’’Gone with the wind’’ -
A celebration of every animal quality in men and women be it love, hatred, exhilaration, anguish, jealousy, lust or faith.
A celebration of the un-dieing spirit in human beings - which no amount of pain can defeat.
A mockery of impractical idealism and delicate morality.
A sad mockery of un-yielding, irrational hope which can be justified only by a madness called ’’Love’’
A portrayal of a society evolving due to survival instincts of the people it consists of.
I could not attribute the honest observation of different people responding to hunger, pain and humiliation to any amount of brilliance in imagination. It has to be true
It’s the story of Scarlet O Hara. Her fight for her love - Ashley and Tara -.
Ashley - The only man Scarlet’s heart beats for. A handsome idealist. A dreamer. Scarlet will never understand this man.
Tara - Tara is the plantation where Scarlet, her family and their slaves live.
People in Scarlet’s life:
Scarlet is born to an Irish man and a South American Lady. Scarlet and everyone else loves her father Gerald O Hara- with all his earthly instincts, impulsive nature , and insensitive mind and non-existent sophistication. Nobody (including his slaves)respects him.
Scarlet’s mother is a true lady. Gentle, full of grace and true at heart. She runs TARA - with tact and dignity.
Scarlet is like her father, but wants to be like her mother. She enjoys every earthly quality in herself, but fancies the respect her mother commands. As scarlet wants everything good in life, respect is also one of them. She flirts with every young man in the county, but wants none of them. All she wants is their attention. What she enjoys most is stealing other woman’s man .
Mammy - African American woman who has taken care of scarlet from the day she was a baby. She understands Scarlet quite well. She can sniff it in the air when scarlet is thinking of doing something not proper for a lady.
Rhet - Rhet is a cunning businessman, with a lot of vitality. He is amused by everything bad in scarlet. He likes her because of the ruthless practicality in her.
Melanie - Had this been another novel, I would have misunderstood melanie for the protagonist of the book. She is a true lady with a fragile body and immense morality. She believes in good, stands by it fearlessly.
Frank - Beau of scarlet’s younger sister. Scarlet marries this man for his money. Eventually, he dies fighting for scarlet’s honour.
Relationships between these people is fairly simple. Only person I found hard to figure out was Ashley. He is a day-dreamer and a failure. I was put off by this man. Scarlet - is crazy for this guy.
Rhett Butler is a very interesting character. A notorious and immoral man. He doesn’t find anything wrong in NOT doing the impractical. He doesn’t believe that dieing in fight for some noble cause is noble. He hides his love for scarlet because he wants to win her love. He wants to win Scarlet’s heart for he loves her. Scarlet wants to win his heart to humiliate him and use him.
Everyone except Melanie hates Scarlet. Melanie cannot see the mean-ness in her. Scarlet hates Melanie not just because she is Ashley’s wife. She hates Melanie for all that is good in her. Scarlet is irritated by Melanie’s affection towards her.
You don’t have to struggle with a fat dictionary while reading this book or wonder at the end of very long statements to figure out when the sentence started and what it meant.
I have no complaints about the author’s view about slavery. Societies often are blind towards the worst of cruelties as long as it doesn’t affect them.