This year, my second book love assignment was on Gone with the Wind, by Margret Mitchell. The book was published by Macmillan Publishers on June 30, 1936. This novel is rich with themes of survival, gender roles, slavery, and class. Gone with the Wind is a historical fiction book set in Atlanta and Clayton County, in Georgia, during and after the Civil War.
The book starts with sixteen year old Scarlet O’Hara, daughter of a wealthy Irish plantation owner. She lives on a plantation, Tara. She loves her handsome neighbor, Ashley Wilkes, and when he proposes and marries his cousin Melanie Hamilton, Scarlet marries Melanie’s brother Charles Hamilton in an attempt to make Ashley jealous. As the war starts, Scarlet’s new husband dies and she discovers her pregnancy. Scarlet is forced to live with Melanie and Aunt Pitty pat, where she is saddened by her new status as a widow and loss of youth. Scarlet’s time in Atlanta is difficult, she nurses the wounded soldiers in the hospital and she cannot participate in social activities because of her widowed status. When Christmas comes, Ashley comes home and visits Scarlet and Melanie. When Ashley is about to leave, he shares a kiss with Scarlet. Melanie falls pregnant shortly after. As the Confederate side is losing, the city becomes more and more desperate. Sherman’s army is marching towards the city and the inhabitants evacuate the place, leaving only Melanie, who is in labor, Scarlet, and their slave girl Prissy. The group, with the help of Rhett, escape from the doomed city. Rhett later leaves them to fight in the army, and Scarlet leads the group to her home plantation Tara. When Scarlet comes home, she realizes that her home is no longer a place of safety; her mother died from fever, her siblings are ill, her father has gone mad, the slaves have been set free, and their cotton and supplies have been burned to ash. Scarlet immediately starts working, replanting cotton, gathering food, and trying to rebuild what she had lost. The war ends with the Confederacy losing the war, and Ashley Wilkes comes home.
Overall, this book was awesome. It was very enjoyable to read and I could not stop myself from reading this book till the very end. However, there were some issues with the book that must be addressed. Gone with the Wind features many racist remarks and ideas, which although many are appropriate with the time period and era, the racism is often overused and offensive to modern readers. Although this book is historical fiction, there are still themes that resonate with present problems in our modern day world. For one, the mistreatment of widows is still a problem, in both the 1860s and our present day. Scarlet is rejected from society after she is widowed, just like many single mothers and widows are viewed in demeaning light and judged.
In conclusion, Gone with the Wind is an entertaining read that presents some world issues while also having some offensive racist language. I would definitely read this a second time.
By Sarah N.
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