《飘》英语读书报告

Title: Gone With The Wind About the Title: The title of Gone with the Wind is taken from the first line of the third stanza of the poem Non sum ,uails eram bonae sub regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson: “I have forgotten much, Cynara! Gone with the wind.” The title phrase also appears in the novel: When Scarlett of French-Irish ancestry escapes the bombardment of Atlanta by Northern forces; she flees back to her family’s plantation, Tara. At one point, she wondered, “Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?” The title is beautiful, gone with the wind, everything, like the old traditional South, like Melanie, like the slave system and Scarlett’s love to Ashley… Author: Margaret Mitchell About the author: Margaret Mitchell, an American woman writer in the South, was born on November 8, 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, where she lived all her life. Her mother was a suffragist, father a prominent lawyer and president of the Atlanta Historical Society. Mitchell grew up listening to stories about old Atlanta and the battles the confederate Army had fought there during the American Civil War. At the age of fifteen she wrote in her journal: “If I were a boy, I would try for West Point, if I could make it, or well I’d be a prize fighter.” Mitchell graduated from the local Washington Seminary and started in 1918 to study medicine at Smith College. In her youth Mitchell adopted her mother’s feminist leanings which clashed with her father’s conservatism, but she lived fully the Jazz age and wrote about it in nonfiction, like in her article ‘Dancers Now Drown Out Even the Cowbell’ in he Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine. When Mitchell’s mother died in 1919, she returned to home to keep house for her father and brother. In 1922 she married Berrien Kennard Upshaw. The disastrous marriage was climaxed by spousal rape and was annulled in 1924. Mitchell started her career as a journalist in 1922 under the name Peggy Mitchell, writing articles, interviews, sketches, and book reviews for the Atlanta Journal. Four years later she resigned after an ankle injury. Her second husband, John Robert Marsh, an advertising manager, encouraged Mitchell in her writing aspirations. From 1926 to 1929 she wrote Gone with the Wind, the novel took her nearly ten years. She never thought that so many people favor it even now. The book broke sales records, the New Yorker praised it and the poet and critic John Crowe Ransom admired “the architectural persistence behind the big work” but criticized the book as overly Southern, particularly in its treatment of Reconstruction. Malcolm Cowley’s disdain in his review originated partly from the book’s popularity. John Peale Bishop dismissed the novel as merely “One more of those 1000 page novels, competent but neither very good nor very sound.” But in these opponents’ sounds, the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Although Gone with the Wind brought Mitchell fame and a tremendous fortune, it seems to have brought little joy. Chased by the press and public, the author and her husband lived modestly and traveled rarely. Also questions about the book’s literary status and racism, historical view and depiction of the Klux Klan, which had many similarities with D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915), led to critical neglect that continued well in the 1960s. Griffith’s film was based on the Reverend Thomas Dixon’s racist play; the author was a great admirer of Mitchell and wanted to write a study of her novel. In Atlanta the Klan kept a high profile and had it national headquarters in the 1920s on the same street, where Mitchell lived. During World War II, Mitchell was a volunteer selling war bonds and volunteer for the American Red Cross. She was named honorary citizen of Vimoutiers, France, in 1949, for helping the city obtain American aid after World War II. Mitchell died in Atlanta on August 16, 1949. She was struck by a speeding car while crossing Peachtree Street. Summary of the article: The novel is set in North Georgia at the time of the American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865 and beyond when the Southern plantation owners fought the northern Yankees for the right to own slaves. They lost the war, suffered innumerable losses of life in the process, and the romantic plantation life depicted in the early chapters of the novel is utterly destroyed. During this period the characters in the novel undergo the transition from a carefree playful life of picnics and parties (underlain by the hard graft of their slaves) to one of hand-to-mouth living and hard physical labour, and finally, back to prosperity. The body is made up of four chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction of Margaret Mitchell’s life, the traditional Southern Womanhood and the feminist. Margaret Mitchell is a woman writer. She has strong feminism. We can get it from the novel, especially from Scarlett. Chapter Two to Chapter Four described the life of Scarlett before war, in the war and after war. These three chapters analyze how Scarlett completes her transformation from 16 years old girl deeply influenced by traditional Southern Womanhood to a serious-minded and far-sighted woman. and compared Sarlett with Melanie～they are quite different girls, and those differences make their life very different, any way, attitude is everything. The novel named Gone with the Wind. And Melanie is the wind; she is traditional, graceful and tolerant. The old South has gone with the wind, and so Melanie. Scarlett was not, she is new, and she is decisive and firm. She is quite an opponent of the old South. New American comes, and so Scarlett. The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis and reiterates the main viewpoint: her transformations connected closely with her three stages of life. She is increasingly maturing and in the end becomes a new Southern woman with strong feminism leanings. When we faced with difficulties we will call the memories of Scarlett and her words to the world “Tomorrow is another day”! Review: Gone with the Wind, written by Margaret Mitchell has been one of the bestsellers and popular with the reader ever since its publication in 1936. It is her first and only long novel. The writer not only created a myth, but also shows her own personal charm to the world. In 70 years since 1936, the novel was wide spread and well received. It was considered as a very classic work. But many opponents do not agree with that. In their eyes the novel will never have the chance to enter the scared palace of American literature and Scarlett O’Hara the protagonist in the novel is an extremely selfish, vain, and merciless woman who will not hesitate to resort to any means in order to reach her ends. But as time passed, the novel spread more and more widely, sweeps the world and has aroused interest of a large number of fascinated viewers. And the readers more and more favored the heroine Scarlett. There are four main characters in the novel, all introduced very early on of whom. Scarlett O’Hara is a spoilt society beauty with “bristling black eyelashes” – I love this description! – which she uses to charm men. She lives with her sisters and parents on their plantation estate with dozens of slaves, including Mammy, their black housekeeper who is regarded (as much as was possible at that time) part of the family and plays an important role in Scarlett’s life. The storyline centres around Scarlett’s life at the time of the civil war and the other characters which interact with her. Rhett Butler is a dashing renegade, the man who is rumoured to have ruined a woman (whispered in shocked tones among Scarlett’s companions). He is described as having “absurdly tiny feet” which Scarlett admires – an interestingly dated concept - certainly I don’t look for my men to have SMALL feet…! Melanie Hamilton is a fellow society girl, generous, well respected and sensible. Scarlett despises her for being wishy washy and pathetically feminine. Ashley Wilkes is the good guy, respected throughout the neighbourhood, the Luke Skywalker to Rhett’s Han Solo. He’s the object of Scarlett’s affections, yet engaged to be married to Melanie. When Scarlett discovers this fact she throws a vase across a library, nearly decapitating Rhett in the process. The book starts with the heroine of the piece, 17 year old Miss Scarlett O’Hara flirting to the best of her capacity with the handsome Tarleton twins on the porch of Tara, her plantation house home, and berating the seriousness of the impending war because it ruins her capacity to have fun, attend parties and have beaux. I mention this first page because it encapsulates the very nature of the entire novel. Scarlett O’Hara is a spoilt, selfish beauty with enormous power to manipulate men and a desire for the good things in life. Knowing this, you can see why she makes some of her seemingly ridiculous choices throughout the novel. Throughout the novel Scarlett makes some appalling decisions, such as marrying the shy, nervous Charles Hamilton (Melanie’s brother) for spite because Ashley dared to marry Melanie. She quickly finds that married life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and that she can no-longer flirt to her heart’s content. Matters are made even worse when Charles dies while at war, and Scarlett is doomed to years of widowhood, wearing black and no dancing. Worse than this even, she is pregnant with her first child, a fact she despises. However, Scarlett is not one to be held down for long and she quickly rebels against the constraints the society imposes by both dancing and wearing brightly coloured clothing (at Rhett’s impetus) while still in mourning. Later on when the guns of war come close around Scarlett and her comrades she shows surprising resilience and strength, delivering Melanie’s baby single-handed amid the sacking of Atlanta, and taking on the responsibility of managing Tara. She proves to be a sound and resourceful businesswoman, who can make difficult decisions when they are needed. You can’t help but like Scarlett. She’s hopelessly selfish, vain, manipulative, deluded and foolish, but she’s also an extremely vivacious, loyal and strong character who can be relied upon to say and do just exactly what she thinks, regardless of the impact on other people. Again and again through the novel you find yourself thinking “noooooo don’t do that” but you know she’s going to do it anyway. Rhett Butler is the perfect foil to her exuberance and wilfulness, and though immensely frustrating to Scarlett, proves to be the only man who can help her at certain points through the novel. The book is very dramatic, and very much of the era, though written 60 years after the events it describes. For example, racism and snobbery is blatant and frustrating to a modern reader, but this just serves to evoke the period more accurately. The strictures imposed on the life which Scarlett and her companions live in is a key feature of the novel, and the gathering rebellion against these constraints a parallel with the emancipation of the slaves.