone with the Wind (Sun 2018), he argued that Scarlett’s marriage ended with tragedy, social environment, family education, personality playing a great role.

There are also writer focuses on the themes of the novel. A study of Love Theme: Seen from Characters in Gone with the Wind, she said as “An indomitable heroine, Scarlett O’Hara struggles to find love during the chaotic Civil War years and afterwards and ultimately must seek refuge for herself and her family back at the beloved plantation Tara”(Hu 2014).There is no clear line to distinct a person from good to bad, such as Scarlett. Sometimes she is so familiar with, it can be found in real life, but sometimes so strange, sometimes you can forgive her, but sometimes she is hard to understand. However, this is a true person, who can be found in this world.

Even some writers have analyzed Scarlett’s personality traits. But they not only analyze Scarlett’s positive character, but also criticize her pride and vanity. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part mainly combined feminism to analyze her brave, then to analyzes her independence and patriotic character. Scarlett’s character reflected a strong sense of femininity, though stubborn, she was brave. The pursuit of love, the dedication to the cause, challenges the shackles of patriarchal society and dares to pursue them. The third part briefly analyzes the impact of the novel on feminism and its influence on contemporary women’s values. As a woman, Margaret Mitchell, looking back on this history, expressed concern about the fate of women and praise for women’s autonomy.

3. Scarlett’s Unique Characters

The story takes place in the southern plantation before the American Civil War. Scarlett was taught to be a good lady from an early age, and her mother, Ellen and Mammy, tried to imbue her with the qualities which are essential to a gentle lady. Scarlett is unique to other female characters. First of all, she doesn"t forget her first love, even the man has married. For money and career, she snatches up her sister’s lover. The failed marriage and successful career signify her fortune and misfortune fate. However, we can still read Scarlett’s excellent character from the lines of the novel. She is bravery, independence, and patriotism.

3.1 Braveness of Feelings

Before the war, Scarlett is full of courage. For the first love, hard to pursue, even Ashley Wilkes is married. The love of a married man has made her deviate from being a lady. During the War, Scarlett held up a blue sky with a brave heart for her relatives and friend. Too many tribulations in the war forced Scarlett to be strong, brave, fighting, and self-improvement. Before the war, Scarlett followed her bent and indulged in a life of pleasure and comfort, but in the period of the war she became acting with courage and determination. Due to the war, Scarlett soon became a widow. On the one hand, she was entrusted by Ashley to take care of Melanie, who was about to give birth. She was afflicted by the spirit of her mother’s illness.

Scarlett survived. The strength of her bones kept her clear-headed and sensible. Scarlett fled Atlanta dragging Melanie, who had just given birth to her baby, and Melanie, who had been spooked by gunfire and the Northern Army. Scarlett was intent on returning to Tara, which had not been destroyed by the fighting, but whose mother’s death and her father’s mind were not clear, the family had a dozen or so mouths to eat, and the Tara plantation had left her with almost nothing. Scarlett felt sorrowful, even desperate, but she was not immersed in grief. What she needs is to sustain her home and accept the challenges of reality as strongly as her ancestors did. She abandoned the noble lady’s reserve and pride and worked like a black slave all day. Hungry, painful, humiliated and hurt, Scarlett persisted. When a Yankee cavalry threatened their lives, Scarlett, an unfettered woman, opened fire calmly to protect her mother’s things and hard-earned food. Hard life has made her fully aware of the cruelty of reality, but also gave her the courage and courage of life.

With extraordinary courage, she faced all kinds of insults, threats and blows from conservative forces, with her unique wit and decisiveness, and with a series of appalling and vulgar actions, she constantly adapted to her own times and society. The cruelty of her business was appalling, employing prisoners illegally, doing business with northerners, and running timber mills. For more good, adopt a despicable approach that is not valued by the upper class. She could also marry someone who has been scolded by all as shameless and dirty. But Scarlett didn"t care what others thought of her. All she wanted was that break away from poverty and hunger. But her father is very attractive. He wants the daughter to be a well-bred lady and hope that she can marry a good-reputation husband.

…, Gerald flushed with brandy and pride that his daughter was marrying both money, a fine name and an old one—and Ashley, standing at the bottom of the steps with Melanie’s are through his. (Mitchell 57).

Her father only care weather her husband is rich and famous or not. He doesn’t He doesn"t care what his daughter really thinks. An important revelation from Scarlett’s strong character is the importance of the environment. In an era of turbulence and unease, everyone’s life is fragile. The idol in Scarlett’s mind, injured in the fire, was like a wolf that had lost her will, and at the critical moment showed more incapacity and flinch. But Scarlett protected her family like a female wolf. This maternal strength is the courage and responsibility that many men cannot do in the same environment. But, in essence, this kind of strong is a kind of forced strength. In those first days of the siege, Scarlett was so frightened by the bursting shells she could only cower helplessly.

Added to her terror of being blown to pieces was her equally active terror that Melanie’s baby might arrive at any moment. What would she do if the baby came? These matters she discussed with Prissy in whispers one evening, and Prissy, surprisingly enough, calmed her fears. (Mitchell 146)

But it turned out that prissy was a liar, timid and cowardly at the critical moment, useless to Scarlett, but needed Scarlett’s protection. The heroine Scarlett only forward, there is no way to back. In the context of a great age when they are not brave, there is really no one to stand up for them if they are not brave. Scarlett’s strength during the Civil War was, in a sense, a child without an umbrella on a rainy day. Scarlett not only didn"t take an umbrella, she didn"t wear shoes. She had to run on and on before she could see something called strong at the corner of the next life, and then picks it up and run on.

Scarlett came down the dark stairs slowly, like an old woman. Feebly she made her way onto the front porch and sank down on the top step. It was all over. Melanie was not dead and the small baby boy who made noises like a young kitten was receiving his first bath at Prissy’s hands. (Mitchell 168)

The war gave Scarlett a chance and courage, and she was able to seize it in time, break the yoke of feudal dogma, break through the rules, and begin a new life. As a widow, Scarlett’s manner was not recognized by the ladies of the upper class. But Scarlett dared to pursue herself and do what she thought was right. At a charity party, Scarlett, a widow, struggled, frightened, and overwhelmed in the face of Ritter’s "gracious invitation," but she was more eager to be happy, eager to be self-sufficient, and eager to lead a different life than the widow. The strong desire urged her to walk towards Ritter and join Ritter in her first dance as a widow. Scarlett’s parents strongly denounced her, and her mother wrote letters to warn and scold her, and her father himself went to Art land to make educational criticism of Scarlett. Opposite parents scolded, Scarlett did not retreat, but bravely face.

3.2 Independence of Career

She inherited her father’s rough, bold, unbridled manner, but was also bound by the mother’s traditional thoughts and wanted her to become a gentle, quiet rich family.

Perhaps there was something in what Mammy said. In fact, the mothers of all her girl friends impressed on their daughters the necessity of being helpless, clinging, doe-eyed creatures. (Mitchell 37)

But on the contrary, Scarlett’s capricious, unruly, although usually she tried to pretend a gentle and generous appearance, but cannot hide the backbone of the wayward unruly. Influenced by traditional ideas, Scarlett’s father wanted her daughter to marry a rich man, inherit her family, and use her status as the standard of marriage. Although Scarlett married a rich man for the first time, the outbreak of war soon made her a widow..

No, she could not, would not, turn to Gerald’s or Ellen’s families. The O’Hara’s did not take charity. Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders strong enough to bear them. She would stay at Tara and keep it, somehow, keep her father and her sisters, Melanie and Ashley’s child, the Negroes. Tomorrow—tomorrow—her brain ticked slowly and more slowly, like a clock running down, but the clarity of vision persisted. (Mitchell 187)

After the war, Scarlett had a sober and profound understanding of life and a more rational attitude to reality. Money is becoming more and more important to her. In order to make more money, she was not afraid of the traditional idea that women should be ignorant, and unable to have their own opinions, buying sawmills and running them in public. Scornful of this, Scarlett did not flinch or back down in the air and insisted on doing what she thought was right.

This stubbornness is the product of the oppression of life, but also the strong resistance of Scarlett to life. In order to improve the efficiency of her work and gain more benefits, she once again disregarded the criticism of all the people and removed all kinds of obstacles. The prisoner was hired to work in the factory. Georgia is a newly reclaimed red land, and industrial civilization is far from reaching it. Cotton cultivation and picking, and the accompanying billows of money, are all the lives of the inhabitants. Here there is the grace and splendor of the surface and the shadow of the knights, and the women who live in this red land are like delicate flowers, clinging to men, and becoming ornaments of the male world. They are subjected to double repression from men and women themselves, in subordinate social position, cannot dominate their own life. In this male-dominated world, men suppress the development of women in every way. Her husband thought of that a woman running a factory was shameful.

On top everything else, she was actually making money out of the mill, and no man could feel right about a wife who succeeded in so unwomanly an activity.“A woman ought to pay more attention to her home and her family and not be gadding about like a man,” he thought. “Now, if she just had a baby—” ( Mitchell 264)

First of all, they try to limit women to the family to ensure that their pure truth and kindness are not eroded by the real world, and that they are willing to be lovely "flower bottles". They say, "A woman has to care more about her home and her family. She shouldn"t be hanging out like a man." On the face of it, men protect them and provide them with food and clothing, but there is a necessary premise that they have supremacy, that they own women and dominate them. Women are confined to their families and lose their economic autonomy. The only way for them to gain social status and financial security is to marry and have children. Scarlett’s success is a testament to the wisdom of women. At the same time, she is also "affectionate, selfish, deceitful, bully, and rogue." The exploitative and oppressive male-centered society shocked the male-centered society. She broke free from her family and worked like a man, showing great insight and courage, reflecting the awakening of women’s self-consciousness and the demand for self-power.

Scarlett’s Feminist consciousness awakes before the War. At the beginning of the novel, the author describes the scene of social life in the South. On the boundless land of the South, there are elegant socialites, handsome knights, and lots of hard-working black slaves. Under the traditional plantation economic system, there are deep-rooted patriarchal ideas, under the influence of such thoughts, women’s social status is low, they are subjected to the double repression of economic, social and male power, and they have no economic resources. Everything depends on the husband. They also do not have the right to speak, and cannot choose, can only obey. Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlett, however, was an alien to the times. She is willful and naughty, full of rebellious spirit, challenging society and customs towards women’s vision. Emotionally, she dared to love and hate, and when she heard that the long-admired Ashley was getting married, she bravely expressed her love to Ashley and put forward the idea of eloping with Ashley. This kind of maverick behavior reflected the awakening of Scarlett’s feminism consciousness in the social background at that time.

3.3 Patriotism

When Scarlett was in the greatest crisis of her life, she chose not to go to the Allen and Gerald family, but to stick to her hometown. Although the war brought only endless killing and pain, but after the baptism of blood and fire, Scarlett’s ideas and tenets of life have changed dramatically. She began to try to adapt to the new world better through her own efforts, and completely abandoned the idea that she had been the owner of the land. And actively through the establishment of independent personality and excellent moral character to pursue new life.

The author of the novel, although seemingly trying to borrow Scarlett’s image to explain to people the spirit of strong struggle in life, carries on a deeper analysis and knows that the author of this novel has, on the face of it, sought to borrow the image of Scarlett to explain to people the spirit of strong struggle in life. We must at all times achieve the heart of the motherland and love the land.

In the face of utilitarian capital society, how can not only protect herself, but also protect her family and assets, so as to lead a better capitalist life? driven by this concept, She gives out cash money is most important in the real society, faced with the question of how to earn more money, she never shy away from the moral bottom line of the present capitalist society, the main movement in the economic arena to chat up with businessmen. Talk, from which to find suitable for their business opportunities. In the face of the oppression of the war, a kind of resistance to a better life, in order to better improve the efficiency of work, strengthen the quality of work, so as to obtain more benefits, through the employment of prisoners and seek more economic value. Do not adhere to the original rules and run their own business, in the face of life difficulties to take the initiative to carry out their own business philosophy and methods, the courage to face various conservative forces under the hindrance, the mechanism and decisively deal with one life after another. Every time she was depressed, she was still worried about her land.

She looked at him and realized dimly that there was integrity of sprit in him which was not being torn apart by her passionate hands, or by any hands. The words, hospitality and loyalty and honor, meant more to him than she did. The clay was cold in her hand and she looked at it again.“Yes,” she said, I’ve still got this. (Mitchell 233)

In the post-war reconstruction, Scarlett did not stay at home as expected, but bought a sawmill, became his own boss, and stood out among many male competitors with her ingenuity. When the sawmill was enlarged and strengthened, and a large number of male workers were employed, Scarlett had grown from a rebellious girl to a capable female boss. This transformation helped Scarlett win a great deal of voice in society because she achieved independence. She realized the value of her life, succeeded in extricating her from the traditional chain, and fully awakened her feminist consciousness.

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