Gone with the Wind - Part 2

In my last post I reflected on the greediness of Gone with the Wind and Margaret Mitchell's desire to have it all. That greediness is reflected also in her depiction of the South.

Why is Scarlett so nasty and selfish? Why is the heroine of our book someone we not only love but love to hate? Scarlett believes herself superior to just about everyone except maybe her mother and Ashley. She will step over anyone to get the thing she thinks she wants. She is areligious bordering on atheistic. And unlike modern novels or movies, the story is not one of progress. Scarlett doesn't end the novel a changed woman, regretting her character flaws. Scarlett is Scarlett throughout.

This was my first time reading the novel (and I have yet to see the movie too) and I was surprised at how this most-loved book had a rather wicked protagonist. In any other book, I would have expected the main character to be a sluicing together of Scarlett and Melanie, or Scarlanie. Scarlanie would have Scarlett's determination and strong-headedness. Scarlanie would have Melanie's faith and devotion, her dedication to her friends. Why would Mitchell take this tack?

I believe it has to do with this being a Southern book. Mitchell has stated that Scarlett is like Atlanta during the reconstruction, an odd mixture of the old South and the new South. But she is really only part of the old South in her roots and ties. The old South is found in Melanie and Ashley, the Tarletons, and everything that Tara represents. Scarlett loves these things, but she is not like these things.

By letting us follow hard and ruthless Scarlett, Mitchell avoids a cloyingly sweet novel about the romantic South, while at the same time indulging endlessly in the romantic South. In fact, Scarlett's hardness only makes the old South all that much more romantic. There is no criticism of any of the social structures that propped up the old south. Sexism? No, chivalry. Racism? No, family. There is not one mistreated slave or one cruel master; those things are northern myths. The Klan? They are needed to protect our women from uppity blacks egged on by the carpetbaggers, a necessity created by the North.

It really all comes together in Rhett Butler. You may think that you love his rascally and irreverent ways. Okay, you do, but you can enjoy them because at root he is a southern gentleman who always knows the truth before him. He may deal with the northerners and make friends with ne'er-do-wells, but he knows the score. His charm is all southern, and whenever the chips are down, he acts just like the Old Guard. His southern gentriness is like his love for Scarlett; something that he hides but really the thing that defines him.

So through these characters and this world, Mitchell gets to present the most romantic image of the South possible without seeming to write a novel that pines for the past. Now that is brilliant writing. We get a modern tale with modern players AND the nostalgic romanticized backdrop for them to act out their tale.

Didn't I say she was greedy? But again, you can be greedy as long as you can pull it off. And Mitchell most certainly pulls it off.