Between Tradition And Reality

The American South is always characterized with mystery and romance, because of its special social and historical aspects. Accordingly Southern literature has also its uniqueness, which arouses the interest of many critics. So far there has been a lot of achievement concerning Southern literary research. As a matter of fact, the literature of any country or region has much to do with its culture. It is improper to see literature as isolated from culture. Therefore, by combining the literature and culture of the American South, this thesis focuses on the expression of culture in literary works and attitudes towards traditional culture as shown in the works.The thesis starts with the history of American Southern literature, followed by the introduction to the American Southern traditional culture, touching on Puritanism, family patriarchy, Cavalier heritage, Southern womanhood and land attachment, etc. Then, on the basis of the American Southern traditional culture, these texts of differently genres are chosen as research targets, namely "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, to make research on the devious fates of the characters due to their different attitudes towards traditional culture. The heroines of three texts are all Southern women, and their attitudes to traditional culture are all complicated, but Emily's final loyalty to the past, Blanche's complete, physical violation of tradition, and Scarlett's self-reliance result in their various fates, showing challenges encountered by the American Southern traditional culture in the changing society. Scarlett's success and final return to Tara tells us that one should take a dialectic attitude towards the traditional culture, which means that while we may take traditional culture as our mental support, we should also, to some extent, get rid of our illusion about tradition. In order to survive, we should constantly adapt ourselves to the changing competitive society, and find the balanced point between dream and reality. This is also the way for a society to survive in the world.