1。3。1 The social backgrounds of Gone with the Wind 

Gone with the Wind is set upon the American Civil War and it depicts the most important period of Scarlett O’Hara, during which Scarlett changes from a naive and rebellious girl before the war into an independent and perseverant woman after the war。 

From April of 1861 to April of 1865, there was a famous war between the American north and the south。 The leader of the north is the bourgeoisie while the fighting group of the south is slave holders。 At the mid of 19th century, the north was at great speed of industrialization and developing capital economy while the south was seemed to be isolated from the outside world by its peaceful plantation life。 Compared with the violent outside world, the south people were enjoying and idyllic life。 Beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen were singing and dancing at the parties which were held on their plantations。 Their ignorance and indifference to the outside world led to the last prosperity of the south plantations。 The urgent need of large quantities of labors for the north industry became conflicted with the south slavery, which became the barrier of American economy’s development and finally triggered the famous American Civil War。 Though at the onset of the war the advantage seemed to lay with the south, there was a large gap between the military strength of two sides。 Just as Rhett Butler said, “there was not a cannon factory south of the Mason- Dixon Line; there were few iron foundries or woolen mills or cotton factories or tanneries, and not a single warship in the south and that the Yankee fleet could bottle up the south harbors in a week so that the south could not sell their cotton abroad。” (Mitchell, 2015:105) The only things the south held were cotton and arrogance。 Therefore, the defeat of the south was undoubted。 After the war, the prosperity and peaceful life in plantations were gone, and only large areas of wastelands and tragedies of broken families remained。 论文网

Before the war, the southern society was like a pyramid, the top of which was the owners of plantations and the bottom of which was black slaves。 The interesting thing was that the black slaves of big and rich plantations were apt to contempt poorer blacks and even the poor white。

Liu (2010: 15) also points out, "To feminists, the south society was not only a slave society but also a patriarchal society, in which men were the definite dominance of women。 The southern plantation owners demanded absolute devotion of all their subordinates: slaves, children, and white women"。 There was no classic education required for a man as long as he was smart in the things that mattered, such as raising cotton, dancing, riding and drinking。 As for a girl, the first duty was to get married。 "Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, white and black, and they were trained that in a view。" (Mitchell, 2015:55) It seemed that women were born to serve for men。 To attract men, the southern women should appear demure, pliable and scatterbrained。 To please men, girls had to be ignorant and never gentlemen when they were speaking, even if they did think they know more about matters than they did, because gentlemen didn’t like forward girls。 To honor men, the southern women need to manage the property the men owned while the credit for the management was for the men and women should even praised their cleverness。 

Obviously, Scarlett O’Hara was not a real traditional lady in public minds。 Her rebellious spirit had shown when she was a young girl and through the disastrous war, she was totally freed and grew into an independent lady。 

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