It's another snowy, rainy, cold, dreary day here in Chi-town, so instead of celebrating St. Patrick's Day/celebrating Scarlett's heritage, I'm indoors writing on this blog. Yay Midwest!
So....Part 2 of Chapter 6 undoubtedly Mitchell's hinge for this section of the novel. It's the point where all of Scarlett's best laid plans come to naught, the spot where all her hopes and dreams of becoming Mrs. Ashley Wilkes turn to dust and blow away. I'd like to say that Scarlett begins this section as a girl but ends it as a woman, but that would be grossly inaccurate--and far too pat a turnaround for Mitchell's sophisticated approach. In any other book (and with any other characters) the Showdown in the Wilkes' library between Scarlett and Ashley (and eventually Rhett and Scarlett) would have caused the lead character to reconsider her actions. But Ashley's flat out rejection of Scarlett doesn't actually do anything but stiffen her spine and make her decide to get Ashley if it's the last thing she does. Which is amazing, but...there you have it.
I read 50 Shades of Grey last summer (just like everybody else in America), and I hated every word in that book. I hated the heroine for putting up with that crap (you know what crap I mean!), because "Scarlett O'Hara would never..."
Except you know what? I'm not so sure that she wouldn't. Scarlett is smart and dominant, but there's some part of her that apparently enjoys being hurt--and makes her come back for more. Ashley hurts her feelings in this section by denying his love for her but that just makes her like him more. And Rhett hurts her even more than that (up for debate, but yeah) 10 or so years later, and that sends her into a tizzy of desire. So...maybe she isn't so different from Anastasia after all?
Alright, so Scarlett sneaks into the Wilkes library, a big room full of books where (she notes) "the seven-foot sofa, Ashley's favorite seat, reared its high back, like some huge sleeping animal." What a wonderful, wonderful little throwaway description! Made all the more wonderful, may I add, when you realize that Rhett Butler is hidden on the other side of the sofa, taking a nap. He's such an animal that even the furniture he sleeps on is turned into something big and alive. LOVELY!
This is one of the few scenes in the book that nearly made it whole into the movie. Mitchell blocks the scene pretty well, and it's a nice little set piece that reads like something out of a play. Except, and here's where GWTW is awesome, Rhett Butler KNOWS HE'S IN A PLAY. He comes off the couch laughing at the scene that he's just overheard, and he even throws Scarlett a "bow of exaggerated politeness," as though he just realized he's been accidentally assigned the 2nd lead in Our American Cousin. If the first five chapters hadn't taught us that the life and times of Scarlett O'Hara are going to be totally different from everything we've ever read before, Rhett's behavior in this scene--and Scarlett's reaction to him (the famous:"Sir, you are no gentleman" and then his "And you, Miss, are no lady")--make it clear that this book is going to be different from everything else on the shelf.
The party guests are asleep during this scene, but the County gets word that the War has begun almost as soon as Scarlett leaves the library. All the men get excited (Rhett and Ashley being the exceptions, as usual) and run off in a million different directions to hurry up and go play soldier. And Scarlett is so depressed she accepts a marriage proposal from Charles Hamilton for reasons even she barely understands ("he only squeezed her hand until he drove her rings into the flesh"). And...the plot is now solidly in motion. The War has started, Scarlett is going to be married to Melanie's brother, and all the men she grew up with are dashing off to join the CSA. Good luck guys!
(Not!)
Showing posts with label Scarlett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scarlett. Show all posts
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Chapter 6, ya'll....
Chapter 6 (Part 1):Scarlett Makes Plans--God Laughs....
Chapter 6 of GWTW picks up right where Chapter 5 left off. It's been close to two years since I've written in this blog, so I'm clearly not as good at consistency as Margaret Mitchell is, but at least I'm trying....
Anyway, as chapter 6 begins, Scarlett, her sisters, and her father are pulling up to the Wilkes Plantation and are greeted by a "haze of smoke hanging lazily in the tops of the tall trees," and she "smelled the mingled savory odors of burning hickory logs and roasting pork and mutton." These sentences seem merely descriptive at first blush, but Mitchell then takes the time to contrast John Wilkes hospitality (his bbq that morning will be held "on the gentle slope leading down to the rose garden, a pleasant, shady place") with the Northern/Yankee rudeness of Mrs. Calvert who hates the smell of bbq and makes her guests sit far away from the house whenever she has parties. GWTW is a sprawling book and it can be very difficult to keep track of the tertiary folks with walk-on parts like Mrs. Calvert and John Wilkes, but it is clear that Mitchell herself always had a clear idea about the story arcs of even the smallest bit players in her book. It's a minor detail at this point for Mrs. Calvert to dislike bbq, but that little idea does highlight the difference between Mrs. Calvert and the rest of her neighbors--a difference that will become more important later in the book.
Anyway, the food at this bbq is absolutely delicious. One thing I've always loved about books in the South is that the characters always know how to cook and eat, and GWTW is no exception to this rule: bbq sauce, Brunswick stew, hoecakes and yams (for the servants)...yummers!
But--forget the food!
Mitchell has set a beautiful scene of Scarlett going on the attack at the Wilkes house. She is frantically searching for Ashley (and for Melanie and Charles), and she's flirting with every man she sees in her ultimately misguided (I was going to say unsuccessful, but that would have been going too far) attempt at making Ashley jealous. But none of that matters because, ladies and gentleman, A Stranger From Charleston has now entered the story.
"....her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure...and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built...[and he had] wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising...a maiden to be ravished..."
Oh my!
It has taken five and a half chapters, but Mitchell has finally introduced the man who would ultimately become Scarlett's 3rd husband and bitterest foe. The first time I read GWTW I had absolutely no idea how the story was going to play out in the end. I'd heard Rhett Butler's name a million times and Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh were on the cover of my paperback copy, but I certainly didn't know what role he would play in the story. And to Mitchell's credit, she doesn't tip her hand in the slightest in this initial description. Scarlett herself does not have a particular reaction to Rhett Butler's appearance. In the movie Leigh and Gable give each other a fairly flirtatious going over in the hall at Twelve Oaks, but in the book it's not clear if Rhett is going to be a major character or a minor character, friend or foe.
Hell, he doesn't even speak a word of dialogue for another several hundred words.
He just looks at Scarlett, she looks at him, and then he's called away to another room.
That's pretty doggone amazing, isn't it?
We do learn more about Rhett Butler when Scarlett meets up with Cathleen Calvert (Mrs. Calvert's step-daughter!) and begins gossiping. We learn that Rhett is a scamp with a bad reputation, that he isn't received (Oh Dear!), that he was expelled from West Point, and that Rhett took a Charleston girl out buggy riding, got her into a compromising situation when their buggy broke down, came home and refused to marry her, and then shot the girl's angry brother in a duel....
And then Mitchell closes this description with a little internal dialogue from Scarlett. It seems that instead of being horrified by Rhett Butler's actions in Cathleen's story, Scarlett respects Rhett for not marrying a fool and wishes that she had somehow thought of a way to get Ashley to compromise her. Which is amazingly progressive and hugely funny, and also wonderful foreshadowing for all the tricky things Scarlett will do during the rest of the book.
In addition to Rhett Butler's grand entrance, chapter 6 also includes the (much less grand) entrance of Miss Melanie Hamilton, Ashley's future wife and Scarlett's nemesis. Melanie is Scarlett's foe in this section of the story, so she gets quite a bit more description than Rhett--although not much more, to tell the truth. She has "too large brown eyes" and a "cloud of curly dark hair" and a sweet, timid, plain face. Her body is childishly undeveloped (FORESHADOWING!), and she's having a quiet chat with her fiance in a corner of the yard, much to Scarlett's chagrin.
GWTW is a story about the South during and after the Civil War, and it succeeds on many levels. But I think chapter 6--and, indeed, most of the first part of the book--are amazing because they mimic the way life feels when you are a teenager. The characters Scarlett encounters in this book remind me of the people you meet during your first year of college. They are all strangers and it's impossible to tell straight away which ones will be in your life for the long haul and which ones will disappear after a year or two. It's impossible to know which ones will be friends, which will be foes, and which will exist forever in the murky gray areas between those two extremes.
Chapter 6 of GWTW picks up right where Chapter 5 left off. It's been close to two years since I've written in this blog, so I'm clearly not as good at consistency as Margaret Mitchell is, but at least I'm trying....
Anyway, as chapter 6 begins, Scarlett, her sisters, and her father are pulling up to the Wilkes Plantation and are greeted by a "haze of smoke hanging lazily in the tops of the tall trees," and she "smelled the mingled savory odors of burning hickory logs and roasting pork and mutton." These sentences seem merely descriptive at first blush, but Mitchell then takes the time to contrast John Wilkes hospitality (his bbq that morning will be held "on the gentle slope leading down to the rose garden, a pleasant, shady place") with the Northern/Yankee rudeness of Mrs. Calvert who hates the smell of bbq and makes her guests sit far away from the house whenever she has parties. GWTW is a sprawling book and it can be very difficult to keep track of the tertiary folks with walk-on parts like Mrs. Calvert and John Wilkes, but it is clear that Mitchell herself always had a clear idea about the story arcs of even the smallest bit players in her book. It's a minor detail at this point for Mrs. Calvert to dislike bbq, but that little idea does highlight the difference between Mrs. Calvert and the rest of her neighbors--a difference that will become more important later in the book.
Anyway, the food at this bbq is absolutely delicious. One thing I've always loved about books in the South is that the characters always know how to cook and eat, and GWTW is no exception to this rule: bbq sauce, Brunswick stew, hoecakes and yams (for the servants)...yummers!
But--forget the food!
Mitchell has set a beautiful scene of Scarlett going on the attack at the Wilkes house. She is frantically searching for Ashley (and for Melanie and Charles), and she's flirting with every man she sees in her ultimately misguided (I was going to say unsuccessful, but that would have been going too far) attempt at making Ashley jealous. But none of that matters because, ladies and gentleman, A Stranger From Charleston has now entered the story.
"....her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure...and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built...[and he had] wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising...a maiden to be ravished..."
Oh my!
It has taken five and a half chapters, but Mitchell has finally introduced the man who would ultimately become Scarlett's 3rd husband and bitterest foe. The first time I read GWTW I had absolutely no idea how the story was going to play out in the end. I'd heard Rhett Butler's name a million times and Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh were on the cover of my paperback copy, but I certainly didn't know what role he would play in the story. And to Mitchell's credit, she doesn't tip her hand in the slightest in this initial description. Scarlett herself does not have a particular reaction to Rhett Butler's appearance. In the movie Leigh and Gable give each other a fairly flirtatious going over in the hall at Twelve Oaks, but in the book it's not clear if Rhett is going to be a major character or a minor character, friend or foe.
Hell, he doesn't even speak a word of dialogue for another several hundred words.
He just looks at Scarlett, she looks at him, and then he's called away to another room.
That's pretty doggone amazing, isn't it?
We do learn more about Rhett Butler when Scarlett meets up with Cathleen Calvert (Mrs. Calvert's step-daughter!) and begins gossiping. We learn that Rhett is a scamp with a bad reputation, that he isn't received (Oh Dear!), that he was expelled from West Point, and that Rhett took a Charleston girl out buggy riding, got her into a compromising situation when their buggy broke down, came home and refused to marry her, and then shot the girl's angry brother in a duel....
And then Mitchell closes this description with a little internal dialogue from Scarlett. It seems that instead of being horrified by Rhett Butler's actions in Cathleen's story, Scarlett respects Rhett for not marrying a fool and wishes that she had somehow thought of a way to get Ashley to compromise her. Which is amazingly progressive and hugely funny, and also wonderful foreshadowing for all the tricky things Scarlett will do during the rest of the book.
In addition to Rhett Butler's grand entrance, chapter 6 also includes the (much less grand) entrance of Miss Melanie Hamilton, Ashley's future wife and Scarlett's nemesis. Melanie is Scarlett's foe in this section of the story, so she gets quite a bit more description than Rhett--although not much more, to tell the truth. She has "too large brown eyes" and a "cloud of curly dark hair" and a sweet, timid, plain face. Her body is childishly undeveloped (FORESHADOWING!), and she's having a quiet chat with her fiance in a corner of the yard, much to Scarlett's chagrin.
GWTW is a story about the South during and after the Civil War, and it succeeds on many levels. But I think chapter 6--and, indeed, most of the first part of the book--are amazing because they mimic the way life feels when you are a teenager. The characters Scarlett encounters in this book remind me of the people you meet during your first year of college. They are all strangers and it's impossible to tell straight away which ones will be in your life for the long haul and which ones will disappear after a year or two. It's impossible to know which ones will be friends, which will be foes, and which will exist forever in the murky gray areas between those two extremes.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Chapter 3: Introducing Ellen and Gerald
Chapter 3 of GWTW begins with a description of Ellen O'Hara, a thirty-two year old woman who "had borne six children and buried three." Scarlett adores and admires her mother, but in my opinion the narrator/Mitchell actually seems ambivalent about the Mistress of Tara. Most literary analysis very quickly makes a connection between Ellen and Melanie Wilkes and the two women are alike on the surface. But while both are strong, quiet, and capable, Ellen lacks Melanie's heart and her pragmatism. Ellen taught her three daughters how to thrive on the distaff side of the planter class, but while her lessons in manners, deportment, and charm are no doubt good training for Scarlett, Suellen, and Careen, none of the girls seems to have actually learned the reasons behind the rules of etiquette and interpersonal relationships (and fashion) that have been drilled into them since birth.
By contrast, while Melanie is just as well-schooled in southern belle behavior as Ellen and her girls, Melanie's character spends most of the book grounded in reality. Melanie sees through all the social constructions of their class and instinctively understands the motives and desires of all those around her. Melanie is the first person to recognize the good in Rhett (or his alleged good, anyway), she's the only person to rationally assess Belle Watling, and she's the one who works hardest to keep the Old Guard together during the post-war years. And so, by chapter 3 of this re-read I've already begun to compare and contrast Ellen and Melanie. Although Scarlett spends most of the book remembering her mother through rose-colored glasses (and understandably so), I'm convinced that there's a coldness to Ellen. A certain blase selfishness and distance from the world that doesn't truly allow her to relax. She never seems to be in the moment, and while the paragraphs of backstory we get in this chapter go a long way toward explaining her behavior, the information doesn't make her any easier to understand. Or to like. As a wise man once said:
"I understand, but I'll be damned if I sympathize."
Anyway, after the narrator gives us eleven paragraphs of exposition about Ellen's background, she then gives us Gerald's backstory. And where Ellen's story is shrouded in mystery and long lost love, Gerald's life is an open book. IAnd what a book it is.
Gerald's life has included: war, murder, older brothers, Catholic prayers, poker games, copious amounts of very strong liquor, swear words, fence jumping, and "his father's parting admonition, 'remember who you are and don't be taking nothing off no man.'" Gerald's past is as colorful and exciting as the man himself, and I bet Mitchell had a field day diagramming how, when and why he came to America. Gerald is a fun character, and a funny one, far and away the most interesting and likeable person in Scarlett's immediate family--not that he has any competition given that everybody else is kind of boring.
Obviously, Gerald's background is very, very similar to Rhett's. He's a good card player and he lives on the edge despite his upper-class surroundings, and I appreciate his humor. He seems comfortable in his own skin at this point in the novel, which makes it all the more tragic when (SPOILER!) he loses his mind after the Yankees ransack the county. I read a review of the movie recently that said that Gerald's death foreshadows Bonnie's death, and while this is true I would also argue that Gerald's 'bout of insanity after his world falls apart directly foreshadows Rhett's unraveling during the final section of the book.
More about that later.
Mitchell ends chapter 3 with a lengthy description of Scarlett herself, and while I was reading it last week one sentence stood out and made me laugh:
"At sixteen....she looked sweet, charming, and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate."
Now that is one hell of a way to describe the protagonist of a book.
A lot of people dismiss GWTW as nothing more than a dated romance novel, a boddice ripper that just sort of lucked into being one of the most popular pieces of art of all time. But I disagree, because as a devoted writer and reader of romance novels, I know that even the most daring authors wouldn't dream of giving us a lead character with so few redeeming traits. Scarlett is smart and funny, but most of her funny thoughts are internal dialogue and I don't think anybody (except maybe Rhett) would call her a wit. She's a popular girl and she becomes a very popular woman, but she's a bitch. Nothing more, nothing less.
She's a boyfriend stealer. She's a slave driver, she's a manipulative woman who married once for spite, once out of desperation, and once for money. She's a bitch, and even on my first read I realized that she wasn't going to be able to easily transition from self-centered bitchiness to butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth polite behavior.
By contrast, while Melanie is just as well-schooled in southern belle behavior as Ellen and her girls, Melanie's character spends most of the book grounded in reality. Melanie sees through all the social constructions of their class and instinctively understands the motives and desires of all those around her. Melanie is the first person to recognize the good in Rhett (or his alleged good, anyway), she's the only person to rationally assess Belle Watling, and she's the one who works hardest to keep the Old Guard together during the post-war years. And so, by chapter 3 of this re-read I've already begun to compare and contrast Ellen and Melanie. Although Scarlett spends most of the book remembering her mother through rose-colored glasses (and understandably so), I'm convinced that there's a coldness to Ellen. A certain blase selfishness and distance from the world that doesn't truly allow her to relax. She never seems to be in the moment, and while the paragraphs of backstory we get in this chapter go a long way toward explaining her behavior, the information doesn't make her any easier to understand. Or to like. As a wise man once said:
"I understand, but I'll be damned if I sympathize."
Anyway, after the narrator gives us eleven paragraphs of exposition about Ellen's background, she then gives us Gerald's backstory. And where Ellen's story is shrouded in mystery and long lost love, Gerald's life is an open book. IAnd what a book it is.
Gerald's life has included: war, murder, older brothers, Catholic prayers, poker games, copious amounts of very strong liquor, swear words, fence jumping, and "his father's parting admonition, 'remember who you are and don't be taking nothing off no man.'" Gerald's past is as colorful and exciting as the man himself, and I bet Mitchell had a field day diagramming how, when and why he came to America. Gerald is a fun character, and a funny one, far and away the most interesting and likeable person in Scarlett's immediate family--not that he has any competition given that everybody else is kind of boring.
Obviously, Gerald's background is very, very similar to Rhett's. He's a good card player and he lives on the edge despite his upper-class surroundings, and I appreciate his humor. He seems comfortable in his own skin at this point in the novel, which makes it all the more tragic when (SPOILER!) he loses his mind after the Yankees ransack the county. I read a review of the movie recently that said that Gerald's death foreshadows Bonnie's death, and while this is true I would also argue that Gerald's 'bout of insanity after his world falls apart directly foreshadows Rhett's unraveling during the final section of the book.
More about that later.
Mitchell ends chapter 3 with a lengthy description of Scarlett herself, and while I was reading it last week one sentence stood out and made me laugh:
"At sixteen....she looked sweet, charming, and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate."
Now that is one hell of a way to describe the protagonist of a book.
A lot of people dismiss GWTW as nothing more than a dated romance novel, a boddice ripper that just sort of lucked into being one of the most popular pieces of art of all time. But I disagree, because as a devoted writer and reader of romance novels, I know that even the most daring authors wouldn't dream of giving us a lead character with so few redeeming traits. Scarlett is smart and funny, but most of her funny thoughts are internal dialogue and I don't think anybody (except maybe Rhett) would call her a wit. She's a popular girl and she becomes a very popular woman, but she's a bitch. Nothing more, nothing less.
She's a boyfriend stealer. She's a slave driver, she's a manipulative woman who married once for spite, once out of desperation, and once for money. She's a bitch, and even on my first read I realized that she wasn't going to be able to easily transition from self-centered bitchiness to butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth polite behavior.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Chapter 1: To Scarlett on our 16th Birthday
I read Gone With the Wind for the first time during the summer of 1995. I was sixteen that July and bored out of my mind, too young to drive, too lazy to work, and too broke to do anything much besides obsessively watch Cary Grant films on AMC and wear out my library card. I've always been a bit of a history nerd, so I spent that June reading random American history books. And romance novels. Lots and lots of romance novels.
By the time Independence Day rolled around, I'd exhausted our local supply of bodice rippers and was looking for something new. Something different. Something classic, but sexy. I considered Pride and Prejudice and a few other similar books crowding the assignment shelf, but then I found Gone With the Wind. GWTW is the most famous movie of all time, but I'd never sat through it. Consequently, I knew very little about Scarlett beyond a few "Fiddle-Dee-Dees" and I knew nothing about Rhett besides his mustache and the fact that he "didn't give a damn." I went into the book with an open mind, but it was long and I was sure it was antiquated. And I was sure I wouldn't enjoy it. In fact, as I glanced at the 1048 pages in my borrowed copy, I doubted that I would get much further than 200 or so pages.
But, of course, I was wrong.
I was hooked by the end of the first paragraph. Scarlett O'Hara and I have nothing in common on the surface, but we were both 16, both sassy and both smart, and out of all the books I'd read and the movies I'd seen she was the character who reminded me most of myself. Over the course of 1048 pages and 12 years of Civil War drama I gained a friend. A homegirl. An ally who I instantly knew would be my bfff(best female fictional friend) for life. I cheered with her, cried with her, celebrated her triumphs, and had my little teenaged heart broken into a million little pieces by the wild finish and great tragedy of her marriage to Rhett. I've read GWTW cover-to-cover at least 10 times over the past 16 years, but it never gets old for me. And since this is the 16th anniversary of a meeting that happened when I was 16, I've decided this is as good a time as ever to blog the book chapter by chapter. To do an in-depth analysis of Mitchell's style, to evaluate the characters, to figure out precisely how a book that shouldn't be any good at all wound up being the Great American Novel (yeah, I said it). So, without further ado, let's begin at the beginning and take a look at Chapter 1.
Action: Chapter 1 of GWTW begins with Scarlett O'Hara having a conversation. Now, if this had been a lesser book and a lesser author and a lesser character, Scarlett would have probably been talking to just one person. But she's not.
Instead, she's talking to the Tarleton Twins, two super hot idiots who've just been expelled from school (again), and are hiding from their angry mother at Tara. Brent and Stewart are the 19th century versions of Prince Harry: silly and stupid and brash and tall, quick to anger, charming and ginger. What girl wouldn't love them?
Oh yeah. Scarlett. Because she's in love with Ashley. But we don't even find out much about Scarlett and Ashely until Chapter 2, because Mitchell is too busy using the Tarleton Twins to tell us about the County. It's a splendid little device because the Twins are hilarious and crazy but solid and safe, and as such they're the perfect representations of Mitchell's Antebellum south. Even more than Ashley (who is not in this chapter), more than Ellen, and more than Scarlett herself. They're honest and hardy, wild and free, rich and totally, totally, totally fucking insane. They're so close they're both trying to date Scarlett at the same time. And so crazy they've been expelled from every southern university this side of Tuskegee (yeah, I said it). But that's okay, because book learnin' isn't really important for men in that part of the world. The only things southern gentlemen need to know are how to drink whiskey, how to shoot straight, how to play cards, and how to properly curse, and the Twins have those things all figured out, thank you very much.
So Brent and Stuart and Scarlett sit on the porch and gossip. And it's awesome because, despite the fact that it's a 1930's author essentially transcribing a conversation between young adults in 1861, it's vibrant. The characters bounce along, wonderfully ignorant of life beyond their own simple, beautiful world, convinced that Yankees are cowards, utterly sure that their lives will continue on just as it is, certain that nothing will ever change their world (jai guru deva om, etc). Interestingly enough, Mitchell doesn't use any foreshadowing in this chapter.
She doesn't have to. The reader knows the War is coming, and the reader knows it's going to destroy everything the three of them can see. We don't know precisely how Scarlett, Brent, and Stewart will experience the War of Northern Aggression (mmmm hmmmm), but we do know it will change them. Thusly, this entire first chapter challenges the reader emotionally because the characters are blissfully unaware of the freight train racing down the tracks, but the reader can already here the whistle and see the smoke and is just waiting patiently for the coming destruction. It's like that part in an 80's horror movie when the super cool, super rich, super beautiful high school seniors get in their car and head up to summer camp. You watch and shake your head, and wait on tenterhooks for the fallout you know is coming.
By the time Independence Day rolled around, I'd exhausted our local supply of bodice rippers and was looking for something new. Something different. Something classic, but sexy. I considered Pride and Prejudice and a few other similar books crowding the assignment shelf, but then I found Gone With the Wind. GWTW is the most famous movie of all time, but I'd never sat through it. Consequently, I knew very little about Scarlett beyond a few "Fiddle-Dee-Dees" and I knew nothing about Rhett besides his mustache and the fact that he "didn't give a damn." I went into the book with an open mind, but it was long and I was sure it was antiquated. And I was sure I wouldn't enjoy it. In fact, as I glanced at the 1048 pages in my borrowed copy, I doubted that I would get much further than 200 or so pages.
But, of course, I was wrong.
I was hooked by the end of the first paragraph. Scarlett O'Hara and I have nothing in common on the surface, but we were both 16, both sassy and both smart, and out of all the books I'd read and the movies I'd seen she was the character who reminded me most of myself. Over the course of 1048 pages and 12 years of Civil War drama I gained a friend. A homegirl. An ally who I instantly knew would be my bfff(best female fictional friend) for life. I cheered with her, cried with her, celebrated her triumphs, and had my little teenaged heart broken into a million little pieces by the wild finish and great tragedy of her marriage to Rhett. I've read GWTW cover-to-cover at least 10 times over the past 16 years, but it never gets old for me. And since this is the 16th anniversary of a meeting that happened when I was 16, I've decided this is as good a time as ever to blog the book chapter by chapter. To do an in-depth analysis of Mitchell's style, to evaluate the characters, to figure out precisely how a book that shouldn't be any good at all wound up being the Great American Novel (yeah, I said it). So, without further ado, let's begin at the beginning and take a look at Chapter 1.
Action: Chapter 1 of GWTW begins with Scarlett O'Hara having a conversation. Now, if this had been a lesser book and a lesser author and a lesser character, Scarlett would have probably been talking to just one person. But she's not.
Instead, she's talking to the Tarleton Twins, two super hot idiots who've just been expelled from school (again), and are hiding from their angry mother at Tara. Brent and Stewart are the 19th century versions of Prince Harry: silly and stupid and brash and tall, quick to anger, charming and ginger. What girl wouldn't love them?
Oh yeah. Scarlett. Because she's in love with Ashley. But we don't even find out much about Scarlett and Ashely until Chapter 2, because Mitchell is too busy using the Tarleton Twins to tell us about the County. It's a splendid little device because the Twins are hilarious and crazy but solid and safe, and as such they're the perfect representations of Mitchell's Antebellum south. Even more than Ashley (who is not in this chapter), more than Ellen, and more than Scarlett herself. They're honest and hardy, wild and free, rich and totally, totally, totally fucking insane. They're so close they're both trying to date Scarlett at the same time. And so crazy they've been expelled from every southern university this side of Tuskegee (yeah, I said it). But that's okay, because book learnin' isn't really important for men in that part of the world. The only things southern gentlemen need to know are how to drink whiskey, how to shoot straight, how to play cards, and how to properly curse, and the Twins have those things all figured out, thank you very much.
So Brent and Stuart and Scarlett sit on the porch and gossip. And it's awesome because, despite the fact that it's a 1930's author essentially transcribing a conversation between young adults in 1861, it's vibrant. The characters bounce along, wonderfully ignorant of life beyond their own simple, beautiful world, convinced that Yankees are cowards, utterly sure that their lives will continue on just as it is, certain that nothing will ever change their world (jai guru deva om, etc). Interestingly enough, Mitchell doesn't use any foreshadowing in this chapter.
She doesn't have to. The reader knows the War is coming, and the reader knows it's going to destroy everything the three of them can see. We don't know precisely how Scarlett, Brent, and Stewart will experience the War of Northern Aggression (mmmm hmmmm), but we do know it will change them. Thusly, this entire first chapter challenges the reader emotionally because the characters are blissfully unaware of the freight train racing down the tracks, but the reader can already here the whistle and see the smoke and is just waiting patiently for the coming destruction. It's like that part in an 80's horror movie when the super cool, super rich, super beautiful high school seniors get in their car and head up to summer camp. You watch and shake your head, and wait on tenterhooks for the fallout you know is coming.
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