3。2 The characteristics of free indirect discourse 

As a form between direct discourse and indirect discourse, free indirect discourse is the same as indirect discourse in person and tense, but differs in introducer。 Compared to the latter, introducer does not belong to the part of free indirect discourse, which reduces the pressure in narrative context。 This form can be as direct discourse as to retain language elements that reflect the characters’ subject consciousness, such as exact words in time and place adverbial, interrogative or sigh sentence, incomplete sentences, spoken or emotional language components。 Free indirect discourse can make the narrator’s voice and the characters in the text together to be heard。 The narrator in the expression also has relatively large degree of freedom。 By the free indirect discourse, narrator can skillfully express sympathy to the characters and show the irony of the characters as well, and as a result, establishes his own narrative voice（Hu 98）。

3。3 Application of free indirect discourse

“Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton!

Oh, it couldn’t be true! The twins were mistaken。 They were playing one of their jokes on her。 Ashley couldn’t, couldn’t be in love with her。 Nobody could, not with a mousy little person like Melanie …She, Scarlett was the one he loved—she knew it” (Mitchell 18)。

In Michelle's novels Gone with the wind, the author skillfully switches in various quotations and appropriately uses advantages of all quotations。 This text appears in Chapter 2。 In the first chapter, when Scarlett was aware of the news that Ashley had been going to marry Melanie。 She was out of the blue and felt uneasy。 This text tells Scarlett’s psychology, expression, and action after the departure of the Tarleton twins。 The protagonist of description is a she, Scarlett, is the narrative character of the third person。 This paragraph in the structure has no guide words and forms of the sentence relatively free。 In the structure appear punctuation, repetition, and more exclamatory sentences。 Sentence is mostly simple sentences and short sentences。 The structure of sentence is in line with the psychology of the characters as well。 Repeated use of modal verb of couldn’t is available in the paragraph。 “Couldn’t” refers to a situation with a large possibility not to happen, which points out that Scarlett contradicts herself in her heart and shows her strong confidence in her own charm。 So why does Scarlett have such a big confidence? In the middle of this section, Scarlett lists three points of reasons: 1。 Melanie is thin and little。 She has a ordinary looking and has no female charm。 2。 Ashley and Melanie did not get along with each other for a long time。 3。 Scarlett had a thought that Ashley was in love with her。来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-

 From these three points, we can extract some information。 Firstly, this is early Scarlett's female consciousness in the relationship between men and women。 Scarlett had a view that women get men's favor by their looks and stature, which virtually put female under the perspective of male examination。 Her feminine consciousness was unawakened during this period。 Secondly, Scarlett does not know much about marriage。 She does not form a correct view of marriage。 The three points she proposed, in fact, cannot achieve the power of refutation, which are not equal to the reason why Ashley did not marry Melanie。 This view of Scarlett invisibly sees the scene of her three times of marriage tragedy。 In contrast to Scarlett’s categorically refutation and her weak argument, firstly, this shows the feeling of Scarlett’s excitement and shock with simple thinking repeated, from which we can see that Scarlett was not mature。 Secondly, it also implies the narrator's intention。 Words in the text are all the consciousness of Scarlett, and narrator standing on the sidelines。 By the way of free indirect discourse, narrator freely and skillfully expresses her irony to Scarlett, and establishes her own narrative voice。