学士学位论文--关于《飘》中女权主义.doc

Analysis of Gone with the wind from the
Perspective of Feminism

Abstract
Margaret Mannerly Mitchell, an American author, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her novel Gone with the Wind. It was the only book she wrote in her all life, Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, where she always hear about many stories about the war between the northern and southern states in American, then when she was wounded in home, she determined to write a book about the war .This novel is one of the most popular books of all time. The novel Gone with the Wind was set during the times of the Civil War in Atlantic. Soon or later, the American Civil War broke out. Ashley and Charles joined the war. Unfortunately, Charles died in the war. Scarlett became a widow, but she has been in love with Ashley. In the following article, firstly, on the love among Scarlett O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler will be introduced by analyzing the characteristic of the three principals. Secondly, the love of the friendship among different kinds of person will be mentioned. The last but not the least, something about the love of family members in the novel of Gone with the wind will be said. Finally, compared with the modern society, what theme the novel revels will be said.
Key words: Love; Friendship; Family love；Reality.
Introduction
As the first novel which depicts American Civil War from women’s perspective, Margaret focuses on the suffering from the war of those women who stay at home and their difficult journey of reconstruction. Literary critics, on the basis of their respective knowledge and understanding have given different evaluation about this novel. Most of their researcher concentrates on the historical background of American Civil War, the abolitionist though, Scarlett’s particular character and the cultural discrepancy between the North and the South. Many critics question the literary value and outdated racial issue of Gone with the Wind. Some consider the novel superficial while treated it only a simple love story. However, the author thinks that the novel is most valuable if read with an understanding of three historical backgrounds, our own, Mitchell’s, and Scarlett’s. On the base of perspective of feministic, this paper wound analyzes the awakening of female self-consciousness reflected in this novel and its positive effect on the cause of women liberation. The first part of this paper is a general introduction to the theoretical Foundation which mainly about Feminism. Then the following chapter is analyses of the book, Chapter three is feminist analysis of Gone with the Wind and of Scarlet’s characteristic.
2. The Introduction to Feminism
Feminism is the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state. Hundred years ago, women’s social statue was quite low, women was treated as appendage to men, they only had rights of living, their manner, speaking and behavior were regulated by a series of serious rules and discipline. With the education spreading among women and the awakening of female self-consciousness, they came to realize that they should defend their economic, political and other rights and pursue equal treatment like men. Then there appear feminism. Feminism is a series of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues.
First-wave feminism was a series of activities during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In the U.K. and U.S., it focused on promoting equal contract, marriage, parenting, and property rights for women. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused mainly on gaining political power, particularly the right of women's voting, though some feminists were active in campaigning for women's sexual and economic rights at this time.
Second-wave feminism is a feminist movement beginning in the early 1960s and continuing to the 20th and it coexists with third-wave feminism. Second wave feminism is largely concerned with issues of equality not only suffrage, but things like ending discrimination. Second-wave feminists treat women's cultural and political inequalities as its main purposes that to be deal with. During this period, feminist encourage women to understand aspects of their personal lives deeply by means of public promoting. The feminist activist and author Carol Hamish came up with the slogan for the first time "The Personal is Political", which became synonymous with the second wave.
Third-wave feminism is start from 1900 to the present. It arose as a response toward failures of the second wave and also as a response to the movements created by the second wave. Third- wave feminism often correct the second wave’s ideas and movements that are not good for females. It accommodates contradictions; conflict and changes. The third wave has its origins in the mid-1980. Feminist leasers in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, and Andre Lured tried to negotiate feminism thought that related to race.
3. Background of Margaret Mitchell’s age
3.1 Women’s social status in American society reflected in the novel
The story takes place in the southern plantation before American Civil War. At that time, the South is a new reclaimed land where the industrial civilization has not yet penetrated it. The residents rest on the rolling money gained by cotton planting and picking. There, within the shadow of chivalry, keeps the skin-deep grace and splendor. Women living on the red soil are delicate flowers, tightly clinging to men and decorating men’s world. They have no rights to vote. Nor can they control their belongings or children after they get married, let alone draw a will or make a treaty without their husbands’ permission. Their social status is parallel to “that of a minor or a slave” (Deborah L.Madsen, 2006). They endure dual oppression not only from men but also from themselves, lying in the subordinate social position without the privilege to manage their own lives. In this male-dominated world, men stifle women’s development from every aspect.
Firstly, they strain every nerve to confine women in the house to make sure that women’s ignorance has not been corrupted by the society and they are satisfied to be the lovely “vase”. Although men provide women with protection, clothing and food sources, they have an essential prerequisite that men should hold primacy as well as the control of women. Women are imprisoned at home wanting economic independence. The exclusive approach for their social status and economic warranty is to marry and give birth to babies.
Secondly, men also spiritually suppress women. They may yield to women and satisfy their all kinds of small requirements about the household affairs; nevertheless once women have independent opinions, they will feel panic and pull every string to hold them back. For instance, when Scarlett buys a lumber mill and decides to operate by herself, her husband Frank, though a coward, still feels unacceptable: “Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be guided by her husband’s superior knowledge, should accept his opinions in full and have none of her own” (Margaret Mitchell, 2008). Therefore men’s tolerance is on the premise of the assurance of the male-centered status. In fact, men would rather give everything in the world to women than allow women to have intelligence and independent views. In men’s opinion, “women should be confined to the domestic sphere, nurturing children, maintaining the household and serving their husbands” (Deborah L.Madsen, 2). If a woman shows her any intellectual advantage, people will isolate her, reputing that she has go beyond her due responsibilities which are generally defined as dressing, dancing and house management.
Regrettably, women are imperceptibly influenced by the location given from men. Southern mothers in Gone with the Wind act as the executor of ethical codes, inhibiting young girls’ development of their true colors. Take Scarlett as an example, she is educated to be an obedient lady even from childhood. Her mother and black mammy have always tried their best to instill those indispensable qualities of a lady into her. “You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate”, “Gentlemen do not like forward girls”, “Young misses should cas’ down dey eyes an’ say, Well, suh, Ah mout’ an’ ‘Jes’ as you say, suh.’” (Margaret Mitchell, 2008). Before their marriage, young girls should be tender and lovely with well-educated manners; however as soon as they get married, women become birds, restrained in the house and busy with the household affairs all day. They manage their husbands’ houses and educate their children, consuming their intelligence just in various trivia. More miserable are the widows: wearing the black, no flowers, no lace, no jewelry, no free talks, no social activities and even no laughter, just staying at home and mourning daylong. No wonder the author call this as barbarous as “Hindu Settee” (Margaret Mitchell, 2008).
3.2 Social influences on Margaret Mitchell’s female sense
Generally speaking, the author’s thinking, emotion, and value orientation are always keenly connected with and influenced by social currents. The same is true of Margaret’s feminism. Through Gone with the Wind, the author depicts a series of outstanding and tough female images, displaying their enormous contribution to the South. Either its language or the characters’ behaviors are permeated with Margaret’s intensive female consciousness, which actually keeps up with the times.
4. Feminism reflected by typical female characters
4.1 Feminism in Scarlett O’Hara
Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine, is an artistic character that has strong, clear-cut, and rebellious individuality. As the apple of her parents’ eyes, she comes on the stage from the age of 16 to 28, during which she has married three husbands, been a widow twice, given birth to three babies and also has spared no efforts to revive the family business. When creating this female image, the author places her under the wild social background of American Civil War and the background of the reconstruction after the war, demonstrates her disposition and manners in multi-aspects of her life in love, war and family with a full reflection of her winding and changing psychological journey; thus brings about for the readers a female who is brave enough to face life, unwilling to be indifferent, and persistent in the pursuit of self-value.
In the patriarchal society, Scarlett opposes to the gender discrimination from the bottom of her heart; she is neither reconciled to the passive position nor to the failure; besides, she keeps being herself, and always directly expresses and immediately takes action for what she wants. All of these are the epitomes of her strong sense of feminism. It can be said that she, form beginning to end, is against sexism and the fetters imposed on her by the gender attribution, and does her utmost to look for women’s rights which are equal to or even more than those of men’s with her own practices. She is the perfect embodiment of Virginia Woolf’s “androgyny” thought governed by two kinds of power at the same time: the feminine power, soft on the outside while staunch on the inside; and the masculine power, tender inside despite a hard shell. She overthrows the images of “angels” or “lamias” in the patriarchal literature, and becomes a masculine woman——a woman with men’s wisdom, indomitable will and wild ambitions. As an image with the ideal personality of “androgyny” which is the deconstruction of gender binary opposition, Scarlett announces Margaret’s strong protest against male-centered values.
4.1.1 Fight against traditional conventions and emphasis on self-consciousness
French famous sociologist Julia Kristeva once said that “God” in patriarchal religion creates the world: he separates light from darkness, land from ocean, and a variety of animals and human beings from himself, putting over the original chaotic connection. Through similar separation, humans are divided into two categories: men and women. Women are departed from men, turning into wives, daughters, mothers, or being the three at the same time with the function of multiplication (Julia Kristeva, 1974). God seldom talks to women and most of religions in western cultures oppress women’s consciousness. In patriarchal society, God stands up for men, the evidences of which can be traced in the Holy Bible “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ” (Bible, 2008). Therefore women’s rebellion against “God” who defends male rights is an exhibition of their self-consciousness. Scarlett, the heroine, is such a woman who is afraid of neither “God” nor men.
For Scarlett, religion is just a thing on the lips. When the whole family is praying, her disappointment and sadness have indeed gone with the wind, and she gains a sense of hope; however such comfort is not from God but from her mother’s peaceful face as she is praying. In Scarlett’s eyes, her mother Ellen rather than God is her real spiritual backbone and source of wisdom. Therefore when Scarlett leaves her mother, her religious convention becomes quite weak. “Scarlett’s conscience smote her at this last, for it had been months since she had been to church.”(Margaret Mitchell, 2008). In addition, the misery later brought by the war further stops Scarlett from going to the church, praying or communicating with God, for she feels that asking for God’s blessing dose little good to relieve her sufferings. She even questions God’s power and justice in her heart “For some time she had felt that God was not watching out for her, the Confederates or the South, in spite of the millions of prayers ascending to Him daily” (Margaret Mitchell, 2008). After pushing through the flames of the war and going through thick and thin, Scarlett return home Tara only to find her mother’s death and the devastated house with nobody and nothing to rely on. The death of her mother completely cuts off the contact between God and her, and becomes the symbol of her non-believing. The so-called “Omniscient and omnipotent” God cannot give her strength, nor can he be the one that can be counted on. Hence, she dose what she wants to do, says what she wants to say, and creates her own life with her own hands, regardless of the God’s will.
From the very beginning she denies accepting the marriage proposed by her father. At the barbeque in the Twelve Oaks, she casts off lady’s style, takes the initiative to reveal her true love to Ashely and even proposes