An,Analysis,of,Scarlett’s,Characteristics_An army of

　　摘要:该论文分析了Scarlett的性格特征以及该特征在那个时代的独特性。在与艰难时世做斗争的过程中,Scarlett的独立,自主思考,顽固以及对待金钱和物质的态度和她的商业精神都给我们留下了深刻的印象。
　　关键词:独立 顽固 物质主义者 商业精神
　　An Analysis of Scarlett’s Characteristics
　　Zhang Shuli Chen Jie
　　Abstract:This paper analyzes Scarlett’s character and the uniqueness of such character at that time.In the struggle against the hardship,Scarlett’s independence mind,obstinacy,attitude toward money and material and her business spirit have deep impression on us.
　　Keywords:Independence Obstinate Materialist Business spirit
　　【中图分类号】G641【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1009-9646(2009)09-0084-03
　　
　　1.Introduction
　　
　　The work,Gone with the Wind,presented the social turmoil in American Civil War.It described the life condition referred to every aspect in the Old South before the war and the struggle people did in order to survive during the process of reconstruction after the war.So readers could also get general understanding about the local conditions and customs,social fashion,religion and faith and so on at that time in America.
　　On the eve of American Civil War,the heroine Scarlett,daughter of a Southern planter,only cared about and grieved over Ashley,who she loved in her heart,would be engaged to another woman.At that moment,the only thing she wanted to do was trying to captivate Ashley.However,as the war’s aggravation,the life style of the cotton kingdom built by the whole south collapsed.Scarlett,brought up in clover,began her struggle against the hardship.During this process,she did not give up the strong emotion to Ashley and cherished her fantasy love to support her in overcoming every difficulty and crisis.And her obstinacy made her always be blind to Rhett,who kept to her side and loved and cared her every minute.At the last moment,she knew the truth and got clear recognition about her innermost feeling after all,it was too late.She still had a sympathizing fate:she lost everything――the man she loved and the man who loved her as well as her only friend.
　　
　　2.An analysis of Scarlett’s characteristics
　　
　　Although Scarlett’s father was not born to be a gentleman,he made endeavor to be successful.When Scarlett was born,her family had been the upper class in Georgia.She was always thought to be a lady,being tender,meek and kind.However,Scarlett did not act as what she was taught.She was so selfish,cruel and greedy as well as brave,indomitable and responsible.Her character was contradictory but full of charm.
　　2.1 Rebellious against the conventions.
　　When Scarlett was a little girl,her behavior was different from others.At that time,what the girls were taught in South was being a lady.They should be compliant.But Scarlett never took notice of the case.As the book says“…her preferred playmates were not her demure sisters or well-brought-up Wilkes girls but the negro children on the plantation…she could climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them.(P71:Margaret Mitchell)” This might be the behavior out of childish naughtiness,but her position to her own marriage clearly presents her first rebellion.In Scarlett’s father’s opinion,the happiest marriage was decided by parents.Objectively speaking,Gerald,Scarlett’s father,was reasonable to prevent Scarlett from running after Ashley,for Scarlett’s emotion was not mature then.However,in the eyes of Scarlett,her father just represented the outdated convention,represented the dogma which was obstruct on her way to the happy marriage.So in her heart,she hated this doctrine and loathed the custom,which would have huge influence on her later days and make her break up the rules she was taught gradually.
　　Then,Scarlett was intended to carry out her plan to get Ashley.She wanted to tempt Ashley into eloping with her.Just imagine that in the reserved and conservative atmosphere in Old South,what huge trouble would be brought by an aristocratic lady’s elopement.However,Scarlett did not care the result at all.She was just longing for the happy days to come.
　　During the war,Scarlett,who had been a widow then,was very indifferent to the tense current situation and the fanatical patriotic passion was not able to arouse her any sympathy at all.What she complained was that how dull a widow’s life was and what a pity she was not allowed to attend social activities.At a bazaar,Rhett read her impatience as a widow and let her out in the reel with a deft help.Since then,she began to give surprises to the Atlanta one after another.Having lost her husband less than one year,she got rid of the bondage of mourning and prinked herself with colorful materials,took part in many parties and even flirted with the soldiers.She took no notice of others’ comments.When Scarlett met the tax crisis after the war―Tara would be deprived unless paying 300-dollor-tax,her rebel reached its peak.She’d rather be Rhett’s mistress.At that time,no sooner would a decent woman swoon than she heard being mistress in order to show her dignity.However,Scarlett was willing to mortgage herself to Rhett for getting three hundred dollars.And as it is known to all,Rhett was a scamp,a blackguard despised by all upper class in Atlanta.This behavior was a signal of her complete moral collapse and was her final warrant of ostracism to the convention at that time.Then she fostered and enhanced her rebellion more.She appropriated her sister’s fiancé,Frank Kennedy,in every possible way because he was rich.She wandered on the street to solicit business although she was pregnant,she made money by hook or crook including many despicable ways and disregarded all virtues,such as honest,friendliness,sympathy ect.that she was ever taught.When she accumulated a fortune,she was not satisfied.She was still busy wandering in Atlanta,where was riddled with danger after the war,which led Frank’s death.
　　In Scarlett’s life,she never accepted or cared about others’ advices or ingratiated anyone.She had her own rules and standard to guard her behavior,so conventions were noting for her.Maybe just for these reasons,her rebellion was so clear-cut and impressive.
　　2.2 Obstinate and possessive.
　　Scarlett’s strong love for Ashley is also a thread that runs through this novel.Let’s get more information about her obstinacy and possessiveness through this emotion’s analysis.“In Mammy’s mind…Sullen and Careen were clay in her powerful hand and harkened respectfully to her warning.But it had always been a struggle to teach Scarlett that most of her natural impulses were unladylike (P66:Margaret Mitchell)” This paragraph has made basics for her obstinacy.We can find much more about her obstinacy later.
　　When Scarlett fished for information about Ashley’s engagement in a roundabout way,Gerald had dissuaded her from running after Ashley because she would not be happy with him.In some sense,Scarlett agreed what her father said.However,it doesn’t mean she would be obedient or give up the idea of marrying Ashley.She was subject to a fit of obstinacy.The more obstructs she got from others,the more determination she had to get Ashley.Although she did not succeed in getting Ashley and had to marry Charles,it did not hinder her constant love for Ashley.So we can infer that her love for Ashley actually had nothing to do with passion or marriage,it was something sacred and breath-takingly beautiful,it was just an emotion that grew stealthily through the long days of her enforced silence,feeding on oft-thumbed memories and hopes.She grasped this emotion tightly and regarded it as a prop and the only thing made her comfortable in the days during the war.If she was not so obstinate and unwilling to see the world,for Ashley took over her whole heart,maybe she would look at her real feeling in face earlier,that is,she nursed an extraordinary feeling for Rhett.For example,every time she saw Rhett’s left“there was disappointment burning in her that she could quite analyze,the disappointment of a child seeing illusions crumble.( P317:Margaret Mitchell)” Supposing she had realized her inner world earlier,the tragedy would not have happened.
　　After the war,after one month of Scarlett’s parturition,she began to deal with her business by herself and drove a carriage wandering around Atlanta,where was full of White trash,Yankee soldiers,and free issue black.All family members persuaded her not to do so,but she was too obstinate to accept others’ advices.And the result was her husband,Frank,was shot and Ashley was injured badly out of her pert behavior.
　　Scarlett’s possessiveness is equal to her obstinacy in leading her sympathizing fate――lost the man she loved and who loved her.When she was a widow,once she heard Gerald said that Brent―one of her beaux ever―had courted her sister Careen,Scarlett almost flied into a rage.She thought the defection of her beaux was insulting.In her eyes,her beaux belonged to her though she had been Charles Hamilton’s widow,they ever did everything to plead her,so they had been branded the logo“belong to Scarlett O’Hara”.Her strong possessiveness made her care her old beaux’s defection,let alone Ashley’s who she loved deeply.At the beginning,she just thought Ashley was quite different from the others.He was too polite and a little standoffish,which was strange to Scarlett and captured her heart.On the way she closed to Ashley,she met difficulties and obstruct.She lost him,her favor was robbed,and her nature to be possessive worked and spurred her to get Ashley back.This unfounded possessiveness made her blind to be her real thinking:that is “…Only a little true tenderness had been mixed into her love.Mostly it had been compounded out of vanity and complacement confidence in her own charms.(P89:陶洁)” However,anything you can not get is the best one.So Ashley became more precious for her.
　　2.3 A typical materialist and showing no concern about the spiritual world.
　　We can not forget that before the war,Scarlett was an idle girl.Her world was restricted to Georgia.And her thought was full of beautiful clothes,flirting with the young men and trying to get Ashley.The word “material” meant nothing to her but possessing beautiful dress,or ornaments etc.She had no notion about money,so what impelled her to have such tremendous change?
　　After the war,the change of the environment impelled Scarlett to do something to adapt herself to the circumstances and she became a complete materialist.In fact,at the peaceful time,Scarlett paid little attention to her spiritual world.As the book said“…she had never consciously seen beauty in anything but women’s faces,horses,silk dresses and like tangible thing.(P72:Margaret Mitchell)”That is to say,she could not admire or understand anything not concrete.And she was always willing to pretend to bedemure,pliable and scatterbrained,because those were the qualities that attracted men.Just why men should be this way,she did not know.She only knew that such methods worked.It never interested her to try to think out the reason for it.She knew nothing about the inner workings of any human being’s mind,not even her own’s.Then after the war,when Scarlett faced the harsh life,she emphasized material more.On the contrary,her spiritual world was deserted.She even threw religion away.For in Scarlett’s opinion,religion had always been a bargaining process with herself.She promised God good behavior in exchange for favors.God had broken the bargain time and again,to her way of thinking,and she felt that she owed Him nothing at all now.Under the old south’s system,the upper class considered themselves as being refined,pure and more graceful than the Catholic immigrants Yankees.So the religion and God,being the prop and a kind of symbol,took the major part in their life.But Scarlett was an exception.She would rather pick cotton during the praying time and weed corn during the repenting time.To her,the spiritual world made her be all at sea like the dense fog in her nightmare,so she simply abandoned it.Perhaps,the only thing that was not concrete and she paid attention to was her constrained emotion for Ashley.
　　On that night when Atlanta was occupied,Scarlett returned to Tara under Rhett’s help,with weak Melanie,ignorant Prissy and two babies.However,more harsh conditions were waiting for her.Her mother passed away,her father lost his mind and her sisters were ill.A group of people counted on her supporting under the condition of lacking food and cloths.This should be a turning point that Scarlett ruptured her ever leisurely time.When she was a girl (even a widow),what she would do was waiting on hand and foot and never worried about the livelihood.However,at that time in Tara,she must shoulder the heavy load to survive.She did not regard herself a pampered lady any more and worked in the cotton land as a black labor and forced her sisters to do so.Having experienced poverty and almost homelessness,Scarlett became unconfident to the reality,which made her do many things improper to make money.For instance,she stole her sister Suellen’s fiancé;she was present on every occasion where women should not be to canvassed for her timber;she made trades with deceitful ways.As we know,after married Frank Kennedy,Scarlett had owned one grocery and two sawmills.She had been out of danger of being hungry or poverty.But she still hankered after making money in every possible way.Obviously,the war had cast a shadow on her heart and made her be immersed in pursuing the material to avoid being hungry or poverty.We can infer that maybe not doing prayer or repenting,not believing in God and almost not having friends,Scarlett needed the material to fill up her empty spiritual world.However,it was regretful that she was unconscious about that,which made her step toward her sympathizing fate.
　　The deserted spiritual world brought Scarlett some bad influences inevitably.One of the signs was her nightmare haunted for long time.This nightmare let her frighten.She could not breathe and was at a loss among the dense fog.When she married Rhett,the color of the nightmare faded gradually,for she could back against the stone wall of Rhett’s love and felt safe.However,when the life condition became better,she began to try to get Ashley again.The unreasonable action made Rhett be disappointed to her completely and left at last.
　　
　　3.Conclusion
　　
　　The paper analyzes the characteristics of the heroine,Scarlett,in Gone with the Wind,showing the admiration to her unique charm,the disapproval to her weakness in her characters and the sympathy to her tragic fate.As a representative of that time,Scarlett is different from her contemporaries who always rely on men to live.She is independent and strong.Scarlett is also different from her contemporaries who always act warmly and kindly.She is cruel and selfish.Moreover,the business spirit emerged during the industrialization’s flourishing development also embodies on her.That independence,composure and leading ability all impress readers deeply.
　　
　　Bibliography
　　[1] Hart,James D.The Oxford Companion to American Literature[M].
　　[2] 北京:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and Oxford University Press
　　[3] Mitchell,Margaret.Gone with the Wind [M].北京:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
　　[4] 虞建华.Dictionary of American Literature.上海:复旦大学出版社
　　[5] 陶洁.灯下西窗――美国文学和美国文化[M].北京:北京大学出版社,2004年11月第一版

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