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Gone with the Wind is a popular novel by Margaret Mitchell, featuring the character of Scarlett O’Hara during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The book’s success led to a film adaptation, and while it is a love story, it also portrays the hardships of the South during this time. Scarlett’s character is complex and flawed, but her determination to keep her family alive is admirable. However, the book has been criticized for its racism and advocacy of slavery. Despite this, it remains a bestseller and is known for its unique anti-heroine character.
Gone with the Wind is a 1936 novel written by American writer Margaret Mitchell, which introduced the character of Scarlett O’Hara, a rather selfish, stubborn and not altogether sympathetic character to the world. The novel quickly became a best seller and is now, by many accounts, one of the most popular and best-selling books in the world. Though set during the Civil War and Reconstruction of the Deep South, Gone with the Wind is not simply a historical narrative of what happened, but also a love story, a character study, and a distinctly Southern point of view on the Confederacy. , slavery and Reconstruction .
The book’s popularity was so high that there was still demand for a film version of Gone with the Wind. Most readers and film critics were immensely pleased with the 1939 Oscar-winning film adaptation. It too remains a classic among films, and is very popular.
Broadly speaking, the book follows the character of Scarlett O’Hara, daughter of a wealthy Southern landowner, Gerald O’Hara, as she endures the Civil War and Southern Reconstruction that followed. Scarlett harbors a passion for her neighbor Ashley Wilkes, who marries her cousin Melanie. In retaliation, Scarlett marries Melanie’s brother Charles, who dies before he even sees combat in the war. Scarlett is then a widow with a baby on the way and moves in with Melanie, doing her best to hide her hatred and her jealousy of Melanie’s sweet and pure nature.
While Ashley is on leave, he clearly shows that he is not without feelings for Scarlett which indeed keeps Scarlett wanting Ashley for most of the novel. Though she cherishes these feelings, she remarries after the war, stealing her sister Suellen’s longtime boyfriend Frank Kennedy, and when he is killed, marries Rhett Butler, a handsome and not-too-respectable former block runner who has been flirting with Scarlett and he proposed to her numerous times throughout the novel. Their relationship is stormy and in many ways they are extremely suitable for each other. Scarlett fails to realize her love for Rhett until after Melanie’s death, and Rhett leaves her at the end of the book, with Scarlett finally more self-aware and less selfish than she’s ever been.
Gone with the wind is not, as mentioned, just a love story. Scarlett O’Hara’s life and loves are contrasted against the backdrop of the Civil War raging in the South. Mitchell describes the deprivation, starvation, and subsequent violation of most Southerners’ rights through the Reconstructive efforts. Scarlett is not a fan of war. She finds it awkward and hates her duties as her nurses. However, she bears her burdens well and when she returns to her, Tara’s home, she manages to provide food for her sisters, Melanie, the remaining ex-slaves and her ailing father. As irritating as Scarlet may be, her willingness to shoulder her burdens and fight to keep her family alive must be somewhat admirable, even if her methods are sometimes despicable.
There are some problems with Gone with the Wind, which the reader will no doubt immediately find. Mitchell feeds his narrative of events with a distinctly prejudicial perspective. He defends slavery as an admirable system, argues for the importance of the Ku Klux Klan, and has used the “N” word on several occasions. The book certainly shows some respect for blacks, but only as guardians for whites. More appropriate is Mitchell’s description of Reconstruction, which according to most historians is a fairly balanced view of the atrocities and inherent injustice of the treatment of Southerners after the war. There is a certain precision hidden beneath a veil of consistent bias, which may not make Gone with the Wind any less palatable to modern readers.
Despite the significant racism and advocacy of slavery, Gone with the Wind has long been a bestseller and it might be hard to explain. Perhaps a reasonable explanation is that the novel works best as a dramatic character and that Scarlett’s character is unique enough to be complex and a blend of likeability and detestability. She certainly has her predecessors in fictional characters like Moll Flanders and Becky Sharp, and Mitchell’s consistency in exposing Scarlett’s flaws works to make for a character of considerable weight: an anti-heroine in many respects.
