Gone With The Wind: My First Thoughts

Brilliant Storytelling, Blatant Racism, And An Unforgettable Heroine

Gone With The Wind my copy

Hello!!!

This is Joyie and welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet where I talk all things books!

This week has been very good for me reading wise. On Monday, I finished Gone With The Wind. Then I started reading Vanity Fair which I was finding a little boring. So, after watching the 1993 The Age of Innocence movie, I started re-reading that book. Then today I finished the last two stories I had left in the Classic Japanese Ghost Stories collection I was reading. Have you been reading anything this week?

As I said, I finished Gone With The Wind on Monday. And then spent the rest of the week trying to cope with the fact that the book was over, which generally is an indication that the book was good. But this time it was a bit more complicated.

The book pissed me off, especially in the second half. It’s racist and is not even trying to hide it, because it doesn’t consider itself racist, that’s pretty evident. The romanticised portrayal of slavery as some old, noble tradition, the depiction of the ‘good’ black people, who even after being freed, choose to serve their ‘masters’, and the idea that slavery was not as brutal as it’s made out to be–yeah, no thanks.

But parallel with that, the book is damn well-written. It’s a chillingly good depiction of how even the vilest, most bigoted of objectives, can be sold to people in the wrapping of some glorious noble cause. And people will line up to give their life for it. There’s a quote from 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?

Now of course, the book indeed insinuates that the south had a sacred cause for fighting and ultimately Rhett himself joined the war, but you get my point.

And then Scarlett. I do not like her, at times I flat out hate her, she’s extremely selfish, manipulative and unfeeling. But it’s undeniable that her character is extremely fascinating. Her resilience, the way she builds herself up after losing everything, I respect that. I loved seeing a grey female character as a heroine, a female character who so violently takes charge, refusing to be powerless and leave her fate to others.

Also, in a twisted way, I think she’s one of the least racist people in the story. She sees everyone in terms of their usefulness to her, black or white. She at no point cares about the ‘noble cause’ that others are willing to sacrifice everything for, she’s only upset at the Northern ‘yankees’ when their actions start affecting her directly. But even so, she’s open to doing business with them, if that means she will be able to make money. She also uses convicts (predominantly white men) to run her business for cheap, which is another form of slavery. I could go on talking about her for an hour.

In general, reading Gone With the Wind challenged me. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the insanely good storytelling while simultaneously grappling with its blatantly racist undertones. It’s a story that’s going to stay with me, not just as a great piece of literature, but as a reminder that sometimes, the most challenging stories are the ones worth engaging with.

What about you? Have you read Gone With The Wind? What do you think of it? I'd love to know!!!

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That’s it for today, I'll be back in your inbox next week.

Until then,

Joyie 🌻