Scarlett O'Holy-Crap-What-Did I-Just-Read
My thoughts after reading Gone with the Wind for the first time.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Historical context
At the beginning of the year, I challenged myself to read some large, intimidating classic novels that had been gathering dust on my bookshelf. Last month, I tackled Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This month, I selected Gone with the Wind, the controversial and Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Georgia writer Margaret Mitchell.
Growing up in North Georgia, it was impossible to bat your way clear of the all-enveloping circumference of Scarlett O’Hara’s hoop skirts. Middle school Civil War or Georgia study units inevitably included a viewing of the 1939 film. (At least, in the 1990s, they did. Whoops, I just dated myself.) When I moved to Maryland in 2012, I was called “Scarlett” on multiple job interviews due to my Southern accent. Cringe. To be fair, I probably responded to that with a Vivian-Leigh-approved eyebrow arch.
Upon its publication in 1936, Gone with the Wind garnered intense controversy. Critics praised and castigated the story alike. Although this doorstop of a book debuted into the Great Depression, within five months, it had sold one million copies. In 1937, Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize, and by 1939, the film starring Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh debuted in Atlanta and became the top-grossing movie of all time, when figures are adjusted for inflation. At the time, the film earned 390 million worldwide. Today, that amounts to approximately one billion, 800 million dollars, meaning it out-earned Avatar and Titanic in their time.
Gone with the Wind starred Hattie McDaniel, the first African American woman to win an Oscar. Although criticized for playing the role of a slave, Hattie is considered by many to be a trail-blazer in Hollywood, at a time when unfortunately few leading roles existed for African American actors. At the time of the filming, segregation had taken vicious root in the United States. McDaniel and her peers could not even attend the premier, and McDaniel had to get “special permission” to attend the Oscars, despite being an award recipient. Sadly, her Oscar trophy has been missing for 50 years.
In modern times, Gone with the Wind generates discussion and controversy, just as it did upon publication. The book has been banned in some school districts due to its sanitized depiction of slavery. Interestingly, it was also banned in some districts for the “immoral behavior” of its heroine. (While concerns about down-playing slavery did not surprise me, the criticism of female immorality was unexpected.) Recently, HBO Max removed the film from its library until a content warning label could be applied.
Last month, headlines stirred when an old script of the movie surfaced, revealing that some slavery scenes had been cut. And as recently as last week, the book’s publisher announced that upcoming printings would include a content trigger warning and an introduction by famous novelist Philippa Gregory addressing “white supremist elements of the novel.” The new introduction would replace the current one, written by late Southern author Pat Conroy.
Somehow, despite being nearly 100 years old, both film and book remain relevant in public and academic discourse.
Often on bookstagram, content creators quip about a book being intimidating if it is “over-hyped.” Needless to say, Gone with the Wind fits the description. For years, I shied away from reading this tome, not because of its length, but because of the tremendous controversy and iconic status of the story. Yet, as I stared at my bookshelf, I decided “you know what? Why not? I’ll read it and see for myself.” Rather like every one of Scarlett’s hapless suitors, I had no idea what I was getting into.
Synopsis and my general thoughts
My edition of Gone with the Wind encompasses 959 pages. Woof. I read it over the course of two weeks, which for me, is a long time. I think I underlined nearly every sentence. I have so many thoughts that I’m worried I won’t even be able to articulate them. In fact, in case I fail miserably, feel free to read my friend Madison’s concise review on her bookstagram instead: @classic.literature.love
Gone With the Wind is the story of a spoiled “Southern belle” named Scarlett O’Hara. She’s the daughter of a rich Georgia cotton planter whose world explodes when the South loses the Civil War. With her family’s livelihood destroyed, Scarlett is thrown from the height of luxury into penury. Her house in Jonesboro is one of the only plantation mansions still standing after Sherman burned a swath through the heart of Georgia. Exhausted and starving, Scarlett vows to herself that “I’m going to live through this and when it’s over, I’m never going to go hungry again. If I have to steal or kill – as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.” Scarlett throws off every convention of Georgia high-society and womanhood and forges her own way through the Reconstruction world. She lies through her teeth, makes deals with friends and enemies alike, and supports her entire family with her lumber mill. But her mettle is tested when she encounters Rhett Butler, a blockade runner, bootlegger, and general scallywag, who has the uncanny ability to see right through Scarlett’s veneer.
TLDR: Gone with the Wind is the well-crafted product of a master storyteller. It’s beloved for a reason; it’s also controversial and hated for a reason. Readers, the publishing industry, streaming giants, and even schools have sought to ban and censor both novel and film. In my opinion, controversy does not negate the importance of a book but rather highlights its signficance to society.
Overall, Mitchell’s writing style is superb. Mitchell was a fantastic storyteller, with beautiful command of prose, a playwright’s ear for dialogue, and an innate understanding of human character. Her descriptions of Georgia summon mosquitos and peach blossoms and summer heat warbling over verdant bottom land. For a classic, the novel is incredibly readable and surprisingly spicy for its time. Mitchell made me feel sympathy for so many characters on both sides of the conflict. Even secondary characters feel fully present and alive. I was alternately appalled by and cheering for Scarlett. The burning of Atlanta gave me chills, and Bonnie Butler’s death drew tears to my eyes.
Mitchell made me feel anxious about the destroyed homes of Southerners, who faced starvation and deprivation in a war-ravaged land. I asked myself: would I be able to survive if society collapsed around me? Would I have the gumption to endure and protect others?
She made me feel sympathy for the northern citizens who moved South after the war. I asked myself: would I be able to hold my chin up, if I was viewed as an oppressor in a conquered land, even if my cause was right and just?
She made me feel sympathy for freed slaves who are used as pawns in the power game between the United States government and the conquered state of Georgia. (One of my favorite scenes occurs in the burning of Atlanta, when Scarlett is frantic with fear at the distant pounding of cannon, but Prissy, a slave, is calmly singing a ballad about freedom. For one character, the cannon represent impending doom, for the other they are the drumbeat of liberation.) I asked myself: how would I have treated others, in a different era, surrounded by different norms? Would I have seen the humanity in all fellow humans, or would I have been imprisoned by illiberal thinking?
My favorite characters were Melanie, Rhett, and of course Scarlett herself. (If anyone wants to know, Ashley is about as entertaining as a wet kleenex, in my opinion.) Melanie possesses a quiet indomitable will that surfaces at unexpected times. Rhett is just downright entertaining, although his later scenes made me feel choked up. (I feel like he may be the original #bookboyfriend) And Scarlett is a fireball, bull-in-a-china-shop, wrong-but-doesn’t-care, force-to-be-reckoned-with heroine. She owns property, runs a business, marries for money, runs the family, controls her child-bearing, and essentially a modern woman shoved into a corset and thrust into the 1860s. It’s fascinating to me that Mitchell wrote such a character for such an era and in such an era.
Challenging aspects
The chief criticism of Gone with the Wind is its depiction of slavery as well as its overtly racist descriptions of African Americans. For some readers, this element condemns the novel, and I respect their decision to not read it. In fact, the new introduction by Philippa Gregory states that this “is the lie that spoils the novel.”
Anyone with an ounce of humanity and a thimbleful of historical knowledge should understand that slavery is an atrocious institution and using racial slurs is indecent, hurtful, and ignorant. Unfortunately, the institution of slavery propped up Southern planter culture and thus the life of this novel’s characters. Because Scarlett O’Hara was a member of that feudal system, slavery is a part of the book. African American characters are described through Scarlett’s biased eyes. Many passages made me cringe, as they would any modern reader.
Mitchell captures the era’s strange cognitive dissonance about slavery as characters alternately admire and dehumanize slaves. They’ll seek the advice of a house servant and even name them as valued family members, as is the case with Mammy and Peter; but in the next sentence, utterly degrade them with belittling, dehumanizing language. While I realize that this reflects the era in which the novel is set (and sadly the era in which it was written), it’s not easy to read.
A famous line from the broken, disillusioned character Ashley Wilkes captures the bitter dichotomy of the novel: “Scarlett, before the war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, a perfection and completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian art. Maybe it wasn’t so to everyone. I know that now … Now, I know that in the old days, it was a shadow show I watched. I avoided everything which was not shadows, people, and situations which were too real, too vivid… and I was cowardly enough to prefer shadows and dreams.”
In this moment, Ashley has the romantic Moonlight and Magnolias myth ripped from his eyes. He realizes that he possessed tunnel vision and was bewitched by a false “glamor.” Truly, the antebellum world was glamorous for only a select few elite citizens. He references Plato’s allegory of the cave, implying that he now sees hard reality. Unfortunatey, Ashley becomes a depressed, inert character, seeming to prefer the “shadow show” to the world as it is. He runs from reality like a little boy running and hiding from a monster. If modern readers read Gone with the Wind looking for a repudiaton for our history’s sins, they will not find it.
Reading controversial books
As I read this classic novel, I considered the role of controversial books in society. Why do we read them? What’s to be gained?
Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind from a Georgian perspective. Her narrative is therefore biased, and the novel is tinged with resentment and bitterness. Apparently Mitchell described Gone with the Wind a story about survival and survivors. I can’t help but wonder if the Great Depression in any way influenced her storytelling. During the 1930s, the United States had sunk into a severe economic depression which to many felt like the end of the world. Perhaps Mitchell looked back to another era in which “the world ended,” not because of economic collapse but because of war. Perhaps she summoned an indomitable heroine from the wreckage of a former age; and perhaps this historical context explains why the novel appealed to so many people.
Reading this novel opened my eyes to the catastrophic depravations of a war fought in one’s backyard. In this country, we have been largely sheltered from war. Yet right now, we have numerous politicians tossing about terms like “national divorce,” as if our country hasn’t danced that murderous tango before. We know that the Civil War was fought for a just cause (some historians even call it the Second American Revolution}, but it was sobering to read a story written from the perspective of the ones who were wrong, the ones who lost, the ones whose way of life needed to end.
Because of Mitchell’s storytelling, I empathized with those characters. I saw their humanity and recognized myself in their human flaws and faults and follies. I recognized myself in their love, victories, and simple joys. Maybe that’s why I loved Melanie Wilkes’s character so much; she humanizes her enemy, the Union soldiers, by placing herself in their shoes or thinking of their wives and mothers back home.
History isn’t a simple narrative. Looking back, we apply the narrative to tidy the events into something we can understand. (If you want to get really deep, we could delve into theories of time and whether the past-present-future exist simultaneously, so maybe this war and every other war that’s ever been fought is still endlessly echoing around us. But woosh, this review is already too long, isn’t it?) Our modern society loves to draw harsh lines in the sand. If something is controversial, you drop it, as though somehow you’re sullied by even being near it. You’re either for us, or you’re against us. You’re liberal or you’re conservative. You’re this or you’re that. If you don’t agree with me, then you must be against me. And you absolutely never, ever consider the side of the “enemy” or even speak to them. But neither life nor history is so easily delineated. We shouldn’t apply an Easy To Understand Glamor, like Ashley Wilkes’ s “shadow show,” to our past or our present. History isn’t as simple as sparknotes to be memorized for a test or a catechism to be memorized for our moral good.
Recently, I saw a quote that seemed to align with my thoughts on Gone with the Wind. “If history offends you, GOOD. That means you’re far less likely to repeat it.” This novel challenged me because it delves into a very dark time in our history. It challenged me to consider my own bias alongside the official historical narrative and alternate narratives. (Isn’t it amazing how many versions of history there are?) It inspired me to research events, names, and places of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era, facts I had forgotten and some I had never even learned.
Reading difficult, controversial books forces you to think critically and deeply about things it would just be so comfortable to not think about at all. Challenging books shake us out of the complacent trap of unnuanced thinking and task us to articulate our own bias and beliefs.
Overall, I’m glad I dusted off my copy of this much-loved and much-hated novel. While this book certainly isn’t for everyone, I completely understand why it commands the position and clout that it does. It has inspired discussion for nearly 100 years. I’m sure it will continue to do so.
Have you read this novel? What did you think about it? If not, what’s another book that challenged you?
This is an excellent and very balanced review. I read the book several years ago and had a lot of similar thoughts.
Coincidentally, a few months earlier, I had read a nonfiction book called An Imperfect God by Henry Wiencek, which examines how George Washington's views on slavery changed throughout his life. That book shows how barbaric and dehumanizing slavery was, so going from that to Gone with the Wind was more than a bit jarring. As a fictional novel, it's brilliant. As historical fiction, it almost seems to take place in a parallel universe at times.
I definitely need to read this! It's just so giant, and I have a toddler. 😅