《飘》是美国现代女作家玛格丽特.米歇尔于1936年发表的一部长篇通俗小说,也是其一生唯一的一部长篇小说,《飘》问世70多年来,被广泛流传并受到广泛的好评,不失为一部旷世经典之作。然而《飘》所走过的路程却并不是一帆风顺的,在许多批评家看来,《飘》不能被称为一部优雅的艺术之作,甚至不能进入美国文学的神圣殿堂。小说的女主人公斯佳丽被他们描绘成一个极度自私、爱慕虚荣、冷酷无情、为达目的不择手段的女性。但是,经过

that once the war is over, she will never be hungry again, and takes strength from this vow. She grasps the reins of authority and tries to turn the place around. She finds that some of her neighbors were out of the path of the Yankees and they share with her all that they can spare…after a few days, their life became a little better, but still hard. Scarlett forces her family and the slaves to tend fields and pick cotton, every member in the family afraid of her, but Melanie gave her totally understanding, and help her a lot.

During the war, Ashley joined the war and soon lost all his information. Rhett abandons Scarlett and Melanie on the road back to Tara to fight for the South. Without their help scarlet shouldered all the responsibilities by her own and lived indomitably…

3.2 Scarlett’s Capability of Changing with Times

It is obviously that the North is much more stronger than the South, the North has more stronger weapon, more people, more skillful technology, earlier or later, they will win, but many southerners do not accept the fact, and they fail to realize that their ideal is out of date and must be remolded to correspond to the new conditions of the social environment. However, Scarlett is wiser and more flexible in the new environment. Unlike her sisters, she didn t stay in the sadness of war, but work hard to live better, she knew that she was no longer the princess of Tara. When every Southerner give up include Ashley, she didn t, she knew deeply that her old way of life in Tara can not survive in the new world. No longer an idle and pampered girl as she has been in Tara, she has to spend much time in nursing the wounded and rolling the bandages for the South. Before the War, she lives at Tara, trying to adhere to old Southern values. In Atlanta, she begins to defy the rules that society has impressed upon her since her birth. She makes a bold move and dances in public as a widow, which marks her first step in defiance of Atlanta s social expectations. In the war time, Scarlett lived no more like the life she lived before the war, she shouldered the responsibility to take care of Melanie, and also shouldered all the responsibility to take care of all her family when she returned to Tara, her thoughts and actions change greatly, hardships in reality and changes in society make her realize overnight that she is no longer a spoiled woman dependent on other people and, instead, the other people are dependent on her.

To Scarlett it seemed that at every turn she met outstretched hands, pleading eyes.

After her return to Tara from Atlanta, she violates all the rules of conduct laid on Southern young ladies. On the night of the fall of Atlanta, though exhausted from the