A Female Bildungsroman? The evolution of the character of Scarlett O’Hara between Southern Belle and Anti-Heroine in Gone with the Wind.

Scarlett O’Hara is a complex and turbulent character, protagonist of Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel, Gone with the Wind, of its trials and tribulations, losses and victories. In American literature, few characters have undergone a personal and psychological journey as she has: on the background of the Civil War and the Restoration, Scarlett O’Hara defies the notions of true heroism and villainy to reach maturity and become a woman. My thesis will focus on this evolutionary journey: in particular, the character of Scarlett O’Hara will be the protagonist. In this thesis I will explore the evolution of the character of Scarlett O’Hara between the roles of Southern Belle and anti-heroine, analyzing their literary archetypes and drawing on some major critical essays written on the subject. In the opening chapter I offer some theoretical notions about the female Bildungsroman, the anti-heroine theory and the psychological approach to literature, which provide the theoretical and methodological framework of this thesis. In this regard, I present the Anglo-American Bildungsroman, its origins and variations, referring to Franco Moretti’s The Way of the World: the Bildungsroman in European Culture (1987) and Sarah Graham’s A History of the Bildungsroman (2019). Furthermore, using as main source A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, I employ Freudian and Jungian archetypes’ theories to explain the anti-heroine’s archetype in literature. Next, I introduce the plot of Gone with the Wind, both novel and movie, the controversies that emerged from its publication until more recent years, and the description of the historical background. Furthermore, through studies such as The Roots of Southern Writing: Essays on the Literature of the American South and “Clutching the Chains That Bind: Margaret Mitchell and ‘Gone with the Wind,’” I contextualize the novel in the background of the literature of the South. Finally, in the third chapter, I analyze in further detail Scarlett O’Hara’s character physical and psychological traits, making reference to the figures of the Southern Belle and the anti-heroine. In describing her role as both Southern Belle and an anti-Southern Belle I examine Kathryn Lee Seidel’s The Southern Belle in the American Novel and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’s “Scarlett O’Hara: The Southern Lady as New Woman.” Specifically, analyzing Scarlett’s behavior and the hidden motive behind her actions, I will use Freudian theories, in particular the Oedipal complex theory. At last, in conclusion of the chapter I present the four main characters of Gone with the Wind following the dichotomy Old South vs New South, in order to highlight Scarlett’s unprecedented position on the matter and explain to the reader why she represents an innovative character in every aspect. My conclusion highlights how the character of Scarlett O’Hara represents the modern anti-heroine: through an examination of the complexities of her character, I will use her coming of age, or else the failure to reach it, in order to support my theory.