Abstract：Margaret Mitchell enjoys a great reputation in the literature history with her famous work Gone with the wind, a novel describes a group of Southern people who have gone through the Civil war and reconstruction times. It is an excellent material to study the Southern culture as well as Southern literature. The author Mitchell creates a lot of vivid characters which impress the readers as they have completely different personalities. Through it is a novel and all character are fictive, it does bring some thinking to us in real life because art is from life. We can observe these characters’ reactions to the big changes in their lives and how they grow from what have occurred to them. They all go through the Civil war and the reconstruction period, but they end up in different conditions, both mentally and materially. Before the Civil war, they all enjoy a luxury and decent life as classical Southern ladies and gentlemen, but the war deprives all they have and make these people start from zero. Some of them make a great fortune and prove themselves to be insightful and flexible, while some break down, have to depend on others and can’t get out of their mourning to the old days. In this essay, I will first analyze three major characters——Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, in terms of their personality in great details. Through these analyses, I hope to find their essential personalities which walk them through the changes. In part two, I will continue working on the analysis of their respectful destinies and their relation with characters’ personalities. After all these discussions, I will come to a conclusion concentrating on whether their personalities have led to their respective destinies. Through this study, we can form an idea of what is the essential quality that contributes to people’s survival during the changing period, and how important the roles are that personalities play in people’s destines.
Key words: character, destiny, southern culture
中文摘要：玛格丽特.米切尔凭借她的名著《飘》在文学史上享有盛誉。这部小说描写了一群经历了南北战争和南方重建的南方民众，对于南方文化和南方文学的研究是不可多得的宝贵题材。作者米切尔创造了一系列让读者印象深刻的人物，他们血肉丰满，性格鲜明。虽然这是一部小说，其中人物也是虚构的，但是也为我们带来了一些现实生活中的思考，因为艺术源自生活。我们可以看到人物们如何面对生活中的巨变，如何由此成长。他们都经历了战争和重建，但是最后却命运迥异，在精神上和物质上都是如此。在战前，作为典型的南方绅士和淑女，他们都过着奢华而体面的生活，但是战争却夺走了他们的一切，逼迫他们从零开始。有些人大发其财，证明了自己具有远见卓识，善于生存，有些人却濒于崩溃，不得不依靠他人，沉浸在对过去岁月的缅怀中无法自拔。本文中，首先我会在第一部分中从性格层面对三个主要人物——斯佳丽.奥哈拉，瑞德.巴特勒，阿什利.威尔克斯进行详细分析，通过这些分析，找到人物身上伴随他们走过动荡时期的核心性格。在第二部分，我会继续分析他们各自不同的命运，以及他们命运和性格之间的联系。经过这些讨论，可以从而得出性格是否导致了他们不同命运的结论。通过此研究，我们可以了解什么是帮助人们在动荡时期生存的关键品质，以及它们在人们命运中起到何等关键的作用。
关键词：性格，命运，南方文化
