美国文学学期作业（2016-2017学年度第一学期）年级：姓名：学号：论文成绩：An Analysis of Scarlett’s Character inGone with the WindA war swallowed a beautiful woman, a perfect family and a love. Everything seemed to be a dream, going with the wind.Recently,I have just finished reading a famous novel written by Margaret Mitchell—Gone with the Wind,which is one of the most popular works among American novels.It took the author about 10years.Gone with the Wind is one of the most popular American novels. W hen it was published, its sales broke many records among the publishing circles, and it is famous all over the world. The novel mainly describes th e life of Scarlett who is the daughter of Tara’s master during the American 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. Not only the rich content of the novel but also the complex plots and the contradictions between the figures of t he novel have an important artistic effect on shaping the characters in the novel. Among all the roles, Scarlett, is the most successful one who is full of conflicting and complicated features.Before the Civil War, spoiled and beautiful Scarlett is a proud prince ss. She is also naïve and carefree for she is brought up in a rich family, in which they have many large fertile fields to grow cottons and many slave s that work for them. It is no necessary for her to think about anything butjust to dress in new costumes to attract the sights of the boys and to join t he balls.Wherever she goes, she is always the focus and center among the young girls, and she is adored by many men, which irritates the other girl s. So she gradually becomes a girl who is coddled, undisciplined, egotisti c, fractious and narcissistic. She believes every man around the village will fall in love with her, and she can‟t endure the talk without a topic of her. But her self-centered and exclusive character causes the tragedies of her love. After her failure to confess to Ashley, she doesn’t fall down or le ave away which shows her courage for life at the first time.With the outbreak of the war, she loses everything she owns. In the summer of 1864, Sherman starts to attack Atlanta and everyone is fleeing the city. But Scarlett has to stay at Atlanta with Melanie for she has made a promise to Ashley to look after Melanie who is going into labor，she even braves the life danger to escort Melanie and her newly-born baby to go back to Tara in the flames of war. Her kindnessconquers theselfishness, which shows her nice aspect. She is so horrible but she sticks to go back home, but what she sees in Tara is only the endless loneliness and desolation.The war absolutely changes the way of her life and her affectionate h omestead, Tara. Scarlett can‟t lead a life comfortably as a child any more , for the reason that no one can protect her from threat. Scarlett changes h er concepts for the new life. She lays down her position of a lady of noblebirth and changes her concepts of the old Southern life. She wants to fee d her family and herself through her own work, which shows her realistic character towards life. When her sisters and the house servants complain, Scarlett even works in the fields of Tara herself to ensure a good harvest o f cotton. To her, the memory of hunger is clearer than the memory of brai n. She vows her famous line, "As God as my witness I will never be hung ry again.”The transition of the living environment is the exterior reason for Sc arlett‟s changing her character, which causes Scarlett‟s distinctive charac ter. Before the war, Scarlett lives in the traditional and conservative planta tion and the life style forms her plantation master‟s character of loving la nd than anything else in the world and her rebellious character spontaneo usly. She leads an extremely poor life during and after the war, and that a bominable environment molds her character to confront the reality bravel y; and her independence and selfishness to overcome difficulties. The rich life experience before war; the unstable life during the war and the extre mely poor life after war provide the foundation to form the character of S carlett. And thus in such environment, Scarlett’s character can be complic ated.Scarlett has the strong courage to face fresh and blood and to overco me difficulties, but this wish of independence is not accepted by the socie ty at that time. But in modern society, Scarlett is definitely an independent female who has strong will. She has the spirit of not admitting failure ev en it is at present.Scarlett is a hybrid who exhibits more of her Irish father’s hard-headedness than her mother’s refined Southern manners. Although initially she tries to behave prettily, her instincts rise up against social restrictions. Scarlett’s mother Ellen and Mammy also teach her all that a gentlewoman should know, but Scarlett never learns nor does she see any reason for learning it. Scarlett shows her distain for the artificial manners. She does as what she says with the development of the novel. Scarlett does not like the other girls at that time, who lead a life of waiting, they wait for men’s allegiance and acceptance; they wait for love and they wait for appreciation and compliment. Scarlett is completely different from them at all; instead, she strives for love and happiness actively. Her action is not different from the modern people.Scarlett hates the rules of the society. When she becomes a widow who has to wear black weeds and can’t show her face in the public, she is very displeased. After the war, in order to rebuild and protect Tara, she even goes outside to manage a sawmill herself and does other business successfully. People at that time can’t endure women to appear in public for earning money, and the men can’t tolerate the women who can defeat them. But Scarlett disregards of what people say, but just does what she believes.As f or Scarlett’ view of love and marriage spends most of her life being adored and loved by others. Wherever she goes, she is always the center and focus among the girls. Although she marries three times, she never understands the meaning of love or gets the true love. Scarlett divides love and marriage into two parts, which proves that she is a character full of contradictory and complexity. In the novel, Scarlett has been thinking that she loves Ashley and some decisions she made are also related with Ashley. However, she never considers marriage as a serious matter but just treats it as a play game, and she marries with the men she doesn’t love just in order to resolve living problems.Life is filled with various contradictions, and when a contradiction is over; another is coming, so the plots of the story will develop further and the portrayed image will be more charming.As readers, in my opinion, we don’t browse it, but peruse mind of it and apperceive it. To learn how to depict a character and to deliver a mind though the character is what we should do after perusing it.。