A Comparative Study Of Themes: Seen From Characters In Gone With The Wind And The Thorn Birds

Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds are two love stories written in different times, in different countries. Each novel has its own unique artistic style: Gone with the Wind combines American Civil War and hard life of human beings into an organic whole. And this novel makes the tragic love story of an independent female character, setting in the background of a savage depression in American Civil War, while The Thorn Birds is an epic family saga, which vividly follows the lives, love and death of one family. Yet they have many similarities in the arrangement of the plot, the selection of the characters and the shaping of their characteristics and so on, especially in the themes they try to convey. Therefore, it is possible to make a comparative study of the two novels.As the abstract formulation of the author's vision of the meaning of life, themes are the essence of literary works. And characters are the carriers of the themes. Thus, theme and character are so closely connected that theme is the soul of a literary work and character is the form of theme. This thesis, through the analysis of the similarities and differences between the correspondent characters in the two novels, mainly concentrates on the explorations of some common themes revealed in the two novels—love and hatred, happiness and misery, life and death.Love as well as its antitheses hatred is regarded as an eternal theme in literary creation. And it has become one of the most ancient themes since the beginning of literature. For hundreds or thousands of years, the main melody of love is giving musical performance in Chinese and foreign literary history and it continuously touches the heart of the readers. With regard to the theme of love and hatred, this thesis, through the analysis of two groups of correspondent characters, Scarlett and Meggie, Ellen and Fiona, examines their love. What they pursue is the love of bosom friend which has modern consciousness. Their comprehension of love goes beyond the ages. The most brilliant and exciting parts of female images are their brave pursuit for love and their loyalty for love. Besides, happiness and misery are common themes, on which writers concentrate their affection. Joy and pain do not come alone but go in company with each other. People's views on happiness and misery will determine their attitude towards life. On the theme of happiness and misery, this paper reveals the contradiction in their inner world by analysis of the tragic love experience of two male characters, Ashley and Ralph, meanwhile makes the deeper understanding that their tragic fate originates not only inherently but also socially and historically. Life and death are also the eternal themes in literary creation. They are the two sides of a coin. They are to some extent two noblest manifestation of bravery. Concerning the theme of life and death, this thesis explores symbolism used in the two novels, analyzing the symbolic use of horse and fire in Gone with the Wind and that of the thorn bird in The Thorn Birds. Based on the analysis of symbolism in the two novels, the paper delineates the esthetics of life that expectation and pursuit are the persistence of human essence in consciousness, the approval of human desires and the sublimation of human nature.