A Study On Scarlett O’Hara’s Ethical Identities In Gone With The Wind

The American writer,Margret Mitchell,was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her Gone with the Wind,which helped her establish a stable place in the history of world literature.When Scarlett,the protagonist of the novel,experienced her tortuous life,her identities changed continuously,which contains abundant ethical elements.However,few scholars have paid enough attention to Scarlett’s ethical identities and their variations.Based on “ethical identity” and other relative terms in Professor Nie Zhenzhao’s ethical literary criticism,combined with the research about the relation between “ethics”and “identity” in western ethical criticism,this thesis selects Scarlett’s ethical identities as research objects,interprets their variations and analyses the behind reasons,finds out the Mitchell’s ethical intentions of those variations,through close reading.This thesis consists of five parts.Chapter One at first briefly introduces Margaret Mitchell and her novel Gone with the Wind,then conducts a literature review of this novel from abroad and home;and introduces the research about the relation between“ethics” and “identity” in western ethical criticism and Nie Zhenzhao’s ethical literary criticism as well as its term “ethical identity”,at last introduces the structure of this thesis.Chapter Two analyses the variations of Scarlett’s ethical identities concerned about marriage,money and community,including the normal states of those ethical identities and the states of those Scarlett showed out.Chapter Three probes into the reasons of those variations,including the internal reason that Scarlett’s weak ethical value and the external reason that the chaotic ethical environment.Chapter Four explores Mitchell’s ethical intentions in those ethical identities variations,including Mitchell’s concern about marital ethical crisis,criticism of war and satire on the patriarchal society.Chapter Fiveconcludes the thesis and states that Mitchell’s ethical intentions reflect her call for individual’s strong ethical value and her desire for harmonious ethical environment.Scarlett’s story is not only the reflection of Mitchell’s own life experiences but also is the mirror of the ordinary.Thus through Scarlett’s ethical identities variations,Mitchell arises readers’ attention and reflections about their ethical values and ethical environment.