by Susan Quilty

Created on: March 16, 2009

GWTW: The Greatest Love Story of All Time?

"The Greatest Love Story of All Time..." is printed on the inside cover page of Gone With the Wind, but is Margaret Mitchell's civil war saga really a love story?

People tend to distill a great book down to its central relationship and then bill it as a great love story. That does not apply only to Scarlett and Rhett. It is difficult to find the actual love in a lot of the world's most adored "love stories". Lust and longing? Yes. Passion? Of course. But love?

Gone With the Wind can be described in one sentence: A story about the structure of society and the importance of balancing personal desires with finding one's own place in that society.

Gone With the Wind is much more than a simple love story. The relationships between the main characters explore the larger picture of what happens when a society is destroyed and painstakingly rebuilt.

The book begins by painting a picture of the Old South and its intricate pre-war society. The protagonist, Scarlett O'Hara, is a young woman being raised on a Georgia plantation known as Tara. Scarlett's parentage is often cited as the motivation behind Scarlett's actions. Her mother, Ellen O'Hara, is from a long-established Savannah family and her father, Gerald O'Hara, is a Irish immigrant with a self-made fortune. Such a match would have been unlikely if it hadn't been for Gerald's geniality and Ellen's heartbreak over another man.

The strict conventions of the Old South are depicted early in the book. There are rules of decorous behavior for southern ladies and gentlemen and a person's reputation among society is prized above all else. The Old South is a caste system, and Scarlett leads a privileged life in the highest caste. At Tara, Scarlett is taught the most important lessons of how to "catch a husband" and be a "great lady".

It is not long before the Civil War strips back that way of life. The changes begin with the wartime excitement, deepen through rationing and deprivations, and culminate in devastation as the Northern army marches through the south, burning nearly everything in their wake.

Those southerners who do survive the war have had to set aside many of the proprieties. In her zeal to never be hungry again, Scarlett takes this to the extreme. She scorns all of society's conventions, eventually becoming financially successful but a social outcast. It is only at the end of the novel when she begins to examine her priorities and realize what she threw away.

The relationship

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