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.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
Chapter 27: "Yes, the worst was over!" (Girl Power!)
My horoscope said today was a good day for traveling and publishing, so here I am.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month. I fancy myself as a novelist in moments of supreme self-confidence, and I take on the challenge of writing new words about new topics every year. NaNoWo is supposed to be about writing without editing. It's supposed to be about letting your ideas flow as you type-type-type the Fall blues away. I always start off with a head full of steam, but eventually run out of gas because I'm pretty picky about my style and I honestly begin most mornings striking or erasing most of the things I wrote the day before. I've always been pretty darn good at writing dialogue, and I can put together a pretty decent scene. But my sequels suck.
What are sequels? I can hear you ask. And I'm glad you asked, although I'm pretty sorry that you asked me since, as I mentioned, I'm absolutely terrible at writing them. Essentially, sequels cap off scenes. Sometimes they are little more than a summation of what has come before, but sometimes they're a springboard for the next bit of action or simply a characters internal dialogue as they reassess whatever has just happened to them. I can knock out thousands of lines of dialogue without missing a beat, but sequels are the secret to good writing. It's what separates the amateurs from the professionals, or so I'd like to think.
MM was darn good at writing sequels, wasn't she?
One of my favorite sequels comes at the end of Chapter 26:
"There was hope now. The war couldn't last forever. She had her little cotton, she had food, she had a horse, she had her small but treasured hoard of money. Yes, the worst was over."
Scarlett has suffered and struggled since she left Atlanta, and in the hands of a lesser novel killing the Yankee would have been our heroine's nadir. But because GWTW is a great novel Scarlett's murder is almost celebrated, and it propels the action over the next part of the novel. Scarlett might be a murderer, but she's got food, money, and a horse, so what difference is a little criminal sin? MM doesn't dwell on Scarlett's soul or her mental well-being, here. She's just glad Scarlett is slowly finding a way to get by in a world gone mad, and you know what? I'm glad, too.
Except, uh-oh. As we turn to Chapter 27 we see that all is not well. Because the Yankees are back.
Is this overkill? You think this is overkill having the Yankees return twice to Tara? Perhaps you could make the argument that MM is laying it all on a little thick, but you know what? The Yankees were all over Georgia during late 1864 and early 1865. I don't know much about life in a war zone, but I have seen it on TV. And TV wars are never as cut and dry as we like to think war is. Atlanta is in ruins and we know the Yankees were massing up for the March to the Sea, but I'm pretty sure the Yankees were swarming all over Clayton county, and I'm pretty sure that they would have returned to Tara a few times to look for spoils and goodies.
Everybody else runs into the swamp when the Yankees are coming, and Scarlett is about to join them but she doesn't. Because she's afraid the Yankees will burn Tara over her head, and Tara is all she's got left in the world. Everybody else scampered away because they've got good sense and are totally afraid of confronting men with guns, but Scarlett isn't afraid. Tara is her home and she aims to defend it, and if the Yankees don't like it, well..."they're only a passel of damn Yankees!"
Interestingly enough, this Chapter also includes a little bit of rape panic ("For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters"), and it's fairly interesting how MM keeps that threat bubbling under the surface of the story, isn't it?
But Lordy Lordy, the end result of Chapter 27 is that the Yankees who show up at Tara take almost everything Scarlett had left. All the things that gave her security during the sequel of Chapter 26 are gone by the end of Chapter 27. The Yankees even try to burn the house, although Scarlett and Melly put it out pretty quickly (but with a great deal of effort). I guess I could grumble a little bit about the slurs Melly and Scarlett toss around after they've put the fire out, but...sigh. I won't. I don't like to read those words anymore than you do, but I think they're pretty accurate here. Scarlett and Melly were women of the South, and they grew up on plantations. They were at the top of a very precisely structured hierarchy, and besides neither of these women were modern liberals, were they? Let's just say that the harsh words they use here rub me the wrong way, but they're not at all shocking or out of place. As a matter of fact, not using those words would ring false in this situation. This is historical fiction after all, and PC-talk hadn't been invented during 1864.
Anyway, Chapter 27 ends with a sequel that is almost as perfect as the one that winds up Chapter 26.
"I'll say this for her," Scarlett muses about Melly, "she's always there when you need her."
And so, for all that GWTW sometimes rubs me the wrong way regarding racial harmony and equality, I think the book is very modern in its portrayal of Girl Power. Scarlett hates Melly, but Melly loves Scarlett unconditionally. And as the book edges forward, we are able to experience the blossoming of Scarlett's love for Melly in what feels like real time. GWTW is often wrongly described as nothing more than a Love Story between Scarlett and Rhett, but in actuality I often think that the real romance in GWTW occurs between Melly and Scarlett. I love Captain Butler, but the ending of GWTW wouldn't be half as tragic if Melly were still alive in the final chapter, and Chapter 27 is one of those chapters that best demonstrates the way the women's relationship gradually changes.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month. I fancy myself as a novelist in moments of supreme self-confidence, and I take on the challenge of writing new words about new topics every year. NaNoWo is supposed to be about writing without editing. It's supposed to be about letting your ideas flow as you type-type-type the Fall blues away. I always start off with a head full of steam, but eventually run out of gas because I'm pretty picky about my style and I honestly begin most mornings striking or erasing most of the things I wrote the day before. I've always been pretty darn good at writing dialogue, and I can put together a pretty decent scene. But my sequels suck.
What are sequels? I can hear you ask. And I'm glad you asked, although I'm pretty sorry that you asked me since, as I mentioned, I'm absolutely terrible at writing them. Essentially, sequels cap off scenes. Sometimes they are little more than a summation of what has come before, but sometimes they're a springboard for the next bit of action or simply a characters internal dialogue as they reassess whatever has just happened to them. I can knock out thousands of lines of dialogue without missing a beat, but sequels are the secret to good writing. It's what separates the amateurs from the professionals, or so I'd like to think.
MM was darn good at writing sequels, wasn't she?
One of my favorite sequels comes at the end of Chapter 26:
"There was hope now. The war couldn't last forever. She had her little cotton, she had food, she had a horse, she had her small but treasured hoard of money. Yes, the worst was over."
Scarlett has suffered and struggled since she left Atlanta, and in the hands of a lesser novel killing the Yankee would have been our heroine's nadir. But because GWTW is a great novel Scarlett's murder is almost celebrated, and it propels the action over the next part of the novel. Scarlett might be a murderer, but she's got food, money, and a horse, so what difference is a little criminal sin? MM doesn't dwell on Scarlett's soul or her mental well-being, here. She's just glad Scarlett is slowly finding a way to get by in a world gone mad, and you know what? I'm glad, too.
Except, uh-oh. As we turn to Chapter 27 we see that all is not well. Because the Yankees are back.
Is this overkill? You think this is overkill having the Yankees return twice to Tara? Perhaps you could make the argument that MM is laying it all on a little thick, but you know what? The Yankees were all over Georgia during late 1864 and early 1865. I don't know much about life in a war zone, but I have seen it on TV. And TV wars are never as cut and dry as we like to think war is. Atlanta is in ruins and we know the Yankees were massing up for the March to the Sea, but I'm pretty sure the Yankees were swarming all over Clayton county, and I'm pretty sure that they would have returned to Tara a few times to look for spoils and goodies.
Everybody else runs into the swamp when the Yankees are coming, and Scarlett is about to join them but she doesn't. Because she's afraid the Yankees will burn Tara over her head, and Tara is all she's got left in the world. Everybody else scampered away because they've got good sense and are totally afraid of confronting men with guns, but Scarlett isn't afraid. Tara is her home and she aims to defend it, and if the Yankees don't like it, well..."they're only a passel of damn Yankees!"
Interestingly enough, this Chapter also includes a little bit of rape panic ("For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters"), and it's fairly interesting how MM keeps that threat bubbling under the surface of the story, isn't it?
But Lordy Lordy, the end result of Chapter 27 is that the Yankees who show up at Tara take almost everything Scarlett had left. All the things that gave her security during the sequel of Chapter 26 are gone by the end of Chapter 27. The Yankees even try to burn the house, although Scarlett and Melly put it out pretty quickly (but with a great deal of effort). I guess I could grumble a little bit about the slurs Melly and Scarlett toss around after they've put the fire out, but...sigh. I won't. I don't like to read those words anymore than you do, but I think they're pretty accurate here. Scarlett and Melly were women of the South, and they grew up on plantations. They were at the top of a very precisely structured hierarchy, and besides neither of these women were modern liberals, were they? Let's just say that the harsh words they use here rub me the wrong way, but they're not at all shocking or out of place. As a matter of fact, not using those words would ring false in this situation. This is historical fiction after all, and PC-talk hadn't been invented during 1864.
Anyway, Chapter 27 ends with a sequel that is almost as perfect as the one that winds up Chapter 26.
"I'll say this for her," Scarlett muses about Melly, "she's always there when you need her."
And so, for all that GWTW sometimes rubs me the wrong way regarding racial harmony and equality, I think the book is very modern in its portrayal of Girl Power. Scarlett hates Melly, but Melly loves Scarlett unconditionally. And as the book edges forward, we are able to experience the blossoming of Scarlett's love for Melly in what feels like real time. GWTW is often wrongly described as nothing more than a Love Story between Scarlett and Rhett, but in actuality I often think that the real romance in GWTW occurs between Melly and Scarlett. I love Captain Butler, but the ending of GWTW wouldn't be half as tragic if Melly were still alive in the final chapter, and Chapter 27 is one of those chapters that best demonstrates the way the women's relationship gradually changes.
Monday, October 21, 2013
"Hard Times...Come Again No More..."
Here's a great link to a James Taylor/Yo-Yo Ma version of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More". I used to hate Civil War music back in my Civil War buff days, but thanks to the magic of YouTube I've been able to find interesting covers of some of the most iconic songs of the 1860's. It's nice to hear it sound so soulful when almost every Hard Times I ever heard before this year was precise and perfect and boring.
I'll be posting more on this blog soon. But in the meantime, buy my book here at Amazon.com, post a comment or two (or twelve if you'd like), and check back in a few days.
Cheers,
SS, The History Gal.
I'll be posting more on this blog soon. But in the meantime, buy my book here at Amazon.com, post a comment or two (or twelve if you'd like), and check back in a few days.
Cheers,
SS, The History Gal.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Chapter 26: Time hobbles on....
"The only time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from whom you wished favors." --Scarlett O'Hara, 1864.
Is Scarlett O'Hara a bitch?
One of my colleagues was an English major in undergrad. He received his degree from a northern college, while I got mine from a huge southern university, but we both read the same "classic" books during our four years of undergrad. So we can both speak for hours about Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, O'Connor, Shakespeare, and Henry Adams. But the trouble started when I mentioned my love for GWTW.
Me: "My favorite book of all time is Gone With the Wind."
Colleague: "No, no, no, that's only a movie, not a book."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "It's a movie about a bitchy southern belle and her life on a plantation."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "So what do you think about Anna Karenina?"
I passed over his ignorance because he's an alright sort of a guy, but I spent the entire rest of the day thinking about his pat description of GWTW. Specifically, I tried to come to a conclusions about whether or not Scarlett O'Hara is a bitch. And, more to the point, whether or not her bitchiness actually matters.
More than anything, I think Scarlett O'Hara is cold. I once read a description of JFK that said he had "ice in his veins," largely because he didn't seem to care one way or another about the people in his life. JFK was also strangely apathetic about his own life and times, which is peculiar since he was a first-hand witness to everything from the depression to WW2 to the Civil Rights movement to the beginnings of the Vietnam War. Everybody else was up in arms about one thing or another during the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, but JFK never really seemed to care much about what happened--or how it happened. Or whether he helped it happened. I love JFK, but I would have loved him more if he'd been more engaged with the events that swirled around him.
And I think Scarlett O'Hara is curiously cold in exactly the same way. Even at the start of GWTW Scarlett doesn't really care about the war or the slavery issue. As a matter of fact, she doesn't waste time thinking about the world outside of her home county, and even Atlanta seems like it's on the other side of the world. She's single-minded and driven, and she doesn't give a damn (ahem) about anybody except her parents and Ashley Wilkes. I don't know if I'd exactly call this bitchiness, but it's certainly selfishness and perhaps selfishness=bitchiness? And if Scarlett's behavior is bitchiness, then how come Michael Corleone is largely celebrated for killing Fredo while Scarlett is a villain just for stealing Frank away from Suellen?
Because Scarlett is a woman, that's why.
Scarlett is a bitch, and her bitchiness does matter, but only because it's an integral part of the plot. Interestingly enough, the other three principal characters in GWTW (Rhett, Melly, Ashley) love Scarlett because she's so single-minded/strong/bitchy. Everybody else either disapproves of her or is afraid of her, but MM presents the rest of the cast as such a foolish, easily swayed Greek chorus of observers that they almost come off as patsies. They dislike Scarlett, but they dislike her for all the wrong reasons (because she's running a store and not being "feminine" enough), and the "extras" seem like idiots in the end.
So anyway, this is the chapter where the Yankee deserter comes to Tara and Scarlett shoots him in the face and blows his nose away. Scarlett has killed a Yankee, and she knows she should feel bad about taking a life, but--she doesn't.
Is this one of her "bitchy" moments? What should she have done instead? Maybe she should have just thrown down her gun and engaged him in a lengthy discussion about war and peace or whatever? Or maybe she could have tried to persuade him to walk away? MM brings Melly into the scene and "there was a glow of grim pride in her usually gentle face," and this look gives the reader permission to smile along with Scarlett and Melly, but what if Melly had jumped up and started arguing with Scarlett at this juncture? Would we have judged Scarlett's actions differently?
And if so, why?
Before Scarlett drags the dead Yankee away, the girls stop and go through his knapsack where they find money (greenbacks and Confederate money!), and now that he's dead they take possession of his horse, which means they can buy food and travel a little bit further to look for friends and help. After assessing her new situation Scarlett makes the observation that:
"There was a God after all, and He did provide, even if He did take very odd ways of providing."
And ain't that the truth?
Anyway, this chapter also includes one of my favorite one-off conversations in GWTW (which is to say, one of the few sparkling interactions that doesn't involve the dazzling Captain Butler) when Scarlett goest to visit the Fontaine's. I love Grandma Fontaine, particularly here in this chapter because she's such a straight shooter and she's doling out common sense left and right. I won't transcribe the entire conversation here, but if you haven't read it in a while I recommend that you revisit it ASAP. Interestingly though, while Grandma Fontaine asks pointed questions to get Scarlett to discuss what's going on back at Tara, the old woman eventually drifts off into a few wonderful philosophical observations, ending with:
"Scarlett, always save something to fear--even as you save something to love..."
Scarlett gets cross with Grandma Fontaine, because she's Scarlett and she's always cross whenever somebody starts talking about anything besides money, marriage (to Ashley) and other nuts and bolts stuff. Our heroine disregards Grandma Fontaine's advice, but MM left it for the rest of us to enjoy.
Is Scarlett O'Hara a bitch?
One of my colleagues was an English major in undergrad. He received his degree from a northern college, while I got mine from a huge southern university, but we both read the same "classic" books during our four years of undergrad. So we can both speak for hours about Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, O'Connor, Shakespeare, and Henry Adams. But the trouble started when I mentioned my love for GWTW.
Me: "My favorite book of all time is Gone With the Wind."
Colleague: "No, no, no, that's only a movie, not a book."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "It's a movie about a bitchy southern belle and her life on a plantation."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "So what do you think about Anna Karenina?"
I passed over his ignorance because he's an alright sort of a guy, but I spent the entire rest of the day thinking about his pat description of GWTW. Specifically, I tried to come to a conclusions about whether or not Scarlett O'Hara is a bitch. And, more to the point, whether or not her bitchiness actually matters.
More than anything, I think Scarlett O'Hara is cold. I once read a description of JFK that said he had "ice in his veins," largely because he didn't seem to care one way or another about the people in his life. JFK was also strangely apathetic about his own life and times, which is peculiar since he was a first-hand witness to everything from the depression to WW2 to the Civil Rights movement to the beginnings of the Vietnam War. Everybody else was up in arms about one thing or another during the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, but JFK never really seemed to care much about what happened--or how it happened. Or whether he helped it happened. I love JFK, but I would have loved him more if he'd been more engaged with the events that swirled around him.
And I think Scarlett O'Hara is curiously cold in exactly the same way. Even at the start of GWTW Scarlett doesn't really care about the war or the slavery issue. As a matter of fact, she doesn't waste time thinking about the world outside of her home county, and even Atlanta seems like it's on the other side of the world. She's single-minded and driven, and she doesn't give a damn (ahem) about anybody except her parents and Ashley Wilkes. I don't know if I'd exactly call this bitchiness, but it's certainly selfishness and perhaps selfishness=bitchiness? And if Scarlett's behavior is bitchiness, then how come Michael Corleone is largely celebrated for killing Fredo while Scarlett is a villain just for stealing Frank away from Suellen?
Because Scarlett is a woman, that's why.
Scarlett is a bitch, and her bitchiness does matter, but only because it's an integral part of the plot. Interestingly enough, the other three principal characters in GWTW (Rhett, Melly, Ashley) love Scarlett because she's so single-minded/strong/bitchy. Everybody else either disapproves of her or is afraid of her, but MM presents the rest of the cast as such a foolish, easily swayed Greek chorus of observers that they almost come off as patsies. They dislike Scarlett, but they dislike her for all the wrong reasons (because she's running a store and not being "feminine" enough), and the "extras" seem like idiots in the end.
So anyway, this is the chapter where the Yankee deserter comes to Tara and Scarlett shoots him in the face and blows his nose away. Scarlett has killed a Yankee, and she knows she should feel bad about taking a life, but--she doesn't.
Is this one of her "bitchy" moments? What should she have done instead? Maybe she should have just thrown down her gun and engaged him in a lengthy discussion about war and peace or whatever? Or maybe she could have tried to persuade him to walk away? MM brings Melly into the scene and "there was a glow of grim pride in her usually gentle face," and this look gives the reader permission to smile along with Scarlett and Melly, but what if Melly had jumped up and started arguing with Scarlett at this juncture? Would we have judged Scarlett's actions differently?
And if so, why?
Before Scarlett drags the dead Yankee away, the girls stop and go through his knapsack where they find money (greenbacks and Confederate money!), and now that he's dead they take possession of his horse, which means they can buy food and travel a little bit further to look for friends and help. After assessing her new situation Scarlett makes the observation that:
"There was a God after all, and He did provide, even if He did take very odd ways of providing."
And ain't that the truth?
Anyway, this chapter also includes one of my favorite one-off conversations in GWTW (which is to say, one of the few sparkling interactions that doesn't involve the dazzling Captain Butler) when Scarlett goest to visit the Fontaine's. I love Grandma Fontaine, particularly here in this chapter because she's such a straight shooter and she's doling out common sense left and right. I won't transcribe the entire conversation here, but if you haven't read it in a while I recommend that you revisit it ASAP. Interestingly though, while Grandma Fontaine asks pointed questions to get Scarlett to discuss what's going on back at Tara, the old woman eventually drifts off into a few wonderful philosophical observations, ending with:
"Scarlett, always save something to fear--even as you save something to love..."
Scarlett gets cross with Grandma Fontaine, because she's Scarlett and she's always cross whenever somebody starts talking about anything besides money, marriage (to Ashley) and other nuts and bolts stuff. Our heroine disregards Grandma Fontaine's advice, but MM left it for the rest of us to enjoy.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Chapter 25: "There was no going back and she was going forward."
Writers write.
I've spent the past six months working too much, going on too many vacations, watching too much football, and re-reading too many of my favorite books. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I'm suffering from a severe creative block, but none of that matters tonight. Because writers write.
It's really as simple as that, isn't it?
I wish MM had been inclined to write one of those books other big names churn out once-in-a-while, one of those books where a famous, wealthy writer gives the rest of us wannabes a glimpse into their creative process. Most amateur authors (especially and including amateurs like me!) get bogged down in the "mushy-middle" of our story. Writing a beginning is fun and writing an ending is thrilling for those of us who crave closure, but it can be very difficult to grind your way through the middle of a novel, particularly when you're not getting feedback from writers or editors or anybody except your cats, your mother, and your big sister (Hi Tam!). GWTW could have very, very, very easily slowed to a crawl right here at Chapter 25. Rhett has gone into the army and Scarlett is back at Tara and the armies are gone, and the countryside is nowhere near as exciting as Atlanta, and I'm sure that MM probably had to rework these sections of the novel multiple times to make it all flow so smoothly and stick together so well.
So, okay.
Scarlett wakes up at Tara in her childhood bedroom, but while her surroundings are familiar all hell has broken loose around her. The Civil War has raged all over the county, her mother is dead, Pa has essentially lost his mind, and her sisters are suffering from typhoid. Most of the slaves are long gone, there's no food left, and the O'Hare's owe taxes to the Confederacy. Mammy and Pork fill Scarlett in on the details she didn't quite absorb the night before, when she was so drunk and terrified. Scarlett is hungover in this section (light sensitivity, trouble holding her head up, parched throat, and a whole bunch of other physical symptoms that all of us writers know a little bit too well!), but she's all business as she gathers information from the slaves. And--
Is this section the first one that highlights Scarlett's changing personality? Interestingly enough, MM essentially frames this section from Pork's POV, and this switch up yields an interesting assessment of Scarlett's behavior in this chapter:
"She began asking questions so brusquely and giving orders so decisively Pork's eyebrows went up in mystification....She asked again about the fields, the gardens, the stock, and her green eyes had a hard glaze which Pork had never seen in them before."
Pork is obviously less than impressed by Scarlett's behavior in this section, but...so? He compares her unfavorably to her mother ("Miss Ellen didn't never talk so short to nobody..."), but doesn't he understand that the world has changed drastically over the past few days? Ellen O'Hara was the trophy wife of a wealthy planter (yeah, I said it!), but those days are long gone. Hard times call for "hard glaze," don't they?
Anyhow, Scarlett asks Pork and Prissy to help her work the fields and scrounge for food, but they can't because they're house workers and allergic to working outside, I guess. I could fault MM for daring to make Pork and Prissy sound so lazy and worthless, but I don't think this is particularly racist since she's already painted everybody else at Tara with the same broad brush of self-regard. Everybody is still dazed and everybody is still trying to figure out how to reconcile the class/status/power/gender/racial roles that were so rigid before the war with the new world of late-1864.
So Scarlett herself sets out alone to forage for food. She walks over to Twelve Oaks, but finds nothing but an empty house. She happens upon some food in the slave quarters, and she immediately eats a "old and coarse and...peppery" raddish that makes her vomit. She loses her senses for a moment, but then she starts making decisions about how she's going to live out the rest of her life. She realizes that the "lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return." But instead of falling down dead or giving up, Scarlett decides right then and there that she's never going back. And that going forward is her only option.
MM then begins contrasting Scarlett with the other southern women of her generation. "Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward...but Scarlett was never to look back."
But--that's not right, is it? Scarlett is never consumed with sentimentality or nostalgia like most of her friends and family members, certainly she's never crippled with memories in the manner of Ashley and so many others. And yet--she does look back, doesn't she? She doesn't necessarily court memories or try to conjure the dead, but over the rest of the novel she can't help but compare her post-war life with her life before and during the war. She can't forget her mother or the good times that came before, and in a way her love for Ashley is much less about any possible future the two of them could possibly have together, and much more about Scarlett's lingering girlish desire to still somehow become the mistress of 12 Oaks.
And speaking of looking back, one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel takes place here in Chapter 25. Suellen and Careen are still sick in bed, and when Scarlett periodically goes upstairs to hang "over the foot of their bed and outline the work she expected them to do when they recovered, they looked at her as if she were a hobgoblin." Scarlett's sisters are terrified, but Scarlett keeps going up there and saying crazy stuff and alarming the sick girls "because it helped her (Scarlett) to forget her own bitterness that everything her mother had told her about life was wrong."
Ouch. It's tough to learn that lesson at such an early age, isn't it? Plus...Scarlett is correct because her mother's teachings can't help her now. But Ellen taught her everything a girl like Scarlett needed to know about the world. Cutting wood and raising crops simply weren't part of the curriculum. And it's sort of unfortunate that Scarlett feels that everything she was taught was wrong. Not just useless or antiquated, but out-and-out wrong. Which makes the ante-bellum, Southern belle training sound exactly like my law school education. Har dee har har.
Anyway, MM ends Chapter 25 with one of the best lines in the novel, namely that "Scarlett would hold Tara, if she had to break the back of every person on it." Now, that's a resolution, right? "Never Going Hungry Again" makes for dramatic cinema, and that famous phrase has a nice little ambiguity to it, sort of like "Here's Looking at You, Kid," since it applies to almost everybody's life at one time or another. But Scarlett doesn't just want to avoid starvation. She's bound and determined to keep her land even if she has to physically destroy every person living on it, which is astounding since she's talking about her family. Scarlett always gets lumped in with Dorothy and her Yellow Brick Road, but in my opinion the Scarlett in GWTW the novel is more akin to Michael Corleone or Richard III (the Shakespeare version, anyway), than the kind-hearted, homesick Dorothy. Scarlett has a goal in mind and she's willing to manipulate and destroy anybody who stands in her way.
And that's why I love her!
I've spent the past six months working too much, going on too many vacations, watching too much football, and re-reading too many of my favorite books. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I'm suffering from a severe creative block, but none of that matters tonight. Because writers write.
It's really as simple as that, isn't it?
I wish MM had been inclined to write one of those books other big names churn out once-in-a-while, one of those books where a famous, wealthy writer gives the rest of us wannabes a glimpse into their creative process. Most amateur authors (especially and including amateurs like me!) get bogged down in the "mushy-middle" of our story. Writing a beginning is fun and writing an ending is thrilling for those of us who crave closure, but it can be very difficult to grind your way through the middle of a novel, particularly when you're not getting feedback from writers or editors or anybody except your cats, your mother, and your big sister (Hi Tam!). GWTW could have very, very, very easily slowed to a crawl right here at Chapter 25. Rhett has gone into the army and Scarlett is back at Tara and the armies are gone, and the countryside is nowhere near as exciting as Atlanta, and I'm sure that MM probably had to rework these sections of the novel multiple times to make it all flow so smoothly and stick together so well.
So, okay.
Scarlett wakes up at Tara in her childhood bedroom, but while her surroundings are familiar all hell has broken loose around her. The Civil War has raged all over the county, her mother is dead, Pa has essentially lost his mind, and her sisters are suffering from typhoid. Most of the slaves are long gone, there's no food left, and the O'Hare's owe taxes to the Confederacy. Mammy and Pork fill Scarlett in on the details she didn't quite absorb the night before, when she was so drunk and terrified. Scarlett is hungover in this section (light sensitivity, trouble holding her head up, parched throat, and a whole bunch of other physical symptoms that all of us writers know a little bit too well!), but she's all business as she gathers information from the slaves. And--
Is this section the first one that highlights Scarlett's changing personality? Interestingly enough, MM essentially frames this section from Pork's POV, and this switch up yields an interesting assessment of Scarlett's behavior in this chapter:
"She began asking questions so brusquely and giving orders so decisively Pork's eyebrows went up in mystification....She asked again about the fields, the gardens, the stock, and her green eyes had a hard glaze which Pork had never seen in them before."
Pork is obviously less than impressed by Scarlett's behavior in this section, but...so? He compares her unfavorably to her mother ("Miss Ellen didn't never talk so short to nobody..."), but doesn't he understand that the world has changed drastically over the past few days? Ellen O'Hara was the trophy wife of a wealthy planter (yeah, I said it!), but those days are long gone. Hard times call for "hard glaze," don't they?
Anyhow, Scarlett asks Pork and Prissy to help her work the fields and scrounge for food, but they can't because they're house workers and allergic to working outside, I guess. I could fault MM for daring to make Pork and Prissy sound so lazy and worthless, but I don't think this is particularly racist since she's already painted everybody else at Tara with the same broad brush of self-regard. Everybody is still dazed and everybody is still trying to figure out how to reconcile the class/status/power/gender/racial roles that were so rigid before the war with the new world of late-1864.
So Scarlett herself sets out alone to forage for food. She walks over to Twelve Oaks, but finds nothing but an empty house. She happens upon some food in the slave quarters, and she immediately eats a "old and coarse and...peppery" raddish that makes her vomit. She loses her senses for a moment, but then she starts making decisions about how she's going to live out the rest of her life. She realizes that the "lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return." But instead of falling down dead or giving up, Scarlett decides right then and there that she's never going back. And that going forward is her only option.
MM then begins contrasting Scarlett with the other southern women of her generation. "Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward...but Scarlett was never to look back."
But--that's not right, is it? Scarlett is never consumed with sentimentality or nostalgia like most of her friends and family members, certainly she's never crippled with memories in the manner of Ashley and so many others. And yet--she does look back, doesn't she? She doesn't necessarily court memories or try to conjure the dead, but over the rest of the novel she can't help but compare her post-war life with her life before and during the war. She can't forget her mother or the good times that came before, and in a way her love for Ashley is much less about any possible future the two of them could possibly have together, and much more about Scarlett's lingering girlish desire to still somehow become the mistress of 12 Oaks.
And speaking of looking back, one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel takes place here in Chapter 25. Suellen and Careen are still sick in bed, and when Scarlett periodically goes upstairs to hang "over the foot of their bed and outline the work she expected them to do when they recovered, they looked at her as if she were a hobgoblin." Scarlett's sisters are terrified, but Scarlett keeps going up there and saying crazy stuff and alarming the sick girls "because it helped her (Scarlett) to forget her own bitterness that everything her mother had told her about life was wrong."
Ouch. It's tough to learn that lesson at such an early age, isn't it? Plus...Scarlett is correct because her mother's teachings can't help her now. But Ellen taught her everything a girl like Scarlett needed to know about the world. Cutting wood and raising crops simply weren't part of the curriculum. And it's sort of unfortunate that Scarlett feels that everything she was taught was wrong. Not just useless or antiquated, but out-and-out wrong. Which makes the ante-bellum, Southern belle training sound exactly like my law school education. Har dee har har.
Anyway, MM ends Chapter 25 with one of the best lines in the novel, namely that "Scarlett would hold Tara, if she had to break the back of every person on it." Now, that's a resolution, right? "Never Going Hungry Again" makes for dramatic cinema, and that famous phrase has a nice little ambiguity to it, sort of like "Here's Looking at You, Kid," since it applies to almost everybody's life at one time or another. But Scarlett doesn't just want to avoid starvation. She's bound and determined to keep her land even if she has to physically destroy every person living on it, which is astounding since she's talking about her family. Scarlett always gets lumped in with Dorothy and her Yellow Brick Road, but in my opinion the Scarlett in GWTW the novel is more akin to Michael Corleone or Richard III (the Shakespeare version, anyway), than the kind-hearted, homesick Dorothy. Scarlett has a goal in mind and she's willing to manipulate and destroy anybody who stands in her way.
And that's why I love her!
Sunday, September 15, 2013
"Half time!": In which I use poorly drawn charts and graphs to illustrate a few points....
(Before I launch into my blogpost, I want to send a special shot-out to Sweet77 and her very kind comment under my last post. I was having a rough day at work last week (bad clients, bossy bosses, and the beginnings of the flu)when I glanced down at my inbox and saw her complimentary words. Thanks for reading, Sweet77!)
GWTW the movie is not identical to GWTW the book.
Of course, we can't exactly fault Hollywood for cutting characters and subplots. Will, Archie, most of the folks from the county, the Confederate soldiers Scarlett met during the war, and Grandma Fontaine (just to name a few)are fantastic characters that add extraordinary depth to the novel, and I love reading about them. But GWTW the movie already has a huge cast and a lengthy run time, and I can't fault Selznick and the gang for tightening the focus and consolidating characters in an effort at making the story more coherent.
However, the Hollywood script writers didn't merely chop GWTW. I would also argue that they changed the fundamental flow of the story as they hacked through the pages and searched for the essence of the story. As I've said before, MM used the Scarlett/Rhett romance(or anyway, anti-romance) as the backbone of her story, but Hollywood used the romance as the skin of the movie. As a consequence, the movie and novel deviate greatly in the shape of their story arcs, so much so that an uninformed observer/average non-GWTW obsessive on the street would be excused in assuming that Scarlett's story looks like this:
 |
On the other hand, a basic reading of the novel contains those same plot points but the rising and falling actions occur in slightly different places compared to those found in the movie. In my (very, very, very humble) opinion, I believe a rudimentary drawing of the novel's story arc would look like this:
Rather, perhaps the correct call is to say that Scarlett's fortunes during the period immediately following the Fall of Atlanta neither rise nor fall and the story arc simply goes off in a straight line for a few years. Scarlett makes a lot of decisions during this part of the novel, and she makes several tough choices including (Spoiler?) offering herself off to Rhett as a prostitute (plot point 1 in the second chart), marrying Frank Kennedy (and subsequently accidentally causing his death which is plot point 2), and then agreeing to marry Rhett for his money even though she doesn't love him (point 3). None of these three points are Scarlett's best moments, of course, but I'm also not convinced that MM wants us to think that they lead to Scarlett's ultimate downfall and lonely ending.
However, anybody who's read the details of the Butler marriage in the last third of GWTW cannot help but be blown away by the speed/gravity/inevitability of the trouble that eventually occurs between the two of them. 2/3 of the story happens before Scarlett/Rhett get hitched, but they are completely outweighed by the weightiness and the mystery and the pain of the Butler marriage. Once you get to the end of the book it's easy to point backward and say "she had it coming," but I'm not so sure that she does. But it's also impossible to ignore that there's something heart-breakingly predictable about the way Scarlett's life winds up. One or another of her life choices eventually causes her to wind up alone and unhappy in 1873, but I'm still not certain which one it was. Hmmmmm....
I'll be looking for answers over the next few chapters, that much is certain.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Chapter 24 (again): "Doan holler, Miss Scarlett....dey ain' no tellin' whut mout answer!"/ The Fool's Errand
Well, well, well!
I've been pretty busy over the past month. As a matter of fact, my summer has been incredibly busy with none of the usual dead-spots. I haven't had very much free time between my full-time job, my part-time job, and my "vacations" to various and sundry spots around the country, which means that I haven't had much time to keep up with my GWTW blog. But today marks the official end of summer here in the U.S. of A., so it's likely I'll be able to post here on a more regular basis. Yay!
Anyway, it's September 2nd today, isn't it? The first week of September is always pretty darn notable if you're in school or planning a BBQ or what have you, but Civil War buffs and GWTW fans know very well that September 1st/2nd are important for other reasons. Namely, it's the date that Atlanta finally fell to Sherman's troops.
Which means that, somewhat miraculously, today's date (September 2nd) is actually exactly 149 years after the events of Chapter 24 of GWTW. So you see, even though it might have looked like I've been slagging off this summer and neglecting my writing, I planned it this way! I did!
And so here we are, with Scarlett making her way through the remnants of the countryside on September 2, 1864. MM could have opened up this section of the novel with Scarlett and her gang arriving at Tara, but she delays the inevitable by first having Scarlett maneuver past the homes of all her lifelong friends. They come first to the empty, dark, Mcintosh plantation home ("two tall chimneys, like gigantic tombstones towering above the ruined second floor, and broken unlit windows blotching the walls like still, blind eyes."). Scarlett calls out "hello" in the hopes that a friend will answer, but Prissy stops her quickly:
"Doan holler, Miss Scarlett....dey ain' no tellin' whut mout answer!"
And...see? This is what I mean when I say that GWTW is not really a book about wild racist stereotypes and cringe-worthy dialect dialogue. Prissy has been painted as nothing but a foolish girl throughout much of GWTW, but her assessment of their surroundings and of the possibility of danger is dead-on and she's quicker with her evaluation than Scarlett in this scene. I suppose I could take this all a step further and say that the two young women react to the deserted plantation house in different ways because they come from such different backgrounds and stations in life. After all, despite Scarlett's frenemy situation with most of the women and girls living around Tara, she can never even consider the notion that there might be something waiting for her inside a plantation house besides loving arms, good food, and safety. On the other hand, Prissy is a slave. She was raised in the same county as Scarlett, but her experience has been quite different, hasn't it? Scarlett immediately assumes that only friends will answer her call, but Prissy perhaps knows that not every plantation house contains help and security. Just a thought.
Anyway, because I'm an amateur author, I would have rushed the girls and little Beau straight to the doors of Tara and gotten on with the rest of the drama. But MM has already committed herself to delivering a lengthy book and her editors were evidently behind her, so she milks the drama for all it's worth--without making it seem like she's milking the drama at all. They do a pretty good job of relating the tension in these scenes in the movie, what with the technicolor dark skies, the burnt out staircase at Twelve Oaks, and the gloomy darkness and mud and dirt, but MM really plays up the Southern Gothic hear, doesn't she? These parts of the book aren't memorable simply because these houses are deserted, but because they are now potentially dangerous. And the burned out remnants of the plantations also stand-in for the graves of Scarlett's old friends--the Tarleton boys, the Meades, etc--a notion she reinforces by blanketing the entire countryside in a "hideous stillness," that makes my heart ache even though this is my thousandth time reading GWTW.
As a matter of fact, even our heroine begins to doubt herself on the road back to Tara. And here MM has Scarlett deliver one of the funnier (because it's true!) internal dialogues in the entire book:
"Why had she come on this fool's errand, against all common sense, dragging Melanie and her child? Better that they had died in Atlanta than, tortured by this day of burning sun and jolting wagon, to die in the silent ruins of Tara."
There are times when my entire life feels like a fool's errand, and it's sometimes nice to read that even Scarlett O'Hare felt the same way along her journey. Yes, I'll freely admit that our situations are quite different since my day-to-day irritations involve mostly arguing with judges and other lawyers and dead-beat clients and therefore don't come close to Scarlett's challenges at this point in the novel, but still. This is a universal feeling, and it's nice to know that Scarlett and MM and Yours Truly have at least that in common. It's good to see self-doubt and frustration put so patly on the page, isn't it?
MM now takes a little pause to remind us about how much Scarlett hates Melly and loves Ashley, a totally necessary digression that reminds us of the central conflict of the novel at a time when she could have easily had Scarlett forget all about Ashley and her devotion to the idea of their pure love until a more convenient time. But MM throws it back up at us to remind us that Scarlett's motives are not nearly as selfless as her actions read on these pages of the book.
The girls find a cow, and MM breaks some of the tension by having Scarlett and Prissy argue about who's going to capture the cow and if they need a cow at all and whether or not the cow needs to be milked. Scarlett gets sassy with Prissy and even uses the N-word at one point (although it's her first time using it in the novel and she tells us that her "Mother wouldn't like that at all." And if the N-word is just a little bit too harsh for the story world of GWTW, why are folks still tossing it around in 2013? Makes you wonder.), but Prissy ain't budging. Scarlett eventually relents and uses her petticoat to tie up the cow so they can take it to Tara.
And then, they're home.
They've made it to Tara!
Yay....right?
But--oh no. The raggedy-ass horse Rhett stole for her and the ratchet wagon aren't going to be able to make it up the hill to Tara. So MM delays the action by having Scarlett and Prissy go back and forth about who should ride in the wagon and why, and eventually Scarlett convinces/berates Prissy and Wade into walking while they use the last energy of the horse to pull Melly and little Beau and the wagon up the hill.
And then they're walking again, despite their blistered feet and hunger and the darkness that surrounds them on all sides. Scarlett tells Wade to "be a little man...and stop crying or I will come over there and slap you," which isn't exactly how you're supposed to talk to children on the scariest night of their life, is it? I can understand Scarlett's frustration in this chapter, but it's not as though Wade's fright is childish. Everybody's scared at this point, and you'd think Scarlett would be a little more understanding, but she isn't.
But they continue on anyway.
Scarlett sees the white walls of Tara and the reader is glad. Extremely glad. But--
"Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside."
Uh oh.
And to make matters worse, a shadowy figure starts coming down the steps. A man!
Double uh-oh!
But then Scarlett realizes that the man is her father. And we are happy and glad because all her troubles are over, aren't they? Her father is at Tara! Which means our poor girls and their little babies are going to have a male protector in the house! And something to eat! And shelter!
Gerald is acting kind of stiff and strange, but Scarlett is so excited to be home and with her family she doesn't take much time to assess her father's mental health. Instead she takes charge and she starts directing Pork and Prissy and Wade and bossing people around, and Pa tells her that her sisters are recovering and...that's good, isn't it? We're not supposed to like Suellen and Careen much, but I'm glad they got well. And Tara is still standing, so the worst of it has to be over now, right?
But no.
"Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words took form..."
And then Gerald drops the bomb and all of Scarlett's buried fears and anxieties erupt all at once because:
"Your mother died yesterday."
And then MM just leaves that statement there on it's own. She doesn't dress it in dialogue or reaction paragraphs, and she doesn't swaddle it with Scarlett's feelings. Ellen's death is such a heavy burden for Scarlett, and such a shocking development that MM just simply lays it there on the page without adornment. The weight of Ellen's death brings the first half of GWTW to a close with a hard, jarring clang. Everything Scarlett knew and loved is gone now, locked away forever in a dark coffin that can never be opened no matter how she jimmies the lock. Scarlett is home now, but her mother is dead and she can never, ever truly go home again.
A scary thought.
I've been pretty busy over the past month. As a matter of fact, my summer has been incredibly busy with none of the usual dead-spots. I haven't had very much free time between my full-time job, my part-time job, and my "vacations" to various and sundry spots around the country, which means that I haven't had much time to keep up with my GWTW blog. But today marks the official end of summer here in the U.S. of A., so it's likely I'll be able to post here on a more regular basis. Yay!
Anyway, it's September 2nd today, isn't it? The first week of September is always pretty darn notable if you're in school or planning a BBQ or what have you, but Civil War buffs and GWTW fans know very well that September 1st/2nd are important for other reasons. Namely, it's the date that Atlanta finally fell to Sherman's troops.
Which means that, somewhat miraculously, today's date (September 2nd) is actually exactly 149 years after the events of Chapter 24 of GWTW. So you see, even though it might have looked like I've been slagging off this summer and neglecting my writing, I planned it this way! I did!
And so here we are, with Scarlett making her way through the remnants of the countryside on September 2, 1864. MM could have opened up this section of the novel with Scarlett and her gang arriving at Tara, but she delays the inevitable by first having Scarlett maneuver past the homes of all her lifelong friends. They come first to the empty, dark, Mcintosh plantation home ("two tall chimneys, like gigantic tombstones towering above the ruined second floor, and broken unlit windows blotching the walls like still, blind eyes."). Scarlett calls out "hello" in the hopes that a friend will answer, but Prissy stops her quickly:
"Doan holler, Miss Scarlett....dey ain' no tellin' whut mout answer!"
And...see? This is what I mean when I say that GWTW is not really a book about wild racist stereotypes and cringe-worthy dialect dialogue. Prissy has been painted as nothing but a foolish girl throughout much of GWTW, but her assessment of their surroundings and of the possibility of danger is dead-on and she's quicker with her evaluation than Scarlett in this scene. I suppose I could take this all a step further and say that the two young women react to the deserted plantation house in different ways because they come from such different backgrounds and stations in life. After all, despite Scarlett's frenemy situation with most of the women and girls living around Tara, she can never even consider the notion that there might be something waiting for her inside a plantation house besides loving arms, good food, and safety. On the other hand, Prissy is a slave. She was raised in the same county as Scarlett, but her experience has been quite different, hasn't it? Scarlett immediately assumes that only friends will answer her call, but Prissy perhaps knows that not every plantation house contains help and security. Just a thought.
Anyway, because I'm an amateur author, I would have rushed the girls and little Beau straight to the doors of Tara and gotten on with the rest of the drama. But MM has already committed herself to delivering a lengthy book and her editors were evidently behind her, so she milks the drama for all it's worth--without making it seem like she's milking the drama at all. They do a pretty good job of relating the tension in these scenes in the movie, what with the technicolor dark skies, the burnt out staircase at Twelve Oaks, and the gloomy darkness and mud and dirt, but MM really plays up the Southern Gothic hear, doesn't she? These parts of the book aren't memorable simply because these houses are deserted, but because they are now potentially dangerous. And the burned out remnants of the plantations also stand-in for the graves of Scarlett's old friends--the Tarleton boys, the Meades, etc--a notion she reinforces by blanketing the entire countryside in a "hideous stillness," that makes my heart ache even though this is my thousandth time reading GWTW.
As a matter of fact, even our heroine begins to doubt herself on the road back to Tara. And here MM has Scarlett deliver one of the funnier (because it's true!) internal dialogues in the entire book:
"Why had she come on this fool's errand, against all common sense, dragging Melanie and her child? Better that they had died in Atlanta than, tortured by this day of burning sun and jolting wagon, to die in the silent ruins of Tara."
There are times when my entire life feels like a fool's errand, and it's sometimes nice to read that even Scarlett O'Hare felt the same way along her journey. Yes, I'll freely admit that our situations are quite different since my day-to-day irritations involve mostly arguing with judges and other lawyers and dead-beat clients and therefore don't come close to Scarlett's challenges at this point in the novel, but still. This is a universal feeling, and it's nice to know that Scarlett and MM and Yours Truly have at least that in common. It's good to see self-doubt and frustration put so patly on the page, isn't it?
MM now takes a little pause to remind us about how much Scarlett hates Melly and loves Ashley, a totally necessary digression that reminds us of the central conflict of the novel at a time when she could have easily had Scarlett forget all about Ashley and her devotion to the idea of their pure love until a more convenient time. But MM throws it back up at us to remind us that Scarlett's motives are not nearly as selfless as her actions read on these pages of the book.
The girls find a cow, and MM breaks some of the tension by having Scarlett and Prissy argue about who's going to capture the cow and if they need a cow at all and whether or not the cow needs to be milked. Scarlett gets sassy with Prissy and even uses the N-word at one point (although it's her first time using it in the novel and she tells us that her "Mother wouldn't like that at all." And if the N-word is just a little bit too harsh for the story world of GWTW, why are folks still tossing it around in 2013? Makes you wonder.), but Prissy ain't budging. Scarlett eventually relents and uses her petticoat to tie up the cow so they can take it to Tara.
And then, they're home.
They've made it to Tara!
Yay....right?
But--oh no. The raggedy-ass horse Rhett stole for her and the ratchet wagon aren't going to be able to make it up the hill to Tara. So MM delays the action by having Scarlett and Prissy go back and forth about who should ride in the wagon and why, and eventually Scarlett convinces/berates Prissy and Wade into walking while they use the last energy of the horse to pull Melly and little Beau and the wagon up the hill.
And then they're walking again, despite their blistered feet and hunger and the darkness that surrounds them on all sides. Scarlett tells Wade to "be a little man...and stop crying or I will come over there and slap you," which isn't exactly how you're supposed to talk to children on the scariest night of their life, is it? I can understand Scarlett's frustration in this chapter, but it's not as though Wade's fright is childish. Everybody's scared at this point, and you'd think Scarlett would be a little more understanding, but she isn't.
But they continue on anyway.
Scarlett sees the white walls of Tara and the reader is glad. Extremely glad. But--
"Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside."
Uh oh.
And to make matters worse, a shadowy figure starts coming down the steps. A man!
Double uh-oh!
But then Scarlett realizes that the man is her father. And we are happy and glad because all her troubles are over, aren't they? Her father is at Tara! Which means our poor girls and their little babies are going to have a male protector in the house! And something to eat! And shelter!
Gerald is acting kind of stiff and strange, but Scarlett is so excited to be home and with her family she doesn't take much time to assess her father's mental health. Instead she takes charge and she starts directing Pork and Prissy and Wade and bossing people around, and Pa tells her that her sisters are recovering and...that's good, isn't it? We're not supposed to like Suellen and Careen much, but I'm glad they got well. And Tara is still standing, so the worst of it has to be over now, right?
But no.
"Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words took form..."
And then Gerald drops the bomb and all of Scarlett's buried fears and anxieties erupt all at once because:
"Your mother died yesterday."
And then MM just leaves that statement there on it's own. She doesn't dress it in dialogue or reaction paragraphs, and she doesn't swaddle it with Scarlett's feelings. Ellen's death is such a heavy burden for Scarlett, and such a shocking development that MM just simply lays it there on the page without adornment. The weight of Ellen's death brings the first half of GWTW to a close with a hard, jarring clang. Everything Scarlett knew and loved is gone now, locked away forever in a dark coffin that can never be opened no matter how she jimmies the lock. Scarlett is home now, but her mother is dead and she can never, ever truly go home again.
A scary thought.
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