Nature And Woman:An Ecofeminist Reading Of Gone With The Wind

In Gone with the Wind,Margaret Mitchell recounts the tortuous love story between Scarlett and Rhett,and the story of how Scarlett and Melanie,on behalf of the southern women,fight and reconstruct their home in the context of the deep catastrophe brought to the South by the American Civil War.In Gone with the Wind,women and nature are closely related to each other.Women are careful and lucky talisman of nature.In turn,nature is also a refuge and a source of strength for women.They are mutually consoled and dependent on each other.By shaping Scarlett's strong character and personality,Mitchell reveals the women's awakening awareness rising in difficult situations and their inalienable ties with nature,which reflects the author's eco-feminist consciousness.The purpose of this essay is to probe into the ecological consciousness of women in Gone with the Wind.Research shows that the novel presents a relationship between man and nature that are interrelated and caring.The interrelated and mutual love exists between nature and human beings as well as between nature and women.It is such an ethical view of being interrelated,caring and interdependent that ensures the harmonious relation and development between mankind and nature,thus we can see that the work emphysizes the importance of the harmony between mankind and nature and also reflects that Mitchell is a writer who bears a correct understanding of ecofeminism from the introduction of this grand story under the background of the Civil War.The paper consists of five parts.The first part is an introduction,which contains the introduction of the author and her work Gone with the Wind,the literature review,the theoretical foundation of the research---the concepts related to ecofeminism,and also the purpose and significance of the research in this paper.The second part introduces the symbolic connection between women and nature in Gone with the Wind,which is mainly illustrated from the perspective of the inseparable relation between the females and nature as well as between mankind and nature revealed in ecofeminist concepts.The symbolic connection is demonstrated by the fact that nature is feminized while females are naturalized in this novel and they are mutually intermingled and inseparable.The third part reveals the experiential relationship between the females and nature in Gone with the Wind,and the mutually consoled and interdependent relationship between the females and nature mainly from the introduction of the hard experiences and fate of the women and nature during war period,thereby,uncovers that the patriarchal culture is the root of the tragic fate of women and nature.The fourth part analyzes the necessity of combination of the natural world and feminist spirits,and also the guarding significance towards female issue and environmental problems in the real world from the social aspect and personal aspect of the main female characters in the novel.Finally,the thesis comes to a natural,conclusion---Gone with the Wind is a representative text with rich analytical potential in the construction of ecofeminist literary criticism.The study on a classical work such as Gone with the Wind from the perspective of ecofeminism helps to make more contributions to the study of works and at the same time gives many other scholars an insight into the other texts from such a perspective.The interpretation of the tragic fate of the main female characters in Gone with the Wind in this theoretical light makes us realize that the patriarchal culture is the source of the tragedy of the main female figures.Therefore,we should pay attention to women's survival and ecological crisis,and in the meantime,respect women,love nature and build a society in which people live in harmony with nature and with themselves.