Any novelist knows the middle of the novel is always, always, always the most difficult section to write. Beginnings and endings are comparatively easy to plan and execute. The beginning sets the tone and if you write your novel in sequence it can be a lot of fun to develop new characters with new problems. And endings are--well, it can be pretty tough to walk away from your story and darned tough to come up with a good "landing place" for your characters, but there's something wonderfully satisfying about putting a project to bed.
But the middle is.....
I've agonized over many middle sections in my time, so I can only imagine how difficult MM found it to write the middle sections of GWTW. All of Scarlett's original motivations are now gone (Ashley is married to Melly and a prisoner in Rock Island), and she's returned to Tara, and I'll betcha MM rewrote the middle a thousand times before she came up with a satisfying way to connect the beginning third of the novel with the final third. Scarlett's obsession with Ashley and her desire to become Mrs. Ashley Wilkes keeps us interested (especially those of us who enjoy romance novels), but the rest of Scarlett's challenges and problems are just as compelling and MM starts developing the problems that will eventually come to a head in the last third of the novel right here in Chapter 28.
First of all, as MM makes clear early in this chapter: "At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food." The Civil War is not officially over, and in another novel by a less talented author who'd done less research, the protagonist's focus probably would have been on the disappointment of defeat. But MM and Scarlett are nothing if not practical, so instead of recounting the death of the Confederacy and the maneuvers of Robert E. Lee or whatever, MM decides to narrow the conflict down to the basics of survival: food, shelter, and money. Of course Scarlett and everybody else in the County are completely isolated from the world and haven't seen a newspaper in ages, so they couldn't exactly follow battles and events blow-by-blow even if they wanted to--but I get the distinct sense reading these chapters of GWTW that none of the characters particularly give a damn about what happens outside of their neighborhood. And this narrow view isn't simply something that occurs because of the War or because they're hungry: Scarlett and her friends have always been fairly ignorant and isolated about the world outside of Georgia, and it would certainly take more than casualties in a far off corner of Virgina or Tennessee to get their attention.
Anyway, by narrowing Scarlett's attention onto necessities like food and shelter, MM demonstrates that Scarlett is single-minded and mature. She shoulders the burden of feeding her family here in the center of the novel, and her hard-work and laser-like focus in this section make it quite easy for us to see how Scarlett develops into such a hard-working, focused woman in the final part of the book.
The second idea MM develops here in Chapter 28 is the continued destruction of the stratified southern society. MM spent the first 10% of the novel explaining the rigid divisions in Southern society. Of course our modern eyes notice the racial differences she gives us more than everything else, but I think it's also worth remembering that she draws distinctions between rich and poor planters, Northerners and Southerners, flighty girls and serious young women, wild boys like the Tarletons and quiet, studious, serious types like Ashley. Everybody has a distinct role to play in pre-War society, but now that the war is over everybody breaks away from all of these expected behaviors.
In this chapter we have southern belle Scarlett riding a horse and looking for food, the whole formerly wealthy family eating "rabbit and possum and catfish," and former slave (ahem!) playing an essential role in keeping food on the table. I've read a lot of commentary about 12 Years a Slave lately, and most of the film reviews praise 12 Years while also taking potshots at GWTW and Birth of a Nation. I'm definitely not going to defend Birth of A Nation, and I do have a few problems with some of MM's depictions of black characters, but I think it's unfair to pretend that GWTW and Birth are similar in their approach to race. Birth demonizes African-Americans (at least it does in the clips I've seen on TV lately), but GWTW takes the opposite tact in 90% of the novel. There are some bad or evil or wild black characters in GWTW, but Pork and Mammy (and even Prissy, to a lesser extent) have more in common with the "Magical Negro" character type than with anything particularly negative. In any case, as I've said many times before MM is an equal-opportunity offender in the pages of GWTW, and for every "evil" black character I can count ten white characters who are portrayed in a negative light. Either way, the social structure has broken down by the time we arrive to this section of the novel; so far everybody is cooperating and behaving, but the seeds of the madness of the reconstruction period are sewn right here in the wake of Sherman's army.
The third important thread that MM starts here in Chapter 28 is Scarlett's dream. I tend to stay away from dream sequences when I'm writing and I usually don't like them when I'm reading either, but I don't mind Scarlett's misty dream here in GWTW. For one thing it adds a nice touch of the Southern Gothic to the story, since it's foreboding and terrifying and all of that. However, I think MM did a great job with the dream because it's a dream about nothing. It would have been corny if MM had included persons, places, or identifiable things in Scarlett's dream. Imagine, for instance, if Scarlett dreamed about her mother or Ashley or the Tarleton twins? In lesser hands Scarlett's dream would have provided her with advice or encouragement, sort of like that earlier dream featuring her ancestors. But here the dream is vague and empty and terrifying, and it gives nothing away, which adds to the uneasiness we all feel as we turn the pages in GWTW.
Alright, so now that MM has added these story threads that will pay off later, the second half of Chapter 28 features a cameo by one of my favorite characters Frank Kennedy! He's part of the commissary department (because, of course he is!), and he brings news of the war (The Confederates have retaken Atlanta, but it has been burned to the ground...), but because he's a well-bred gentleman he doesn't give them too much bad news. That's nice of him, I suppose, and once again MM displays her talent by "showing without telling." If Rhett or Ashley or Gerald had ambled up to Tara instead of Frank, any of the three of them would have eventually told Tara precisely what was going on in the world, if only so that she could prepare for the future. Rhett would have given it to her straight, Ashley would have told her reluctantly, and Gerald would have done it by accident, but none of the three of them would have spared her feelings. Scarlett is in charge and she therefore needs to know everything that's happening outside of Tara, but Frank still evidently doesn't want to upset the ladies.
Sigh.
Anyway, at the end of this Christmas dinner Frank timidly asks Scarlett for Suellen's hand. Scarlett agrees even though "it was beyond her comprehension that anyone could love Suellen." After Frank says yes, he opens up a little and talks frankly to Scarlett about the fact that the war is winding down. This final disclosure provides a nice bridge for the next few chapters, but Scarlett is so practical she doesn't care much about the fortunes of the rebel government and is more concerned with the impending lack of food and resources than she is with her sister's love life.
Next time: The Civil War ends....and life begins again.
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