Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

 

Gone with the Wind was a spring read for the Back to the Classics Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  This was my third time reading this novel in my life.  I read it first in middle school and last time in my later twenties.  I seem to have a different perspective and learn something new every time I read it.  One thing I realized this time is that it works a lot better for me to read it straight through rather than to read half of it for one book club discussion and then finish it a couple of months later for the second book club discussion.

Gone With the Wind is an epic, layered novel with some of the greatest characters in literature.  Scarlett O’Hara is a heroine that you disdain at times, but you can’t stop reading about her.  Rhett Butler is a scoundrel that you root for, and at his heart, he truly loves Scarlett.  There are so many good characters in this story. 

In this reading of the classic tale, I was struck by how both Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes are realistic about the Civil War.  They both talk about how politicians and people with money have riled up the populace to fight in a war that they can’t win and that doesn’t benefit most of the people of the south.  I loved this quote by Rhett Butler, “All wars are sacred to those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so, few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'Save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'Down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, slavery, and States' Rights!'”  Some things don’t change.  I totally didn’t remember these views in Gone with the Wind.

It was an interesting look at how the war changed everything in Georgia.  It does show how the war came right to where they lived and changed their lives forever.  The siege of Atlanta was one of the most thrilling sections of a book that I have ever read.  It was sad as characters you’ve grown to know died seemingly senseless deaths.

The book does paint a fantasy version of the perfect South that never really existed.  For instance, the black characters in the story are all happy slaves before the war.  After the war, free black people are not looked too kindly upon.  The most troubling aspect of the novel is that pretty much everyone Scarlett knows is in the Ku Klux Klan and it’s painted as a great organization that is protecting the women of the south.  It’s a very strange thing to read, especially knowing that Scarlett is Catholic and the KKK does not look too kindly upon Catholics.  This must be how the author in the 1930s South rationalized the KKK and its existence. 

I’ve recently been disturbed to see people who have never read this novel stating on my classic book club pages that you are racist if you’ve read this novel or enjoyed this novel.  I find that troubling as well.  You will never learn about the past and take a good look at what was bad and good if you just label things as racist without reading them and having discussions on them.  If we can’t look at the past to learn from our mistakes, I don’t know how we will move forward.

Book Source:  I own two copies of this book.  One is a June 1936 edition that I bought at an auction (sadly May 1936 is the first edition) and the other that I got at a half off bookstore.  It’s a beautiful copy as well.  This time around, I read it on my Kindle.