I'm Reading a New Book: Gone With the Wind.
Margaret Mitchell was a racist and in 1936, 70 years after the Civil War, she wrote a 1000-folio love alphabetic character to racism. If yous'd like to hear why slavery was terrific and black people are junior to whites and they liked being slaves, here is your epic. If that sounds unpleasant, you won't like Gone With the Wind.
A non-racist book can have racist characters, and all the characters in this book are racist. Is the book itself necessarily racist? Yeah. It has an omniscient narrator, and many long, racist passages that are clearly not from any grapheme's perspective. They experience like the nonfiction interludes in State of war & Peace and they're racist. Is it possible Mitchell ways for us to disagree with her all-seeing narrator? No. In that location'due south no evidence whatsoever of that, and the omniscient passages that defend the Southward and slavery are written with passion and supported by racist scenes in the story. This book intends to exist racist; Margaret Mitchell believes what she says; she was a racist person who wrote a hateful book. I can evidence information technology and I'm about to.
Nosotros starting time off in the glory days of the Old S, equally a immature, callow, beautiful Scarlett O'Hara flirts with anybody'due south boyfriends. Happy slaves bustle around:
"The house negroes of the County considered themselves superior to white trash...they were well-fed, well-clothed and looked subsequently in sickness and erstwhile age. They were proud of the expert names of their owners and, for the near part, proud to vest to people who were quality."
We come across some of them, Scarlett'south "small white mitt disappearing into their huge black paws and the iv capered with delight at the meeting and with pride at displaying before their comrades what a pretty Young Miss they had."
Faithful slave Mammy is introduced, with her "kind face, sad with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey's face" - "the mottled wise former optics saw securely, saw clearly, with the directness of the savage and the child, undeterred past conscience when danger threatened her pet." Mammy is one of the few morally pure characters in the book, just it'due south always that noble barbarous quality.
Luckily Scarlett stays abroad from the slave quarters, where "the faint niggery smell which crept from the cabin increased her nausea."
Only then war comes. Here's noble and ho-hum Ashley, the limpest point of the oncoming love triangle, describing what the state of war is nearly. Notice that his vision of the Due south is indivisible from slavery:
I hear the darkies coming home across the fields at dusk, tired and singing and prepare for supper, and the sound of the windlass as the bucket goes down into the cool well. And at that place'due south the long view down the road to the river, across the cotton fields, and the mist ascent from the bottom lands in the twilight. And that is why I'm here who have no love of decease or misery or glory and no hatred for anyone. Perhaps that is what is called patriotism.
Later the War and during Reconstruction, things get really night (go it? lol) as Northerners ruin blackness people: "Some of the free negroes were getting quite insolent. This final [Scarlett] could inappreciably believe, for she had never seen an insolent negro in her life."
But "The [Freedmen's] Agency fed them while they loafed and poisoned their minds against their former masters." And here's much more from the omniscient narrator:
[They] furthermore told the negroes they were as skillful every bit the whites in every style and presently white and negro marriages would be permitted, soon the estates of their onetime owners would be divided and every negro would be given twoscore acres and a mule for his own. They kept the negroes stirred up with tales of cruelty perpetrated by the whites and, in a section long famed for the affectionate relations betwixt slaves and slave owners, detest and suspicion began to grow.[At present Southerners] were looking on the state they loved, seeing it trampled by the enemy, rascals making a mock of the police, their former slaves a menace, their men disenfranchised, their women insulted.
This eventually leads to the formation of the noble Ku Klux Klan, who merely attempt to protect Southern women from being raped by uppity former slaves. Hither's a Klan fellow member at present:
"'Wilkerson had gone a bit too far with his nigger-equality business. Oh yes, he talks information technology to those black fools by the hour. He had the gall - the - ' Tony sputtered helplessly, 'to say niggers had a correct to - to - white women.'"
"The negroes were on top and behind them were the Yankee bayonets," thinks Scarlett: "She could exist killed, she could exist raped and, very probably, nothing would ever be done virtually it."
And here's the all-seeing narrator summing it upward:
It was the big number of outrages on women and the ever-present fright for the safety of their wives and daughters that drove Southern men to common cold and trembling fury and acquired the Ku Klux Klan to spring up overnight. And it was against this nocturnal organisation that the newspapers of the North cried out most loudly, never realizing the tragic necessity that brought it into being.
This is all demonstrated in the activeness. Scarlett O'Hara's headstrong ways nigh get every man in town hung. Divorced from its context, this is a brilliant scene. It's done entirely from Scarlett'south point of view, so the actual gun fight is totally off page. What nosotros come across instead is the wives, with Northern soldiers in their living rooms waiting for the men to return - surrounded by enemies, their faces frozen into nonchalant expressions, desperately and silently scheming to save their husbands' lives. It's corking stuff, equally long as you tin forget that you're being asked to root for the KKK to go away with lynching a human.
And hither's a pretty long series of quotes. Again, they're all from the omniscient narrator - that is, from the book itself.
The South had been tilted as by a giant malicious mitt, and those who had in one case ruled were at present more helpless than their former slaves had ever been.The onetime slaves were now the lords of creation and, with the assistance of the Yankees, the lowest and about ignorant ones were on summit. The ameliorate class of them, scorning liberty, were suffering as severely as their white masters...Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new freedom, simply the hordes of 'trashy gratuitous outcome niggers,' who were causing nigh of the trouble, were drawn largely from the field-hand class.
In slave days, these lowly blacks had been despised by the house negroes and yard negroes equally creatures of pocket-sized worth...Plantation mistresses had put the pickaninnies through courses of preparation and elimination to select the best of them for the positions of greater responsibility. Those consigned to the fields were the ones to the lowest degree willing or able to learn, the to the lowest degree energetic, the least honest and trustworthy, the most savage and brutish...[but now] the former field hands found themselves of a sudden elevated to the seats of the mighty. There they conducted themselves as creatures of pocket-size intelligence might naturally be expected to exercise. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild - either from perverse pleasure in devastation or simply because of their ignorance.
To the credit of the negroes, including the least intelligent of them, few were actuated by malice and those few had unremarkably been "mean niggers" fifty-fifty in slave days. Only they were, every bit a class, childlike in mentality, hands led and from long habit accepted to taking orders.
...
Here was the amazing spectacle of half a nation attempting, at the point of bayonet, to force upon the other one-half the rule of negroes, many of them scarcely i generation out of the African jungles.
...
Thank you to the negro vote, the Republicans and their allies were firmly entrenched and they were riding roughshod over the powerless but still protesting minority.
Anyway, this is all very difficult for poor Scarlett: "The more I see of emancipation the more criminal I think it is. It'due south just ruined the darkies. Thousands of them aren't working at all and the ones we can get to work at the factory are so lazy and shiftless they aren't worth having. and if you and so much as swear at them, much less hit them a few licks for the good of their souls, the Freedmen's Bureau is down on you like a duck on a June bug."
She complains that Northerners "Did non know that negroes had to be handled gently, equally though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded...How could anyone go any work done with free niggers quitting all the time?...[It's] too dearest a homeland to exist turned over to ignorant negroes drunk with whiskey and freedom."
And with the final word, here'due south a former slave himself, Big Sam, who "galloped over to the buggy,his eyes rolling with joy and his white teeth flashing, and clutched her outsretched hand with ii big hands as big as hams. His watermelon-pink tongue lapped out, his whole torso wiggled and his joyful contortions were as ludicrous as the gambolings of a mastiff. ... 'Ah done had nuff freedom. Ah wants somebody ter eed me proficient vittles reg'lar, and tell me whut ter do an' whut not ter do.'"
Okay, is that enough? That was gross to type out. And don't call back I'm cherry-picking the just racist passages; this book is soaked in racism. God'due south nightgown, it'southward fuckin' racist. Pat Conroy, in a despicably fawning introduction, sees fit to mention that "No blackness man or woman tin can read this book and exist lamentable that this particular wind is gone," and what the hell kind of thing is that to say? "White people, on the other manus...y'all gotta be a piddling bummed out, correct?" Is that what you lot meant, Pat?
And look, yes, it'southward besides bad that this book has destroyed itself with hatred, because information technology's got a lot going for information technology. Information technology certainly has Scarlett O'Hara going for it. She's fuckin' terrific, a towering antiheroine, amoral, selfish and brave - somewhat similar the S itself. Rhett Butler, her swarthy and contemptuous love involvement, is pretty good too, although he can't stop mansplaining amorality and he might take some kind of social learning inability. (He's also a murderer, by the manner: "I did kill the nigger. He was uppity to a lady, and what else could a Southern admirer do?") They accept sortof a proto-l Shades thing going on, including a fairly kinky dear scene that's not explicitly described but Scarlett was definitely into it. Third dearest triangle corner Ashley sucks, no i cares about him.
Information technology also taught me the phrase "God's nightgown!" which is certainly a cracking matter to yell.
Only it is totally, irredeemably ruined by its racism. Wait, I'm not trying to be "politically correct" here. That's non even a thing; it's a term made up by haters to excuse detest. Gone With The Current of air angered me. I don't like hearing blackness people described every bit stupid monkeys over and over again. I didn't enjoy reading the book because I was constantly pissed off by how ignorant and hateful it is. It was racist at the time information technology was written; information technology's racist now; racism is the point and the message, and to ignore it is to boldness its author's intentions, which were racist.
Books matter. We use stories to describe and define society. If we allow this volume to become part of the foundation of our past - if we call information technology a classic, as some people take - we're basing our by on a terrible lie. And it is a terrible prevarication, in case we need to say that out loud: Slavery was bad, black people didn't like it, almost anybody else didn't either, and the Due south were the bad guys in the Civil War.
And books are also our companions. When we cull to read, we're spending significant amounts of fourth dimension - hours and hours - deep in their worlds. This companion is full of hate. These hours and hours will exist spent listening to her yell most insolent niggers. Information technology's the about racist volume I've always read. I didn't similar it.
It takes guts to brand your main grapheme spoiled, selfish, and stupid, someone without any redeeming qualities, and write an ballsy novel about her. But it works for two reasons. First of all yous wait for justice to fall its merciless blow with i of the virtually recognized lines in cinema ("frankly my dear, I don't requite a damn"), but you end with a broken and somewhat repentant graphic symbol and you lot can't exist pitiless. Secondly, if you were going to parallel the beautiful, affluent, lazy, spirited South being conquered by the intellectual, industrious North, what better fashion to do that than with characters who embody those characteristics? You come to feel a level of sadness that the South and Scarlett lost their war and hope that they will rebuild.
I enjoyed the film of pre-state of war Due south outside of what you larn in history class approved by the nation that won the state of war. If the South had won, we would have an entirely different picture painted. A story of lush lands and prosperity abounding with knightly and gentility by a (also) passionate people. If you visit the South today, you can see that all these generations after the wounds of the war and the regret at losing the way of life are nonetheless fresh. But if it had non been the civil war, information technology would take been by other means that the lazy sprawled out way of life would have been conquered by our efficient, compact, modern lives.
I enjoyed the flick of plantations that did non corruption slaves to the extent that you lot read about in many memoirs. There was withal a disrespect in that they viewed "darkies" as ignorant and childish and worthy of being endemic, but there were those who cared for those in their trust. And the Due north who came downwards riling up the lowest of the slaves to flip the oppression did non desire any contact with a race they feared. Prejudice takes many faces. Slavery is such an important office of American history, simply I don't know that I concur with the format in which it is taught (at least the manner it was taught to me). Nosotros take young, tolerant children and feed them stories of racism and abuse and then tell them the earth is naturally prejudice (that they are prejudice) so don't exist. White children start feeling awkward and aware and blackness children start feeling mistreated and enlightened. We manage to teach children well-nigh Indian and Holocaust history without the same enthusiasm to stop racism past breeding racism. There has to be a better way. Simply I digress.
I also enjoyed Mitchell showing the volatile formula in which the KKK was aroused, that it wasn't merely a disdain for complimentary darkies but a need to protect their women and children from the rash anger now imposed on them through this new regime. Not that there are whatever redeeming qualities in the KKK, or even the Southern rash justice past pistol shot to curb wounded pride, but information technology was interesting to learn the wider circumstances in which information technology arose. The entire picture of the Southern perspective from the bureaucracy of slaves to the disdain of the reconstruction was enlightening. The mail-war difficulties, that sometimes it'south harder to survive than die, were some of my favorite epiphanies of the story. What anybody in the Due south went through, both white and black, after everything was deconstructed and they didn't know how to rebuild. It wasn't just almost freeing slaves but most rebuilding an entire fashion of life and sometimes alter, even good alter, can exist this scary and destructive.
My one complaint about the book was at times the description was lengthy. I'd get a grasp for the emotions of Scarlett that are supposed to describe the emotions of all Southerners or the clarification of the state at Tara every bit a representation of the rich cherry-red soil all Southerners love and then Mitchell would go on for paragraphs or pages rehashing that feeling to pull the about emotion out of y'all. Information technology worked, simply sometimes I think she could have done and so in fewer words.
I view Scarlett equally a representation of the Due south in which she loved. She did not intendance from whence the wealth came or believed that it would ever end. Because she was rich and important, she would conquer. Every bit the Yankees attempted to rebuild the S, fresh in their embitterment at a war they did non want to fight, you can both see their reasoning and experience for the Southerners who were licked and and then stomped on in their attempts to proceeds back of their life. You see that in Scarlett. On ane hand you lot don't pity her and think she needs a lesson in poverty and on the other hand you want her to survive. Either she tin can lie down and cling to her quondam means or she can debase herself and rebuild. Survival, non morality, is her strongest bulldoze.
Oh Scarlett. We all know people like her. People who unscrupulously use their womanly charms to become ahead and deport a deep disdain for those bound by concepts of kindness, morals, or intelligence and nearly especially for those who see them for what they are instead of being manipulated. People who care for nobody simply themselves and who find enjoyment in life not in what they take, but in conquering the unattainable that is merely desirable because information technology is out of reach. I loved how Mitchell showed Scarlett's decline from a religious albeit non believing girl who allowed her rationalization and avoidance to carry her from one sin to the adjacent of intensifying degree. An excellent portrait of the degradation of character.
Initially I thought she was the just graphic symbol who wasn't growing, really digressing. Just by the end she does grow up. In no regard is this greater than in her eventual desire to be a mother. Turning from her ravenous post-state of war desire to survive to her credence of life and the people effectually her as the fashion they are, eventually Scarlett grows into the person she was meant to be. As did the South. Prideful and resentful, eventually they had to accept that they lost the war and accept what was given them and try to make it work.
Scarlett realizes that Melanie is non the weak, cowardly girl she always assumed simply the most courageous grapheme in the book and ane who gets her ways by influence and persuasion instead of Scarlett's uncivil ways. Information technology is Melly, not Scarlett, who could go anything she desires and her heart is not her weakness just her greatest strength. Finally Scarlett values the importance of love and sees that it does not make 1 weak just deep to possess information technology. OK, I won't become that far. She'south not intelligent enough to analyze love, but she grows upwards enough to autumn for it anyway, to realize she needs people.
She sees Ashley not every bit the strong, honorable character she had always esteemed only the weakest and least honorable character in the book. Anyone who would tease another adult female with confessions of love just and then he could keep her heart and devotion at arm's length is not truly honoring his marriage vows. The greatest gift he could requite his wife was the cognition that he loved her. And we all know that like whatsoever pretty toy, once Scarlett had taken him, she would accept discarded him. The debasing knowledge that he is not fit for a rougher fashion of life doesn't endear him. For all his intelligence, he could have picked himself upwards by the bootstraps and fabricated something of himself if he wanted to survive. He is a representation of the One-time S that had to die but many couldn't let become of, even today. That's the sadness of the loss of the Southern way, still longing for the past instead of moving frontward.
So we come to Rhett, the but character with the ability to conquer Scarlett, who was quite the devil. Just like the ladies in old Atlanta I plant myself at times entranced by his charms, but frequently I did non like or trust him. I was often torn virtually the way he constantly encouraged Scarlett to fall another wrung on her morality ladder and mocked her emotions, mocked all of Southern civility. What annoyed me most about him was that he showed love by coddling his married woman and child until they were spoiled, dependent, simply not grateful, and this was his idea of being a good father and husband. And notwithstanding I sympathized with him and was often amused by him. More than than annihilation I enjoyed his intelligence equally a mode for Mitchell to introduce the Yankee viewpoint, using his sarcasm equally satire. I loved the whole give-and-take of his non being a gentleman and her no lady.
More than anything I saw his slow conquering of Scarlett'south heart as a parallel to the wearisome enveloping of the South by the Northward until they realized they were dependent on their conquerors but could however maintain their fierce spirit, a marriage of North and South. The fact that she could never fully empathise him shows the divide between to two philosophies. Merely does the Southward lose in this blending? Can't they prefer the intellectual ways of the North and nevertheless maintain their civility? Simply like Ashley, they would rather have dreamt and remembered than inverse.
The characters in the book are and so brilliant that like or dislike you cannot get them out of your head. In that location are no more vibrant characters in the history of literature that Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. There is a reason this book is a classic. Everyone should read it at least one time in their life to appreciate the civil war and empathise the sadness and loss that enveloped the country.
I honestly do not know whether to give this volume five stars for existence one of the well-nigh completely engrossing, shocking, and emotionally absorbing pieces of literature ever written, or to give it 0 stars for being the most tragic, unendingly upsetting, agonizing book I've ever read. I read the last 50 pages or so literally with my mouth wide open, unable to believe that it was actually going to exist THAT tragically sorry. When I finally finished, I walked downstairs in a stupor, handed the book to my husband, and told him to burn it and never allow me see information technology again. Throughout the book, I aimlessly kept reading, often until 2am or later, just to run into when it would turn around and start getting happy, simply in that location was never any redemption - it NEVER got happy or uplifting. It simply kept spiraling down, down, into despair. Maybe after a few days I will be able to step back and give it a proper rating (I merely finished it last night, and am yet reeling from it)....
UPDATE: After nigh a week, I accept decided to give this book a 5, because any slice of fiction that can have that potent an effect on a reader deserves the highest ranking possible! Besides, I've found that, no matter how tragic and sometimes unlikeable the chartacters were, I am nevertheless thinking virtually them days after I finished reading. I almost miss them! They have truly come live for me. As well, who doesn't love a expert emotional roller coaster every once in a while?!
Some other epic story complete! This was a very good one!
I take read a few huge books in my life. Some are a struggle to get through and others are so captivating they read easier than a 300 page novel. Gone With The Wind falls in the "captivating" category. At no signal was I bored with the story or wondering if it was e'er going to end. I was fully invested every footstep of the way - invested to the point that my wife was amused that I spent a lot of time talking back to the volume or exclaiming when something big or shocking happened. Gone With The Wind was the consummate feel.
Before I go further, I will accost the uncomfortable part of the book: the depiction of race, dialect, and other Civil War era activities in the Due south. At times I felt like maybe I shouldn't be enjoying a book featuring a sympathetic view of the South or feeling bad for those who struggled in their losses to the N. Yet, the story was really interesting and I accept seen a lot of people from a wide diverseness of races give this book 5 stars, so I believe information technology is generally acceptable to enjoy it for what it is with an agreement of the time flow it was written.
The writing: so groovy! How is it that Margaret Mitchell is but known for this book. I will have to await it upwards and see if she wrote whatever others. To write such a big volume with a smashing story, symbolism, character development, etc. like this is pure genius.
The story: I had seen the movie but was non sure if I should expect it to exist the same (seems similar Hollywood used to stick closer to the source material than they practice now.) From what I recollect of the move, information technology is a pretty fair adaptation of the book. I idea the combination of fictional characters and events forth side and intertwined with ones that actually occurred was very well done. Because of that I am sure this is a novel that historians enjoy equally well.
The characters: Great character studies and development. Watching where everyone starts compared to where the finish was very interesting. It is non often you become to go along on what seems like an near daily journey with the characters from youth through adulthood. None of these characters accept it easy. Seeing how each character handles the struggles of drastic life changes is the heart and soul of this book.
Gone With The Wind lives upwards to its reputation as a classic. If you have the time for a 900+ folio book, yous actually should cheque it out.
Side note: finished this while in Greenville, Due south Carolina - pretty shut to Atlanta. Seems appropriate!
I've said it some time agone: GWTW the novel is like watching the ten hour manager'south cut of GWTW the movie! Hell yeah! All the memorable scenes are there, & the spotlit romance is considerably widened in scope, every bit is the sturdy social studies lesson on the omnipotent American Civil War. I hateful, everyone has the basic idea correct: the South took a tremendous thrashing. Merely having the loser's POV have the forefront, even to the extent of exalting the KKK-- this, more than Scarlett O'Hara's infamous bitchiness simply overall fierceness as the antihero of this fantastic tale-- is what I fell in beloved with. The stars all aligned and for the kickoff time in a long time the general reading audience had it correct. GWTW is a remarkable, unique reading feel.
A reader but isn't one unless he or she has faced a behemoth similar this one. This, "The Odyssey," "The 1001 Arabian Nights," "Don Quixote," "Lord of the Rings"... are all Musts. All ballsy & so crawly, THE primordial blockbusters of their time. You have plenty time to live with the book, to form a relationship with information technology, to think almost your time to come together... (Information technology becomes an integral part of yourself…)
Now, what practise nosotros get on this journey that is sadly missing in its technicolored, titanic doppelganger? The atrocities shown hither of the war are not apt for a rated Grand moving-picture show.
The following questions are thoroughly answered... (mild SPOILER ALERT!) In what way did Gerald O'Hara gain buying of Tara? What invisible connection exists between women and horses? How did the siege of Atlanta take identify? Why Atlanta? What is Southern hospitality, really? (Priceless is the mentioning of several ostentatious Atlanta parties with merely the Yankee regular army 22 miles away…! Priceless is the POV of the woman that stayed behind while all men are off to war…! Priceless the interconnections between folks [of course the world population was null back then!]) And, How has the idea of masculinity changed from the 19th century? What is true sisterhood? What'south Post-traumatic stress syndrome?
The townships are fully described. GWTW has many protagonists, as they all add together authenticity to the incredibly narrative. If there ever existed a valentine for a city in the elusive form of an ballsy historical romance, then information technology is this, for Atlanta! There are additional love stories which parallel Rhett'due south and Scarlett's & several romantic dates between the central lovers. Anybody, it seems, has fallen in beloved, which adds the hues of Romanticism to the epic Southern Myth. Also, in that location is sympathy for the devil, scorn for the overly dandified Yankees (They desecrated graves! Raped, and pillaged!), amazement at the aftereffects of the Civil War, including Reconstruction (which takes upward many more than pages than the war itself!).
Missing from the silvery screen? The characters of Wade and Ella, Scarlett'south first- and 2nd-borns. They practice cypher but highlight the main character's flaws and selfishness. Frank Kennedy, as well known every bit Mr. Scarlett O'Hara, the 2nd. And Volition Benteen, the overseer at Tara would be one also many males within Scarlett's (Vivien Leigh'south) periphery on motion-picture show. As well: Scarlett almost getting attacked and raped; GWTW's racy social commentary, all of the men partaking in early KKK activities. I volition admit, GWTW is gee-wow! oh-so feminist... but also downright racist!
Scarlett's consciousness evolves. She turns from spoiled deviling teen to fiery, materialistic bitch!! In her brain is the constant boxing to go Ashley Wilkes, to get Tara. It is but here that I perceive similarities to "Twilight": yearnings & adolescent ambiguity. These things, it seems, never alter. As well, that Gotterdammerung, or, the dusk of the gods, the end of culture, is apt to occur in our times, and soon: this is a prophecy waiting to exist fulfilled…!
The British have "Wuthering Heights," "Pride and Prejudice; Nosotros got "Gone With the Wind", an epic and then incredible, then full of wuthering heights and perplexing downfalls, so jam packed with southern pride and arrogance, of prejudice and passion, that it is only deplorable that its sole detriment is (not its length, nor its melodrama, but) its racist edge. GWTW is the s**t in many respects, only it is the dialogue between the star-crossed lovers (positively Wilde in its cleverness, in its tongue-in-cheekness) which elevates information technology to a plane higher than its sturdy, more than lauded colleagues. Dissimilar that once-glorious S in the war, with "Gone With the Current of air" you, the reader, volition non lose...!
One of my reading themes for 2016 is reading at to the lowest degree ten classic books. Information technology seems only fitting that on the Fourth of July I completed Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, an ballsy masterpiece that many view as the definitive great American novel.
I feel that the two halves of the volume mirror the southern Us before and later the Civil War. The first half of the volume occurs primarily at Tara Plantation. We run across our main protagonist Scarlett O'Hara, the belle of the south, who epitomizes what life was like in the antebellum era: young, carefree, never having to lift a finger and having an unabridged plantation at her beck and call. She never gave a idea to slavery, the confederate cause, or political matters because in the south that she knew, this was her way of life.
Side by side, there is the fated barbecue at neighboring Twelve Oaks plantation. We meet mainstays Ashley and Melanie Wilkes who are to be married. Scarlett grew upward with Ashley and desires him yet this is a teenage fantasy, unfortunately one that will plague her for the rest of her life. Witnessing her announcement of love for Ashley is the mysterious Rhett Butler, an unreceived gentleman with a by. Instantly smitten with Scarlett'due south looks and personality, he begins a lifelong quest to have her as his own. And and then the Great State of war hits and shatters all these dreams.
Scarlett reduced to cypher rebuilds. She is a modernistic woman who goes into business despite an unabridged urban center of Atlanta giving her nasty looks. She does this at the toll of her children's upbringing so she can rebuild Tara and her Atlanta life from the rubble of the state of war. Although many people in their reviews state that they dislike Scarlett and her selfish motives, I view her grapheme with determination as she tried to amend her place in society in gild to go out her children with more than she started with. Mitchell is writing from a 20th century perspective and had witnessed the modern woman and inserts some of these modern traits into Scarlett. Combine that with her Irish blood, and nosotros have 1 of the nearly determined protagonists of all time.
Of class equally in whatsoever epic, we have a sketch of the time period. I learned much about the reconstruction south because growing up in the n, we but had what was in the history books. I knew the basics only not the intimate expect at how southerners rebuilt following the state of war. There were 2 views to the new south- there was Ashley Wilkes who pined for Twelve Oaks and the way of life before the war and Rhett Butler who symbolizes the modern south and how Atlanta and the due south rose once more. The second half of the book focuses on these 2 men and how they coped and succeeded in reconstruction, yet information technology all came dorsum to Scarlett and which of the two paths she would choose, which human being'south dreams she would decide to follow.
Behind Scarlett, Rhett, and Ashley and their dreams, we have Melanie Wilkes. She was the only graphic symbol who knew all the principal players for who they were, and held them together through good times and bad. Whereas Scarlett was the new south, the new adult female, Melanie was the south and the motion picture of the s I accept e'er had- a stiff woman, rallying soldiers, rallying for every cause after reconstruction, belongings together an unabridged city, selfless. Even Scarlett with all her selfishness turned to Melanie in times of greatest need, even though Melanie is the one who viewed Scarlett as the pillar of strength. And notwithstanding, both women were strength, Melanie in her antiquated ways and Scarlett every bit the new adult female who would bring this country forward while still remembering Tara, where she came from.
Equally I finish this epic on America's birthday I feel a sadness equally I go out behind Mitchell'due south well drawn characters that earned her a Pulitzer Prize 80 years ago. Scarlett'south determination, Rhett's swarthy brashness, Ashley's love of fourth dimension gone past, Melanie's heart. I look forward to seeing the ballsy moving picture for the kickoff fourth dimension and witnessing Scarlett and Rhett and Tara on screen. I am glad I let myself be fatigued into this piece of Americana from bygone eras, and believe that every American should endeavour to read Mitchell's masterpiece at least one time in their lives.
I received my copy of Gone With the Wind in 1991 and never got past the outset fifty or 100 pages in any of my annual attempts at this books until 2004, at which signal I decided to defeat the book ane and for all. I FINALLY FINISHED READING THE DAMN Book.
I want my time back.
There was a reason I never before read by the first 50 or 100 pages - Scarlet is a raging evil snarky miserable bitch and I hate her. None of the other characters were particularly likable - ranging from sniveling, whiny sissies to evil, snarky assholes.
I don't intendance if information technology *is* some great story well-nigh surviving in a state of war zone or some bullshit line similar that. None of these characters really expressed the complexities or debated the moral dilemmas involved in surviving the Civil State of war. Cherry was a whiny, conniving miserable human beingness and I don't requite a crap if she "only did what she had to do as a woman." She didn't have to treat Ashley or Rhett or ANYONE the manner she did, or she could accept at least felt bad about it or something.
I disliked every single character and their miserable lives. I want my time dorsum.
But by God did information technology feel practiced when Rhett tells her "My dear, I don't give a damn" because neither do I.
(PS: I am, in fact, allowed to dislike this book. You don't demand to answer to my review by calling me names. I'thou perfectly happy to hear about why you did like it, or why you didn't similar it, but I'm tired of people coming to MY review and calling me names because I don't similar this "classic" book.")
(PPS: This book is also a racist & sexist glorification of a racist & sexist past. It'south the literary equivalent of the Confederate Flag.)
Seriously, folks. Yous can just read this and disagree so not say a unmarried thing. A for fuck's sake, don't come here and be an asshole to me if you don't like my review. Go the fuck off my lawn.
And don't come hither proverb I want to ban or burn the book, like Nazis. I don't. You tin read any you desire. I don't believe in banning or burning books. I do believe this book is the Amalgamated flag of literature.
And so much has been said in praise of this volume it feels redundant to add more. In terms of the slave-holding guild, the pic actually toned-downwards the pro-South view of Reconstruction (Scarlett's 2nd husband joined the KKK in the book) and Mammy remains probably ane of the well-nigh fully-adult and likeable African-American characters from 1930 y'all'll read.
Rhett Butler is the consummate alpha male. This book is definitely the timeless classic reputation it has earned, and though at times it seemed like the longest book ever, it is all worth it in the end. It touches on many misunderstood aspects of the ceremonious state of war and its afterwords. What many people do non realize is how horrible it actually was for Southerners afterward the war, mostly because they cannot get by the racism of the times (which it wasn't equally if the North was full of equality and peace, either). If you can accept the times for what they were, yous volition see how well this book was written. I appreciate information technology for the well congenital characters, smooth flow, and albeit romanticized- depiction of the Antebellum South.
As far as existence politically incorrect or the modernistic charges that the volume is "racist," remember that this volume was written in the 1930s. Not to mention, the time catamenia is the Civil State of war era! To be completely unracist would not take depicted the era correctly. Every bit if it represents annihilation more the fashion people thought when it was made. Of course, it's racist. America is and has been a racist social club since the first. This book mirrors the opinions held by the people alive and working at the time, no more and certainly no less. Accept opinions changed since then? Of course, as society evolves and so does the writing. All this aside, the character of "Mammy" is one of the well-nigh likeable and respected characters in the book. Rhett Butler treats her very well, and tries to win her approval. She's the one person throughout the novel who sees through everyone's follies and foibles, but remains forgiving of them anyway. There'southward a reason this volume won so many awards and still endures! It is a timeless classic that everyone should enjoy and read in context.
This entire review has been hidden considering of spoilers.
(Book 619 From 1001 Books) - Gone With The Current of air, Margaret Mitchell
Gone with the Air current is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936.
The story is set up in Clayton Canton and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
Written from the perspective of the slaveholder, Gone with the Current of air is Southern plantation fiction.
Its portrayal of slavery and African Americans has been considered controversial, especially by succeeding generations, as well every bit its utilize of a racial epithet and indigenous slurs common to the menstruation.
Yet, the novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers nigh the South, both black and white.
Scholars at American universities refer to, translate, and study it in their writings.
The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.
Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the volume in 1937.
It was adapted into a 1939 American film.
Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.
بر باد رفته - مارگارت میچل (نگاه) ادبیات، تاریخ نخستین خوانش: پانزدهم ماه مارس سال 1974میلادی، بار دوم ماه مارس سال 1998میلادی و بار سوم اول ماه آوریل سال 2000میلادی
عنوان: بر باد رفته؛ نوشته: مارگارت میچل؛ مترجم: حسن شهباز، مشخصات نشر: تهران، امیرکبیر، موسسه انتشارات فرانکلین، 1336، در دو جلد، در1460ص؛ چاپ سوم 1357؛ چاپ ششم 1379؛ چاپ نهم و دهم 1387؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
عنوان: بر باد رفته؛ نوشته: مارگارت میچل؛ مترجم: شبنم کیان؛ تهران، پانوس، 1363، در سه جلد، چاپ دیگر: تهران، گلدیس، 1368، در دو جلد؛ چاپ یازدهم 1374؛ شابک 9646512062؛ چاپ بعدی 1377؛
عنوان: بر باد رفته؛ نویسنده: مارگارت میچل؛ مترجم: پرتو اشراق؛ تهران؛ نشر ناهید در دو جلد؛ در سال 1383؛ منتشر کرده است
بر باد رفته را انتشارات «امیرکبیر» نخستین بار با ترجمه جناب «حسن شهباز»؛ در سال 1336هجری خورشیدی منتشر کرده است
هشدار: اگر کتاب را نخوانده اید و میخواهید بخوانید لطفا از خوانش ادامه ی ریویو، پرهیز کنید؛
اسکارلت بزرگترین دختر «جرالد اوهارا»، صاحب مزرعه ی پنبه «تارا»، با فهمیدن اعلام نامزدی، و ازدواج «اشلی ویلکز»، پسر مالک مزرعه مجاور، با دختر خاله اش «ملانی همیلتون»، به فکر ابراز علاقه به «اشلی» میافتد؛ چون فکر میکند «اشلی»، به خاطر ناامید شدن از او، میخواهد با «ملانی» ازدواج کند؛ در یک میهمانی، در خانه ی «ویلکز»، «اسکارلت»، به «اشلی»، اظهار علاقه میکند؛ ولی «اشلی» میگوید که میخواهد با دخترخاله ی او «ملانی» ازدواج کند؛ «رت باتلر»، ماجراجوی خوشقیافه ای، که شاهد گفتگوها بوده، از جسارت «اسکارلت»، خوشش میآید؛ جنگ شمال و جنوب آمریکا آغاز میشود، و «اسکارلت»، با «چارلز»، برادر «ملانی» ازدواج میکند، ولی «چارلز»، در اردوی آموزشی درمیگذرد؛ «اسکارلت»، به «آتلانتا»، پیش «ملانی» میرود، و در آنجا دوباره با «رت باتلر»، که حالا دلال ارتش است، و پول کلانی به جیب میزند، روبرو میشود؛ وقتی «آتلانتا»، مورد یورش نیروهای شمالی قرار میگیرد، «رت» به «اسکارلت» و «ملانی» که تازه زایمان کرده یاری میکند، تا از شهر بگریزند، و آنگاه به جنوبیها میپیوندد؛ وقتی «اسکارلت» به «تارا» میرسد، مادرش مرده، و پدرش دچار جنون شده است و مسئولیت نگهداری مزرعه، بر دوش «اسکارلت» میافتد؛ «اشلی» از جنگ برمیگردد، و در کنار «اسکارلت» زندگی میکند؛ شمالیها برای مزرعه، مالیات سنگینی وضع میکنند؛ و «اسکارلت» برای نگهداری مزرعه، و تهیه ی پول به شهر میرود؛ و با «فرانک کندی» نامزد خواهرش ازدواج میکند؛ پس از مرگ «فرانک»، «اسکارلت» اداره ی کارخانه چوببری او را بر دوش میگیرد؛ سرانجام «رت باتلر» از «اسکارلت» تقاضای ازدواج میکند، و با هم ازدواج میکنند؛ ولی توجه مداوم او به «اشلی»، ازدواجشان را به جدایی میکشاند؛ «رت باتلر» پس از مرگ دختر خردسالشان، برای همیشه «اسکارلت» را ترک میکند؛ و «اسکارلت» که بالاخره درمییابد که «اشلی» هیچگاه او را دوست نداشته، و علاقه او به «اشلی»، بیشتر یک رؤیای کودکانه بوده است؛ به مزرعه پنبه ی «تارا» بازمیگردد، تا به زمین نزدیک باشد، و از آن نیروی زندگی بگیرد
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 09/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Gone with the Wind is a masterpiece of artistic writing on every level. In its 1400 pages (or 49 hours on sound) there is non a single wasted line or insignificant moment. From a purely technical perspective, it is awe-inducing how flawlessly Mitchell utilizes characterization, setting, research, conflict, point of view, narrative voice, symbolism, foreshadowing, allusion, and every other literary device in the handbook. Even more amazing, she tin juggle all this and deliver a plot that is relentlessly enjoyable.
The closest novel I've read to this quality is Les Miserables, which was clearly the template for Gone with the Air current. In case at that place is whatever incertitude, Melanie goes so far as to read straight from its pages during a moment of loftier tension. Even in Les Miserables, however, there are hundreds of pages of dully written history that is disjunctive and awkward in the period of narration. Mitchell, following Hugo'south formula, as well includes segments of war history. Her historical segments work much meliorate, however, because they are short and play a more than direct office in the action. Les Miserables is commonly read in an abridged format, but information technology would be impossible to abridge Gone with the Wind. Every word has a purpose, everything a cause and reaction.
Writers seeking examples of superb label should also look no further. Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley and Melanie (amongst others) are so finely fatigued as to boggle the mind. How is information technology possible for such flawed individuals to be so arresting? How tin can fiction feel this real? Even stronger than each individual graphic symbol is Mitchell's handling of relationships. The fashion these characters mold to one another, influence one another, speak in subtext and interact creates a earth so vivid that existent life begins to feel dull.
Despite its long-running popularity, I feel Gone with the Wind (the novel) is perhaps the most underrated classic of all time. There should be no competition. Whatever list of archetype literature that doesn't include Gone with the Wind in the Pinnacle 10 is simply wrong. I suspect role of why information technology gets forgotten as a novel is the iconic movie. I'm then thankful to take mostly avoided the picture thus far, so I could fully relish the novel's many surprises on its ain. For those who are already well-versed with the movie, I suspect the novel volition still blow you lot away. I just can't imagine how they could efficiently cram 49 hours of volume into a iv 60 minutes movie.
Although information technology was intimidating to devote then much fourth dimension to a behemoth similar this, I never regretted it for a second. Gone with the Current of air is one of those masterpieces that is an bodily shame if you lot never get to it.
**SIDE Annotation: The unabridged audio version narrated by Linda Stephens is the best sound performance I've ever encountered. Her performance might very well have elevated my opinion of the novel. I recommend listening to it if yous tin can.
Displaying ane - ten of 21,663 reviews
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18405.Gone_with_the_Wind
0 Response to "I'm Reading a New Book: Gone With the Wind."
Post a Comment