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siders others’ feelings.
What is worse, she is indifferent with Charles’ death. It is true that she is sad, but what she is sad about is not because her husband is dead, but because now she is a widow, she can no longer wear the beautiful dresses and she can not dance any more, even a greet to young men is forbidden. She only cares for herself!
Scarlet’s marriage with Frank is an example of her individuality. For Scarlet, “In such kind of society, as one’s aim, people pay much more attention to achieve one’s own goal. One’s own desire is much more important than that of the responsibility to the traditional society.” [11] She does not love Frank either, but in order to save Tara, she sacrifices herself and marries him. Because she needs the money to pay for the taxes on Tara, and Frank happens to be the only person except for Rhett who has the amount of money. In other words, if other people have the amount of money, she will also choose him. And she has no feeling towards Frank, worse still, she used to despise him. And she is independent even when she marries Frank. Taking the advantage of her husband’s illness, she is in charge of the business. And she no longer respects her husband, but manages everything by herself. She cares nothing of what her husband tells her and even employs black slaves and prisoners to save money. She becomes a successful businesswoman since now on and cares nothing what other people criticize on her. In other words, she is just self-centered.
Scarlet’s marriage with Rhett is another example of individuality. Without caring of others’ criticism, she only thinks for herself. And she is quite rebellious because she accepts Rhett’s proposal of marriage just when she becomes a widow. However, her marriage with Rhett is a tragedy. Although she chooses the marriage by herself, she does not realize that Rhett is the man who she really loves. Worse still, it is too late for her to realize it. Before the reorganization, she takes advantages of him very much without considering Rhett’s feeling. Finally she finds that Rhett is the man who she loves heartily, however, it is too late—Rhett already loses heart and leaves her. But Scarlet is strong and confident that through her persistent trying, Rhett will come back to her in the end.
While Xinbi’s attitude towards men is completely different from that of Starlet. According to a Japanese scholar: “A woman should treat her husband as God, and she should serve him with the highest sense of religion and respect. The most important responsibility for a woman, or in other words, the last-for-ever responsibility is obedience.”[12]
Xinbi is a traditional minded Chinese woman. She is dependent on Jiren and worships him as the God of her. She never says no to her husband. Even some time Jiren complains about something to her, she never feels ashamed or angry. To the contrary, she enjoys it. Since the day Jiren saves her, she is dependent on him. To him, “she has no views or wishes, she prefers to agree to other people’s opinions.’’ [13]
In fact, Xinbi’s worship towards Jiren comes into a pathological state—she has been married to Jiren for many years and does many things, such as giving birth to children, keep the house and so on. She is alike childish at the presence of Jiren. What is more, she hopes that her husband can teach her something. If it is wretched scamp, Xinbi admits it happily. [14] (进济仁家这么多年，为他生儿育女，操持家务，也算是个能干要强的女人了，就是在济仁脱不了孩子气，只盼着他天天把她放在嘴里教训着、点拨着才好。如果说这是“贱”的话，心碧可是心甘情愿认了这份贱)
Compared with Scarlet’s individuality, Dong Xinbi’s love is just for dependence, and she always cares so much about the traditional views that she is hesitate to accept men’s love towards her. She only marries to Jiren and never gets married again.
After Jiren’s death in the beginning of the war; she feels so tired and empty that she needs Shen Chen to depend on. But as a traditional Chinese woman, she cares so much of what other people might comment on her that she is hesitate to accept Shen Chen’s love. When she finally chooses to accepts, but it is too late because Shen Chen passes away.
Besides Dong Jiren, Xue Muzi is the man Xinbi depends on and loves. However, because of Xinbi’s traditional view of love, she always hesitates to receive his love, and because she wants to be a good mother, they depart at last.
Different from Scarlet’s active attitudes towards love, Xinbi is passive. The traditional Chinese woman always hesitates to accept the love and finally misses it.
4.2 Attitude towards children
Scarlet maybe is the Satan to her children because she does not love them, what she cares is only herself and money. Wade, her first and only son, Scarlet “had not wanted him and she resented his coming, and, now that he was here, it did not seem possible that he was hers, a part of her.” [15] “Ella! It annoyed Scarlet to realize that Ella was a silly child but she was undoubtedly was.” [16] Bonnie is her and Rh上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 下一页
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