Symbolic Meaning of the Land in Gone with the Wind

Symbolic Meaning on the Land in Gone with the Wind

Abstract: The study of Gone with the Wind has mainly concerned with such aspects as the historical background of the American Civil War, the relationship between slave owners and slaves, Scarlett’s remarkable personality, and the conflicts between north and south cultures. Many more people read it as a love story. This thesis aims at analyzing the symbolic meaning of the land in this masterpiece to interpret this novel better. With application of sociology of novels the land is conferred with the protagonist Scarlett’s love for the Tara, the power of kinship, the slavery civilization of southern America and the spiritual world of human beings as well as the reliance on it for the modern American.

Key words: land; Tara; sociology of novels; slavery civilization; spiritual world

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3

Chapter 2 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………...4

2.1 Brief Introduction of Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind………………………4

2.2 Previous Researches of Gone with the Wind…………………………………………….4

2.3 The Views about Sociology of Novels…………………………………………………..5

Chapter 3 Narrative Analysis of the Land……………………………………………………...7

3.1 Contextual Meaning of the Land………………………………………………………..7

3.2 Social Emotions of Novels of the Land…………………………………………………8

3.3 Social Function of Novels of the Land……………………………………………...…..9

3.4 Living Circumstances of Novels of the Land…………………………………………..11

3.4.1 Spiritual Symbolic Meaning of the Land………………………………………….11

3.4.2 Social Symbolic Meaning of the Land…………………………………………….12

Conclusions...………………………………………………………………………………....14

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………..15

Chapter 1 Introduction

Gone with the Wind was written by the American woman novelist Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) and published in 1936 which has been introduced to China about fifty years. Since now, it has been appreciated not only by the books, but also the movies which have been prevailing for a long time.

However, the influence of Gone with the Wind in the mass has been much stronger than that in American literature history. Even in Marcus Cunliffe’s The Literature of the United States there isn’t listed this masterpiece. Chinese students can’t get touch with this book through their textbooks. The movie Gone with the Wind has played a much more important role to exhibit this work than the book. The movie only lasts for three hours which is not far enough to express the original ideas of Margaret Mitchell comprehensively and deeply. The American Civil War was fighting for the slavery system in the south. But in common sense all readers in the world of this book have been impressed with the charming scene of the prosperous landscape of the prewar South ignoring the evil and cruel exploitation. It seems that this book defending for the slavery is contradicted to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. As a result, there hasn’t been any book to study Gone with the Wind.

No doubt that Gone with the Wind has achieved fabulous success. The domestic and abroad scholars have studied on its everlastingly artistic charm widely and deeply. Gone with the wind is famous for describing the vivid characters, portraying the typical