Analysis of Scarlett’s Character in Gone with the Wind-对《飘》中斯佳丽的人物性格分析
Analysis of Scarlett’s Character in Gone with the Wind
对《飘》中斯佳丽的人物性格分析
摘要
《飘》是美国现代女作家玛格丽特.米歇尔于1936年发表的一部长篇通俗小说。小说的女主人公斯佳丽被他们描绘成一个极度自私、爱慕虚荣、冷酷无情、为达目的不择手段的女性。
引言简要介绍作者的生平、以及当时的女性主义。作者玛格丽特.米歇尔是一个具有女性主义意识的女作家。她在小说中含蓄的批判了美国内战时期的南方妇道观，通过委婉的语言更深刻彻底的揭示出南方妇道观的虚伪、愚昧和对妇女的压抑。战前、中、后的斯佳丽具体的阐述了主人公是怎样从战前一个自私、任性但又坚强、勇敢的南方贵族千金小姐转变为战时的懂得照顾别人、果敢但又有些残酷的生活上的勇士既而转变为战后的勤劳、有心计、有思想、有远见的南方新女性。对比部分主要是斯佳丽与媚兰与斯佳丽对比。斯佳丽与媚兰是小说中性格截然不同的两个女主人公，而不同的性格是她们的人生也大相径庭。思嘉果断、坚决的性格决定了她奋进的一生，媚兰的宽容、坚韧同样注定了她终生的勤苦。结论通过全篇总结得出，跟她的三个主要人生经历密不可分，通过对社会背景、人生经历和对比的分析，总结出斯佳丽一如既往的性格和由生活所迫改变了的性格并日益成熟，逐渐的成为有思想、有远见的南方新女性。
关键词：《飘》；战争；女性主义；对比
Abstract
Gone with the Wind, written by Margaret Mitchell has been one of the bestsellers and popular with the reader ever since its publication in 1936. Scarlett O?Hara the protagonist in the novel is an extremely selfish, vain, and merciless woman who will not hesitate to resort to any means in order to reach her ends.
Ch apter One gives a brief introduction of Margaret Mitchell?s life, the traditional Southern Womanhood and the feminist. Margaret Mitchell is a woman writer. She has strong feminism. We can get it from the novel, especially from Scarlett. Chapter Two to Chapter Four described the life of Scarlett before war, in the war and after war. These three chapters analyze how Scarlett completes her transformation from 16 years old girl deeply influenced by traditional Southern Womanhood to a serious-minded and far-sighted woman. and compared Scarlett with Melanie，they are quite different girls, and those differences make their life very different, any way, attitude is everything. The novel named Gone with the Wind. And Melanie is the wind; she is traditional, graceful and tolerant. The old South has gone with the wind, and so Melanie. Scarlett was not, she is new, and she is decisive and firm. She is quite an opponent of the old South. New American comes, and so Scarlett.
The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis and reiterates the main viewpoint: her transformations connected closely with her three stages of life. She is increasingly maturing and in the end becomes a new Southern woman with strong feminism leanings. When we faced with difficulties we will call the memo ries of Scarlett and her words to the world “Tomorrow is another day”!
Key words: Gone with the Wind；War；Feminist leaning；Contrast
Contents Introduction (1)
Chapter One The Period before the War (2)
2.1 About the Title (2)
2.2 The Plot Summary (2)
2.3 Scarlett in the Period before War (4)
2.3.1 Education of the Women in the South before War (4)
2.3.2 Scarlett the Rebellious Girl (6)
2.4 The Summary (8)
Chapter Two The Period in the War (9)
3.1The Plot Summary (9)
3.2 Scarlett?s Capability of Changing with Times (11)
3.3 Scarlett?s Persistent Pursuit of Better Life (13)
3.4 The Summary (14)
Chapter Three The Period after the War (15)
4.1The Plot Summary (15)
4.2 Scarlett?s Persistent Pursuit of True Love (16)
4.3 The Contrast of Scarlett and Melanie (18)
Conclusion (19)
Notes (21)
Bibliography (22)
Introduction
Gone with the Wind has been hailed as a triumph of American literature and film. In1937, Margaret. Mitchell won Pulitzer Prize, for her sweeping portrayal of the crumbling of the Old South. Since then, the novel has sold millions of copies. The film, a production by David O.Selznick, exceeded all expectations, receiving critical and public acclaim that included an unprecedented ten Academy Awards.[1]
Even today, Gone with the Wind, despite its many historical inaccuracies, forms the basis of American popular memory of the Old South in the years since the Civil War, but Margaret Mitchell?s tale is the one that is most deeply embedded in American culture.
The novel mainly describes the life of Scarlett who is the daughter of Tara?s master around the Americ an Civil War. Meanwhile with the hint of a triangular love between Scarlett, Ashley and Rhett, the novel depicts a wide and prosperous picture of the social life of the South in America. An important element of the story?s popularity is Scarlett O?Hara, th e outstanding heroine who is full of conflicting and complicated features. This article analyzes the character of Scarlett from three aspects: the first one is her attitude towards life around the civil war; the second one is the exterior and internal reas ons for the shaping of her character; the last one is Scarlett?s attitude towards love and marriage. The analysis aims at showing the eternal charms of the image, Scarlett in the novel.
Chapter One the Period before the War
Mitchell?s work relates the story of a rebellious Georgia Southern belle named Scarlett O?Hara and her experiences with friends, family, lovers, and enemies in the South during the antebellum period, the War of Northern Aggression, and the Reconstruction era.
2.1 About the Title
The title of Gone with the Wind is taken from the first line of the third stanza of the poem Non sum uails eram bonae sub regno Cynarae by Ernest D owson: “I have forgotten much, Cynara! Gone with the wind.”[6] The title phrase also appears in the novel: When Scarlett of French-Irish ancestry escapes the bombardment of Atlanta by Northern forces; she flees back to her family?s plantation, Tara. At one point, she wondered, “Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?”[7]
The title is beautiful, gone with the wind, everything, like the old traditional South, like Melanie, like the slave system and Scarlett?s love to Ashley…
2.2 The Plot Summary
The novel opens at Tara, the O?Haras? plantation in Georgia, with scarlet O?Hara flirting idly with Brent and Stuart Tarleton, twin brothers who live on a nearby plantation. Amidst the chatter, the pair tells Scarlett that Ashley Wilkes, the man Scarlett secretly loves, and his cousin Melanie Hamilton, a plain and gentle lady from Atlanta, are to be married. Shocked, Scarlett sits in silence until the two leave, without inviting them to dinner. Ignoring her m ammy?s cautions against the cold, Scarlett goes to meet her father to confirm the news. After discovering the truth of the
engagement, Scarlett is miserable, but realizes that Ashley has no idea that she?s in love with him. She plans to make Ashley jealous by surrounding herself with boys in love with her at the barbecue the next day at the Wilkes plantation of Twelve Oaks, and then afterwards admit to him that she prefers him above all others. She never thought of the war, even it would break out soon, even everyone in the South was talking about it included her father, what she cares is only Ashley, the man she loved. But things did not go according to plan, when she finds Ashley later, he tells her that though he lives her, he will still marry Melanie. The innocent poor girl was really hurt. She slapped Ashley in his face. Moreover the unexpected man Rhett Butler, hidden behind a couch during the emotional scene, sees Scarlett throw a vase across the room in anger after Ashley leaves, and is impressed by her fire. But Scarlett still holds the idea that she herself is the true love of Ashley. To revenge Ashley, she decided to marry Charles Hamilton who she didn?t love at all, but Charles sister Melanie really appreciated that. So both couples married within two weeks, just at the beginning of her marriage, Scarlett regretted her decision and also the war broke out…
Before the war, Scarlett lived an elegant and leisure life. It?s just such kind of life made her selfish and vanity. For love she is stubborn and wayward. She had romantic emotion to love. But, at that time, ladies and gentlemen?s demeanor formed the atmosphere of the traditional society. She was born in a sumptuous manor Tara in Georgia South America. Her parents want to make her a lady, and gave her very traditional education. Scarlett didn?t like doing that, she pretend to be a lady in front of her parents, but she went her own way at other times. In her inner world, she wanted an unrestricted and free life. So, a very proud own, extremely conceited but very beautiful charming Scarlett jumped out in front of us. Scarlett was very proud that so many handsome young men surrounded her, and she was always the very center of them. But Ashley was the only young man that she admired, indulged and deeply loved. She was a proud girl, so proud that she believed deeply Ashley loved her even she got the news he will marry Melanie.
2.3 Scarlett in the Period before War
2.3.1 Education of the Women in the South before War
Scarlett O?Hara, a Southern girl before the Civil War, is no exception. As an ordinary girl growing up in Southern culture, Scarlett is undoubtedly deeply influenced by the prevailing ideas of what a Southern woman should do in a male-dominated world. Gradually she becomes a woman, a representative of Southern women. To the Southern woman, marriage is the destiny traditionally offered to her and she is constantly taught the art of catching a decent and wealthy husband as soon as possible. The unmarried woman suffers from the poor situation and tries every means to catch a husband. Simone Beauvoir say in The Second Sex, “ In France, as in America, mothers, older friends, and women?s magazines cynically teach young women the art of catching husbands, as a flypaper catches flies. It is a kind of fishing or hunting that requires great skill.”[8] Slowly Scarlett is brought up, not apparently different from other girls. Like other girls, she is extremely interested in love and marriage. Scarlett?s mother Ellen, by soft-voiced admonition, their common Mammy, constant carping and labor to inculcate in her the qualities that will make her truly desirable as a wife. She does not disappoint them in this aspect because, by the age of sixteen, she has learned to use the attributes of womanhood to advance predatory designs: the manipulation and seduction of men. Extremely selfish in love and marriage, “she was constitutionably unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself” (p.16). Bored by the Tarleton twins? talk of war, she moodily changes the subject to something far more interesting to her: the next day?s barbecue and hall at the Twelve Oaks. Deeply rooted in Western culture is the assumption that a woman?s energies are properly devoted to the chores of her family. In the South, little atte ntion is paid to women?s education and educational opportunities for girls are more limited than those for boys. In the opening chapter of the novel, we got the information that Scarlett is not offered enough
education and she has not opened a book since she left the Fayetteville Female Academy at the age of fifteen. However, the door of education is much wider for the boys. Stuart and Brent, the Tarleton twins, have been expelled from the University of Georgia, the fourth university that has thrown them out in two years, when they sit with Scarlett in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, the plantation of Scarlett?s father Gerald O?Hara. Unexpectedly, they are soon offered another chance to go on with their college education. All of a girl?s education, if t here is any, is reduced to the arts and graces of being attractive to men. It is universally acknowledged that scarlet eventually becomes a belle in the neighboring counties after years of the conbined efforts of her mother and Mammy. She does not feel sorry for her lack of education. In fact to all men in the South, lack of education carries no shame at all, though they are given more chances to receive education. The things that matter to men include such things as rainsing good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, and squiring ladies with elegance and carrying liquor like a gentleman. Brought up in such an environment, Scarlett is actually a representative of Southern women who are deeply influenced by Southern culture.
Scarlett shares dissemblance, an essential trait of Southern Womanhood, with the other girls. Thanks to her mother?s and Mammy?s continuous admonition and harping, she becomes a fairly beautiful, sweet and demure girl. Men have a common interest in appreciating the beauty, sweetness and demureness of a girl. Scarlett?s beauty is partially inborn and partially acquired, but her sweetness and demureness are chiefly achieved by means of dissemblance. Scarlett understands of how to dissemble her own true feelings is even better than that of other girls. Scarlett?s “manners had been imposed upon her by her mother?s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her Mammy, her eyes were her own” (p.5). Her mother Ellen does not realize that it is only a veneer, for Scarlett always shows her best face to her mother, concealing her escapades, curbing her temper and appearing as sweet as she can. She is utterly willing to pretend to be sweet and demure in order to succeed in catching her beloved Ashley as her husband.
2.3.2 Scarlett the Rebellious Girl
The woman chained to her household tasks has known as a girl that it is the first duty of a girl to get married. However from the outset, Scarlett challenges the conventions of her society. A tomboy who can ride horses, throw stones and climb trees as well as any make companion, by 1861 she has evolved into a typical young lady only under the insistent instruction of her mother Ellen and her Mammy. Scarlett seems femininity remains merely a superficial shell, embodying outward signs, but arising from no genuine inner grace. Most of her natural impulses are unladylike. She pretends to look sweet, charming and giddy, but she is in reality rebellious, self-willed and vain.
Scarlett is fond of love and marriage just like other girls and she can pretend to suppress her true feelings successfully. Actually Scarlett never ceases to seek to air her feelings openly, whatever the consequences or the chaos she may create. In the old South, arranged marriages are widespread.
A girl is expected to find a marriageable man and she has to accept the husband chosen by her parents. Gerald O?Hara (father) insists that “the best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl” (p.39) and that she should marry one of the Tarleton twins. The clever and rebellious girl goes so far as to demand freedom in love and she is not satisfied with the future husband chosen by her father. When she comes back, she quickly makes full preparation for her great purpose of catching Ashley right on the following afternoon. A minute description of her feelings is provided to strengthen her longing for Ashley?s love. Unlike the common girls, she is determined to act on her own wishes. Thus, while her rivals retire according to the convention of the submissive female, she slips downstairs retire according to the convention of the submissive female, she slips downstairs to confront Ashley in the belief that he will not be able to resist her assault. Though her love is declined by Ashley, her efforts to obtain her true love do not wither away even in adversity. As we can see in the later chapters, if she has no love for Ashley, she will have been discouraged in adversity and will not have lived through so many difficulties to obtain financial independence.
The very obvious is her disregard for religion, and indispensable element in Southerners? life. At prayer time in the evening before the ball, while all the other family members and the blacks are praying piously and asking Holy Mary to forgive their sins. Scarlett is so absent-minded that she neglects to make any responses, causing her mother to look at her reprovingly. Ever since childhood, prayer time is a moment for adoration of her mother Ellen, rather than Holy Mary. To the pious people, it is sacrilegious to show any indication of irreligion. Her heart goes up to God in sincere thankfulness only when a pathway for her has been opened to the arms of Ashley. In other circumstances, God is not important or sacred to her at all. As a matter of fact, her irreligion is more and more apparent in the following years of her life. In Chapter XXX, everything is unfavorable to her, because her mother is dead, her father in a state of dementia, and her two sisters ill. She is annoyed to see her sister Carreen always on her knees by her bed praying for a better life. Scarlett?s God is a bargaining God.
Compare with God, Scarlett trust more herself, in her eyes the God is an absentee God. “The Lord stopped thinking about us years ago, and don?t go telling me Mother is turning in her grave to hear me say it either” (p.542). As we can find in the later chapters, every time she does odious or unethical deeds in order to protect her own life, Tara, or the lives of those for whom she is responsible, Scarlett repeats to herself an important motto: “I?ll think about it tomorrow.” This motto becomes her survival mechanism and justifies every future decision she makes. Owing to her irreligion, it is not unusual for her not to bother about things that do not matter, such as the expectations and civilities of the Old South. But though she is so perseverance and so brave, at some time she also afraid of God. When her conscience torments her over the cold, bald way in which she has used Frank Kennedy, her second husband, who is later killed in an attack to r evenge her, she sighs to herself, “Oh, if only God did not seem so furious and vengeful! If only the minutes did not go by so slowly and the house were not so still. If only she were not so alone” (p.804) When she confides her fear and remorse to Rhett But ler, “I?m afraid I?ll die and go to hell” (p.808)
2.4 The Summary
In the period before war, Scarlett was a little girl only worried about her love fairs, she had no ideas about the war,
“You know there isn?t going to be any war,” said Scar lett, bored. “It?s all just talk. Why, Ashley Wilkes and his father told Pa just last week that our commissioners in Washington would come to—to—an—amicable agreement with Mr. Lincoln about the Confederacy. And anyway, the Yankees are too scared of us to fight. There w on?t be any war, and I?m tired of hearing about it.”(Margaret, 1973: 36 p.25)
As we can see, Scarlett didn?t believe there will going to be any war, she was really boring about it, what she reply to the twins who were excitedly talking about the war is only making a mouth of bored impatience. Being a charming young lady of the old South, Scarlett cares more about the coming barbecues party, how she looks, her new green flowered-muslin dress, and of course her deeply loved prince Ashley.
Of course the elegant and leisure life make her selfish and vanity. For love Scarlett is stubborn and wayward. She had a romantic emotion to love. But, at that time, ladies and gentlemen?s demeanor formed the atmosphere of the traditional society. Her parents want to make her a lady, a traditional one, but to Scarlett, it is really a disaster, in front of her parents, she could bear to pretend, but she went her own way at other times, that?s her, a real Scarlett, an very proud own, extremely conceited but very charming Scarlett. So no surprising that all the young men loves her, include Rhett Butler. In his eyes, Scarlett is not very beautiful, not very graceful, and even a little veining, but it?s just this woman attacked his heart, this strong will and cat like woman.
Chapter Two the Period in the War
3.1 The Plot Summary
The Civil War broke out, and also, the difficult life begins. Scarlett?s husband died soon after he has to join the war for suffering of fever, at the same time the south army was continually retreating in defeat. But these had not made Scarlet feel sad, the very thing that brought her great sadness was Ashley also decided to join the war, what?s worse, at that time, both Scarlett and Melanie were pregnant. With out their husbands, the two young ladies have draped into a really difficult and dangerous situation. Scarlett is much more strong and healthy than Melanie. Scarlett gave birth to the baby smoothly, but Melanie was in a very dangerous situation, at this very moment of crisis Scarlett did n?t give up to help Melanie, for she had agreed to take care of Melanie when Ashley was out to war. Luckily Melanie out of danger soon, and also the two girls were became good friends. They decided facing with the difficulties together. They came back to S carlett?s home, the big Tara. Rhett helped them all the way, but he decided to join the war as soon as they will arrive at Tara. Scarlett can not accept this,
Scarlett: Oh, yes, yes! I know we can get through, Rhett. I?m sure we can. Rhett: Not we, my dear, you, I?m leaving you here.
Scarlett: You are what? Rhett, where are you going?
Rhett: I?m very serious, Scarlett. I?m going to join up with our brave lads in grey.
Scarlett: But they are running away?
Rhett: Oh, no. They'll turn and make a last stand if know anything about them. And when they do, I'll be with them. I'm a little late
but "better late than...
Scarlett: Rhett, you must be joking!
Rhett: Selfish to the end, aren't you? Thinking only of your own precious hide with never a thought for the noble cause.