by Katerina Nikolas

Created on: July 02, 2010

Gone with the Wind is Margaret Mitchell’s only published novel. It is a classic, epic tale, recounting the fall of a society which was founded on the sweat of slaves, and its reluctance to accept the end of an era. It is the dramatic depiction of a society’s downfall, leaving only pride and passion in its wake. The events of the Civil war unfold seen only from the side of the South: the loss of a generation of young men who thought they could whip the ‘Yankees’ into shape with nothing more than bravado.

Wonderful, feisty, scheming and determined Scarlett O’Hara is a realistic young woman who shows her unwillingness to conform to the mores of society from the moment she declares her love for the idealistic Ashley Wilkes. Frustrated by convention she is happy to be influenced by the dashing Rhett Butler, a gentleman who ‘isn’t received’, and a notable blockade runner who amasses a fortune from the downfall of the South.

Throughout the war years Scarlett yearns for the arms of the married Ashley, and accepts the favors of Rhett. She turns from a wilful spoilt child into a tough and pragmatic business woman, necessitated by her fear of the hunger of the war years returning. Her great love of the land and her determination to save the family home of Tara from taxes and carpetbaggers, induces her to actions not suitable for a lady of society, but she defies convention and draws the hatred of many who refuse to move on from the past.

With perfect guile she steals her sister’s beau, the hapless Frank Kennedy, to get her hands on his hardware business. She takes on the support of Ashley and his wife Melanie, who represents the perfect depiction of the old ways, yet unfailingly stands by the side of Scarlett, who fails to understand her value. She causes a scandal by travelling alone in the shanty town district of Atlanta, risking the lives of the men who retaliate on the inhabitants of shantytown where Scarlett’s honor was assaulted. She cares not that it is deemed unladylike that she runs a successful lumber business instead of living in genteel poverty.

Scarlett inevitably marries Rhett, as he catches her between husbands, yet she continues to dream of Ashley. She defies society by flaunting her wealth and despising the attitudes of those who refuse to adapt to the new order of things. Ironically, with the birth of their child Bonnie, Rhett works his way back into the graces of the old society, seeking the respectability he once cared nothing for. By the time Scarlett understands she is in love with Rhett it is too late to salvage what happiness they have destroyed, and Rhett abandons her with the immortal words ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’.

The book is rich with characters, from adoring and loyal slaves such as Mammy; the broken Gerald O’Hara; the gentle and devoted Melanie; and the shattered Ashley who cannot adapt to reality. A cast of minor characters add to the rich background, which is interwoven with the fall of society, a society which ultimately is “Gone with the Wind.”

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