Book Review: Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Rating: 7/10 

Hello Everyone and thank you for coming back! Today I am going to do my best to review the controversial novel Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This beast of a book is over a thousand pages long and has been on my TBC (To Be Conquered) list for years. I finally got around to it because of a buddy read (thank you Rue), and having finished it I have to say that I’m happy I did. Per usual this will be very disorganized as that is the general state of my brain, and it will also contain spoilers. Stay out of Spoiler Land, the Yankees are there and will get you. 

I think I Will start with our Heroine, Scarlett O’Hara herself. When the novel opens she is sixteen, and I absolutely hate her. The author does not hide how selfish, self-absorbed, shallow, and apathetic Scarlett is. We meet her when she is cheerfully winding twins around her pinkie to break their hearts. Scarlett doesn’t care about anyone’s’ heart but her own and this is true for the whole book She is not at all empathetic which is not a bad thing when tempered with some self-awareness. Scarlett is not self-aware, she is not that kind of person. It’s here that we find out Scarlett’s one true desire through the book, and that desire is one Ashely Wilks. Ashely is a true Southern Gentleman of the time, by which I mean obsessed with his honor, weak-willed, and delusional of his worth. Now in all fairness, he was raised to be those things, and they are reinforced by his family and the women in his life. I can’t stand him either. This paragon of Southern virtue is soon to be engaged to his first cousin, which was a very common thing in the Antebellum south. I did not know this until I went on my deep dive into research when reading the book. NO wonder Melanie is so sick, and Ashley so blah. They have been genetically programmed to be. 

Anyway, Scarlett is not okay with this course of things and declares her love for Ashely in a very unladylike way, which I applauded because at least she says what she wants and goes after it. Ashley half-heartedly protests and Scarlett throws things in a beautiful display of temper. Rhett Butler who was lurking in the library also thinks it was a beautiful display and tells her so. Scarlett is mortified and angry. Here begins her hatred for Rhett. I think the fact that someone witnessed her humiliation plays into her obsession with Ashley for the rest of the book. Ashely and Melanie announce their engagement and Scarlett, in a rage, gets engaged to Melanie’s brother whom she does not know or care about. IN her head this is somehow revenge, I never understood this decision, if anything it made her life more difficult, but that’s the thing about Scarlett she doesn’t think or reflect on her life choices. She moves on, which I actually admire. That’s the eternal dilemma of Scarlett O’Hara, you hate her but you admire her despite it. And with all those relationships in place, the Civil War breaks out and the book is off. 

Now Scarlett is an interesting narrator, as she is completely unaware of the political situation and is not interested in it. She is also convinced the way things are is perfect. IN her world everyone has a place. Her father and her mother rule Tera and the slaves, Scarlett is meant to marry and rule a plantation of her own. Too bad she would be a terrible “plantation wife”. Ellen O’Hara is given a brief page time in the book but her ghost hangs over Scarlett’s shoulder for most of it. Scarlett desperately wants to be like her mother, but at the same time, her personality is the complete opposite. When she tries to be like Ellen she is miserable. I would also like to point out that Ellen married Gerald at fifteen when he was in his mid-forties. Fifteen! She’s thirty-two when the book opens and presents as if she was a woman in her dotage. How I love this time in history. Scarlett has her father’s temper and stubbornness, but none of his heart. In her coolness, she is quite a bit like her mother but she doesn’t see it, and neither does anyone else because they are so blinded by Ellen’s image as the “perfect lady”. 

This idea of the perfect southern lady and gentleman was one that made me grit my teeth through the book. Firstly it deeply affected the actions of our characters and how they were perceived by others. Now watching someone be alienated because they’re different is not a pleasant experience. Scarlett caused a scandal because she agreed to dance while a widow of seventeen. How dare she! Her life should be over now that she was married and widowed within the spend of two months. Rhett disagrees, and so does Scarlett. She loves attention, and even if it causes the ladies to disapprove of her she knows the man will be on her side. Rhett is also whispered about because he didn’t join the confederate army, as any gentleman should. And this is only the beginning of the book. These rigid rules and stratified society are all these people know and they can’t imagine any other way of life, and they don’t want to. Once the War is lost this is the thing they are most bitter about. Their way of life is gone and surely that’s a crime. Never mind that Slavery deprived so many of any rights, never mind that women were just decoration, never mind that the poor had very little hope of getting out of terrible poverty. That all doesn’t matter, because what is truly important is that they can't hold parties like they used to. I don’t even think they are romanticizing the past, in their heads they had a perfect life before the Yankees came and ruined it all. 

I do apologize for all the rants I have gone on and am still to go on. Except not really. 

Now back to Scarlett, she is a terrible mother. No wonder they took the fact she had multiple children out of the movie. The presence of her children only highlights how self-absorbed she is. Yes, you are busy trying to eke out a living and dealing with crisis after crisis but you can still show some understanding to the children you are neglecting. I especially felt bad for Wade, who had to live through the fighting and burning of Atlanta at such a young age, instead of showing compassion for him and understanding that it might have been traumatic for him Scarlett is worried her son will be a ninny. This is a woman who has nightmares about running through the fag and they make her wake up screaming. I’m sorry Scarlett but your fog does not compare to a little boy’s nightmares, especially if he has an imagination. It is stated multiple times that Scarlett does not have an imagination and that shows. She can't imagine the terror he must be experiencing and how it would affect him. Rhett is a better parent to that child than Scarlett is, and Rhett is not an ideal parent by any stretch of the imagination. At least he admits that if it wasn’t for Melanie Scarlett’s children would not know what love is. Scarlett has no idea what he’s talking about. Another thing that truly made me flinch was Scarlett wishing Ella died instead of Bonnie. That was so cold and so heartless. Scarlett should never have been a mother, especially at such a young age. At least Scarlett and I are on the same page about that. 

I do admire Scarlett and her drive and determination to survive. This determination is in large selfishness, but there is no denying that if it wasn’t for her everyone would have died of starvation. Scarlett made sure her father and her sisters were fed. She made sure the former slaves were fed. She made sure Melanie and Ashelye were fed. She sends money to her aunts in Charleston who disapproved of her in every way but would have died without her. She became a caretaker by necessity and she was good at it. No, she didn’t have compassion but she had family loyalty and practicality. We can all admire this about her, even if we admire nothing else. She will survive and she will pull her people through if they let her. She worked harder than many and in many ways was condemned for it. I can admire a woman like this, even while not wishing to spend time with her. 

Now Rhett Butler is a bit more of a complicated character than Scarlett. We all understand her, and I think he’s harder to understand or have any clear feeling about. This is a man who doesn’t hesitate to mock the world he lives in while still joining a doomed cause of the confederacy. He knows the war is doomed from the beginning, but also knows there’s no point in trying to convince anyone about that. HE convinces Scarlett briefly but she throws the thought out of her head as unimportant. He’s undoubtedly a racist but he respects Mammy more than he respects his wife. He’s proud of Scarlett for her accomplishments but wants to treat her like a helpless creature. He kills a black man because he was “uppity” to a white lady and has no regrets about it. He spoils his daughter to death. No, I don’t like him, except at the end of the book when he has reached his lowest point, but I Can never predict what he will do. I didn’t expect him to join the army for example. I think the problem is he doesn’t believe in anything and knows it. I can’t get behind someone with no beliefs or loyalties. I and Alexander Hamilton are one in this. Hamilton stated “Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.” and this describes Rhett too just substitute Burr for Butler. In other words, I was not impressed by Rhett, his most impressive moment came at the end of the book when he uttered his iconic line “Frankly, I don’t give a damn”. Perhaps this is not a surprise as Margaret Mitchell wrote the book backward. The most satisfying ending scene came first, and the rest of the book was meant to live up to it. Well, the ending still outshines the rest. 

Another character I need to talk about is Melanie. She is the only sympathetic individual in the novel, yet I still couldn’t truly like her. Melanie is the complete opposite of Scarlett, a foil one might say. Where Scarlett is brash Melanie is reserved. Where Scarlett is practical Melanie is loving. Yet it is Melanie who everyone runs to for support. She is the backbone of the entire cast of characters of this book Scarlett needs her for moral support, even if she doesn’t realize it until the end of the book, and if it wasn’t for Melanie believing in Scarlett I could see her giving up. Scarlett pushes through. Sometimes to spite Melanie, or to prove herself better. Ashely is completely useless and it is Melanie who in her way gets him to do something and not just whine about how terrific his lot in life is. She is the one to comfort the children and servants. She is the one who Rhett cries to. She is the one who calmly sympathizes and thus gets the world to go her way. But she also doesn’t try to do anything with her abilities, because hse firmly believes it’s her role as a woman to support her useless husband. Admirably, because at least she sticks to what she believes in. She also believes in Scarlett, to the point where she faces all of Atlanta’s high society and shames them when they try to blacken Scarlett’s reputation. She knows that Scarlett is doing what has to be that and that someone has to do it. She also knows Ashely is incapable. I think Melanie would have been capable, but there’s no denying she’s sick At least I believe she would have tried. That’s more than can be said about the majority of the people presented to us in this book. 

Ashely Wilks is everything I actively hate about a character. While everyone else I could find interesting things about, and some depth of character Ashely was just a shallow puddle. He pretended to be the perfect Southern man while lacking any conviction in that way of life. There was nothing to him that society didn’t place there. The scene where he disapproves of Scarlett’s use of convicts in her mills demonstrates this perfectly. Scarlett rightfully points out that he OWNED SLAVES to which Ashely has the audacity to claim they were his father’s slaves and that he would have set them free. I laughed, and I laughed and I laughed. Fist of all good sir, you would not have because you wouldn’t have had the backbone to. Second of all, you did own slaves. You can’t pretend you didn’t because it doesn’t suit your narrative at the time. You did and they made your way of life possible so have some guts and admit this. He tells Scarlett he loves her repeatedly but won’t do anything about it because of his “honor”, and strings her along, making her pine for their “doomed love'',  the entire thousand pages of the book. I think he does so simply because her blind adoration of him makes him feel like he’s worth something. He’s the worst type of person, he knows many of the things he supposedly fights for are wrong, but does nothing about it and keeps quiet. He doesn’t try to change anyone’s mind. It’s easier to just go along and so he goes along clinging to Scarlett and Melanie just to feel like he has a purpose when we all know he’s just a burden to both of them. If Rhett had called him out to a duel and killed him I would have been much happier, and liked Rhett much more. 

Now that I have ranted about everything else let me rant about the thing that is there in the background the entire time and lurks over your shoulder like a bad ghost. This book is racist. I couldn’t stop seeing it. It’s not just the Southerners who display extreme racism. The Yankees who supposedly fought to free the enslaved population are just as bad. They don’t help the black people who have been displaced with no way to make a living and no education. Scarlett sees the shanty towns that arise in Atlanta and being Scarlett doesn’t comprehend the reality of the situation. In her head, the rightful place of an African American is as a servant. I don’t for a second believe she pays the former slaves who stay with her. She doesn’t respect them either. She doesn’t see the loyalty of Mammy as extraordinary, she sees it as her due. When they argue and Mammy tells Scarlett she’s not a slave anymore and doesn’t have to obey her I teared up because I needed this small victory. And it’s a small victory. Another small victory is Rhett drinking whiskey with Mammy and Wade to celebrate. It’s a tiny moment but it feels huge in a world of inequality. The most depressing thing is that in my research I found out that Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy in the movie, along with the rest of the black cast was not even invited to the premiere because Atlanta was a segregated state in 1939. Clark Gable, bless him, was not going to attend because of this slight to his friend but she defused the situation like the lady she was. How depressing is it to know that the terrible conflict we witnessed in the book didn’t change anything. Not really, people still picked on any difference they could find to feel important. In the book black is lesser, the female is lesser, different is lesser, and at least some of these things are addressed, but not really. This is why this book is important because it shows humanity how far we’d come and how far we have yet to go. Reading novels like this we learn and we think and if we keep doing that I have hope that we will be better. 

Gone with the Wind has been considered for inclusion on the banned book list, but I’m glad it’s not. If something is banned it has the opposite effect. I read this book with an open mind and by choice, and I learned from it. I enjoyed myself, I was invested. It was a difficult book, with difficult characters but their story is valid. Everyone’s story is valid. I think that’s the secret behind the success of Gone with the Wind, reading it you find yourself in the pages, both the good and the bad and after all that’s what we want. No one in those pages was perfect, but they all grew, changed, and lived life. Except for Ashely, he was just there. So overall I will recommend this book, and all I will ask is that you read it with an open mind and with the awareness that you will learn something from it. 

Thank you for sticking with me through my ramblings, I tried to only talk about the things I needed to get out of my system. Maybe at some point in time, I’ll write more about this book and what else is there but for today I leave you on this note: tomorrow is another day and we should all go live it. 

Anna