Editing Gone with the Wind (novel) (section)

==Plot elements==

===Slavery===

[[Slavery in the United States|Slavery]] in ''Gone with the Wind'' is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things.<ref>Junius P. Rodriguez (2007), ''Slavery in the United States: a social, political and historical encyclopedia''. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Vol. 2: p. 372. {{ISBN|978-1-85109-549-0}}</ref> Southern plantation fiction (also known as [[Anti-Tom literature]], in reference to reactions to [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s [[Abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery]] novel, ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in ''Gone with the Wind'', is written from the perspective and values of an enslaver and tends to present slaves as docile and happy.<ref>Tim A. Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses: the American Novel of Slavery since Gone With the Wind'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 69. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-3322-4}}.</ref>

====Caste system====

The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black house servant class. The enslaved people depicted in ''Gone with the Wind'' are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork, Prissy, and Uncle Peter.<ref>Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses'', pp. 22–23.</ref> House servants are the highest "[[caste]]" of enslaved people in Mitchell's caste system.<ref name=autogenerate44/> They choose to stay with their masters after the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] of 1863 and subsequent [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] of 1865 sets them free. Scarlett thinks of the servants who stayed at Tara, "There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy."<ref name=autogenerated47>Part 4, chapter 38</ref>

The [[Field slaves in the United States|enslaved field workers]] make up the lower class in Mitchell's caste system.<ref name=autogenerate44/><ref>Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses'', p. 23.</ref> The enslaved field workers from the [[Tara (plantation)|Tara plantation]] and the foreman, Big Sam, are taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches<ref name=autogenerated156 /> and never return to the plantation. Mitchell wrote that other enslaved field workers were "loyal" and "refused to avail themselves of the new freedom",<ref name=autogenerate44/> but the novel has no enslaved field workers who stay on the plantation to work after emancipation.

American [[William Wells Brown]] escaped from slavery and published his memoir, or [[slave narrative]], in 1847. He wrote of the disparity in conditions between the house servant and the field hand:

<blockquote>During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant{{snd}}a situation preferable to a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing bell, but about a half-hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave.<ref>William Wells Brown (1847), ''Narrative of William W. Brown, Fugitive Slave'', Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, No. 25 Cornhill, p. 15. {{OCLC|12705739}}</ref></blockquote>

====Faithful and devoted slave====
{{quote box
 |quote = Way back in the dark days of the Early Sixties, regrettable tho it was{{snd}}men fought, bled, and died for the freedom of the negro{{snd}}her freedom!{{snd}}and she stood by and did her ''duty'' to the last ditch{{snd}}

It was and is her life to ''serve'', and she has done it well.

While shot and shell thundered to release the shackles of slavery from her body and her soul{{snd}}she loved, fought for, and ''protected''{{snd}}Us who held her in bondage, her "Marster" and her "Missus!"
|source =—Excerpt from ''My Old Black Mammy'' by James W. Elliott, 1914.<ref>James W. Elliott (1914), ''My Old Black Mammy'', New York City: Published weekly by James W. Elliott, Inc. {{OCLC|823454}}</ref>
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Although the novel is more than 1,000 pages long, the character of Mammy never considers what her life might be like away from Tara.<ref>Kimberly Wallace-Sanders (2008), ''Mammy: a century of race and Southern memory'', University of Michigan Press, p. 130. {{ISBN|978-0-472-11614-0}}</ref> She recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases, saying, "Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go", but Mammy remains duty-bound to "Miss Ellen's chile".<ref name=autogenerated12 /> (No other name for Mammy is given in the novel.)

Eighteen years before the publication of ''Gone with the Wind'', an article titled "The Old Black Mammy", written in the ''[[Confederate Veteran]]'' in 1918, discussed the romanticized view of the [[Mammy archetype in the United States|mammy character]] persisting in [[Southern United States literature|Southern literature]]:

<blockquote>for her faithfulness and devotion, she has been immortalized in the literature of the South; so the memory of her will never pass, but live on in the tales that are told of those "dear dead days beyond recall".<ref>[http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Black_Mammy.pdf "The Old Black Mammy"], (January 1918) ''Confederate Veteran''. Retrieved April 24, 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.james-joyce-music.com/song06_lyrics.html "Love's Old, Sweet Song"], J.L. Molloy and G. Clifton Bingham, 1884. Retrieved April 27, 2011.</ref></blockquote>

[[Micki McElya]], in her book ''Clinging to Mammy'', suggests the myth of the faithful enslaved person, in the figure of Mammy, lingered because white Americans wished to live in a world in which African Americans were not angry over the injustice of slavery.<ref>Micki McElya (2007), ''Clinging to Mammy: the faithful slave in twentieth-century America'', Harvard University Press, p. 3. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02433-5}}</ref>

The best-selling anti-slavery novel, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, is mentioned briefly in ''Gone with the Wind'' as being accepted by the Yankees as "revelation second only to the Bible".<ref name=autogenerated47/> The enduring interest of both ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and ''Gone with the Wind'' has resulted in lingering stereotypes of 19th-century enslaved Black people.<ref>Flora, J.M., et al., ''The Companion to Southern Literature: themes, genres, places, people, movements and motifs'', pp. 140–144.</ref> ''Gone with the Wind'' has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white alike.<ref>Carolyn Perry and Mary Louise Weaks (2002), ''The History of Southern Women's Literature'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 261. {{ISBN|0-8071-2753-1}}</ref>

===Southern belle===
{{quote box
|quote = Young misses whut frowns an' pushes out dey chins an' says 'Ah will' an' 'Ah woan' mos' gener'ly doan ketch husbands.
|source =—Mammy<ref name=autogenerated7 />
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The [[southern belle]] is an [[archetype]] for a young woman of the [[antebellum South|antebellum American South]] upper class. The southern belle was considered physically attractive but, more importantly, personally charming with sophisticated social skills. She is subject to the correct code of female behavior.<ref>Seidel, K.L., ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', pp. 53–54</ref> The novel's heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, charming though not beautiful, is a classic southern belle.

For young Scarlett, her mother, Ellen O'Hara, represents the ideal southern belle. In "A Study in Scarlett", published in ''The New Yorker'', [[Claudia Roth Pierpont]] wrote:

<blockquote>The Southern belle was bred to conform to a subspecies of the nineteenth-century "lady"&nbsp;... For Scarlett, the ideal is embodied in her adored mother, the saintly Ellen, whose back is never seen to rest against the back of any chair on which she sits, whose broken spirit everywhere is mistaken for righteous calm<ref>Pierpont, C.R., "A Critic at Large: A Study in Scarlett", p. 92.</ref></blockquote>

However, Scarlett is not always willing to conform. Kathryn Lee Seidel, in her book, ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', wrote:

<blockquote>part of her does try to rebel against the restraints of a code of behavior that relentlessly attempts to mold her into a form to which she is not naturally suited.<ref>Seidel, K.L., ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', p. 54.</ref></blockquote>

Scarlett, the figure of a pampered southern belle, lives through an extreme reversal of fortune and wealth and survives to rebuild Tara and her self-esteem.<ref>Perry, C., et al., ''The History of Southern Women's Literature'', pp. 259, 261.</ref> Her bad belle traits (Scarlett's deceitfulness, shrewdness, manipulation, and superficiality), in contrast to Melanie's good belle traits (trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty), enable her to survive in the post-war South and pursue her main interest, which is to make enough money to survive and prosper.<ref>Betina Entzminger (2002), ''The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern women writers and the dark seductress'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 106. {{ISBN|0-8071-2785-X}}</ref> Although Scarlett was "born" around 1845, she is portrayed to appeal to modern-day readers for her passionate and independent spirit, determination, and obstinate refusal to feel defeated.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/showbiz/movies/gone-with-the-wind-75th-anniversary-love-hate/ Why we love – and hate – 'Gone with the Wind']. Todd Leopold (December 31, 2014) [[CNN]]. Retrieved February 26, 2015.</ref>

====Historical background====

Marriage was supposed to be the goal of all southern belles, as that of their husbands largely determined women's status. All social and educational pursuits were directed towards it. Despite the Civil War and the loss of a generation of eligible men, young ladies were still expected to marry.<ref>Giselle Roberts (2003), ''The Confederate Belle'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 87–88. {{ISBN|0-8262-1464-9}}</ref> By law and Southern social convention, household heads were adult, white propertied males, and all white women and all African Americans were thought to require protection and guidance because they lacked the capacity for reason and self-control.<ref>Laura F. Edwards (2000), ''Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Southern Women and the Civil War Era'', University of Illinois Press, p. 3. {{ISBN|0-252-02568-7}}</ref>

The [[Atlanta History Center|Atlanta Historical Society]] has produced many ''Gone with the Wind'' exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled "Disputed Territories: ''Gone with the Wind'' and Southern Myths". The exhibit asked, "Was Scarlett a Lady?", finding that historically most women of the period were not involved in business activities as Scarlett was during Reconstruction when she ran a sawmill. White women performed traditional jobs such as teaching and sewing and generally disliked work outside the home.<ref>Jennifer W. Dickey (2014), ''A Tough Little Patch of History: Gone with the Wind and the politics of memory'', University of Arkansas Press, p. 66. {{ISBN|978-1-55728-657-4}}</ref>

During the Civil War, Southern women played a significant role as volunteer nurses in makeshift hospitals. Many were middle- and upper-class women who had never worked for wages or seen the inside of a hospital. One such nurse was Ada W. Bacot, a young widow who had lost two children. Bacot came from a wealthy [[South Carolina]] plantation family that enslaved 87 people.<ref>Ada W. Bacot and Jean V. Berlin (1994), ''A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot, 1860–1863'', University of South Carolina Press, pp. ix–x, 1, 4. {{ISBN|1-57003-386-2}}</ref>

In the fall of 1862, Confederate laws were changed to permit women to be employed in hospitals as members of the Confederate Medical Department.<ref>Kate Cumming and Richard Barksdale Harwell (1959), ''Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse'', Louisiana State University Press, p. xiii. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2267-9}}</ref> Twenty-seven-year-old nurse [[Kate Cumming]] from Mobile, Alabama, described the primitive hospital conditions in her journal:

<blockquote>They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all.<ref>Cumming, K., et al., ''Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse'', p. 15.</ref></blockquote>

===Battles===
[[File:Battle of Kenesaw Mountian.png|thumb|260px|Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864.]]
The Civil War ended on April 26, 1865, when [[Joseph E. Johnston]] surrendered his armies in the [[Carolinas campaign]] to U.S. Army General [[William Tecumseh Sherman]]. Several battles are mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind.

====Early and mid war years====

* [[Seven Days Battles]], June 25 – July 1, 1862, Richmond, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated70 />
* [[Battle of Fredericksburg]], December 11–15, 1862, Fredericksburg, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated59>Part 2, chapter 14</ref>
* [[Streight's Raid]], April 19 – May 3, 1863, in northern Alabama. U.S. Army Colonel [[Abel Streight]] and his men were captured by Confederate General [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]].<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Chancellorsville]], April 30 – May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated59 />
:Ashley Wilkes is stationed on the Rapidan River, Virginia, in the winter of 1863,<ref>Part 2, chapter 15</ref> later captured and sent to a U.S. Army prisoner-of-war camp, [[Rock Island Arsenal]].<ref name=autogenerated513>Part 2, chapter 16</ref>
* [[Siege of Vicksburg]], May 18 – July 4, 1863, Vicksburg, Mississippi, a Union victory.<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Gettysburg]], July 1–3, 1863, fought in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a Union victory. "They expected death. They did not expect defeat."<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Chickamauga]], September 19–20, 1863, northwestern Georgia. The first fighting in Georgia and the most significant Union defeat.<ref name=autogenerated513 />
* [[Chattanooga Campaign]], November–December 1863, Tennessee, a Union victory. The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.<ref name=autogenerated513 />

====Atlanta Campaign====
[[File:Atlanta campaign.svg|thumb|Sherman's Atlanta Campaign]]
The [[Atlanta campaign|Atlanta Campaign]] (May–September 1864) took place in northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta.

Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from [[Battle of Rocky Face Ridge|Dalton]] (May 7–13)<ref name=autogenerated156 /> to [[Battle of Resaca|Resaca]] (May 13–15) to [[Battle of Kennesaw Mountain|Kennesaw Mountain]] (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the [[Skirmish at Pace's Ferry|Chattahoochee River]], where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to [[Battle of Peachtree Creek|Peachtree Creek]] (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.

* [[Battle of Atlanta]], July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta. The city would not fall until September 2, 1864—heavy losses for Confederate [[John Bell Hood]].
* [[Battle of Ezra Church]], July 28, 1864, Sherman's failed attack west of Atlanta where the railroad entered the city.
* [[Battle of Utoy Creek]], August 5–7, 1864, Sherman's failed attempt to break the railroad line at [[East Point, Georgia|East Point]], into Atlanta from the west, heavy Union losses.
* [[Battle of Jonesborough]], August 31 – September 1, 1864, Sherman successfully cut the railroad lines from the south into Atlanta. The city of Atlanta was abandoned by General Hood and then occupied by Union troops for the rest of the war.

====March to the Sea====

[[Sherman's March to the Sea]] was conducted in Georgia during November and December 1864.

====President Lincoln's murder====

Although [[Abraham Lincoln]] is mentioned in the novel 14 times, no reference is made to his [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|assassination]] on April 14, 1865.

===Manhood===
{{quote box
|quote = Somebody's darling! so young and so brave!
Wearing still on his pale, sweet face{{snd}}
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave{{snd}}
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace!
|source =—''Somebody's Darling'' by Marie La Coste, of Georgia.<ref name=autogenerated156 /><ref>Henry Marvin Wharton (1904), ''War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, 1861–1865'', Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co., p. 188. {{OCLC|9348166}}</ref> 
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Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood in Scarlett's eyes. A [[Planter class|planter]] by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died.<ref name=autogenerated176>Daniel E. Sutherland (1988), ''[[The Confederate Carpetbaggers]]'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 4. </ref> However, Ashley's name signifies paleness. His "pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death".<ref name=autogenerated173>Elizabeth Young, (1999) ''Disarming the Nation: Women's Writing and the American Civil War'', University of Chicago Press, p. 254. {{ISBN|0-226-96087-0}}</ref>

Ashley contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other ex-Confederate transplants there.<ref name=autogenerated176 /> Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been "in a state of suspended animation" since the surrender. He feels he is not "shouldering a man's burden" at Tara and believes he is "much less than a man{{snd}}much less, indeed, than a woman".<ref name=autogenerated13 />

A "young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight",<ref name=autogenerated177 /> Ashley is like a young girl himself.<ref name=autogenerated178>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 252</ref> With his "poet's eye",<ref>[[William Shakespeare]], ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', Act 5, Scene 1: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.</ref> Ashley has a "feminine sensitivity".<ref>Anne Goodwyn Jones (1981), ''Tomorrow Is Another Day: The woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, pp. 354–355. {{ISBN|0-8071-0776-X}}</ref> Scarlett is angered by the "slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was "born queer".<ref name=autogenerated6 /> (Mitchell's use of the word "queer" is for its sexual connotation because [[queer]], in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.)<ref name=autogenerated181>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 253.</ref> Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness, and sexual impotence.<ref>Jones, A.G., ''Tomorrow is Another Day: the woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', p. 355.</ref> He rides, plays poker, and drinks like "proper men", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated191>Darden Asbury Pyron (1991), ''Southern Daughter: the life of Margaret Mitchell'', New York: Oxford University Press, p. 320. {{ISBN|978-0-19-505276-3}}</ref> The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of [[Medusa]] on his [[Cravat (early)|cravat]] pin.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated181 />

Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands{{snd}}the "calf-like"<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Charles Hamilton, and the "old-maid in britches",<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Frank Kennedy{{snd}}are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction.<ref>Craig Thompson Friend, (2009) ''Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on Manhood in the South since Reconstruction'', University of Georgia Press, p. xviii. {{ISBN|978-0-8203-3674-9}}</ref> Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy,<ref>Part 4, chapter 33</ref> is effeminate or "gay-coded".<ref>Lutz, D., ''The Dangerous Lover: Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-century Seduction Narrative'', p. 84.</ref> Charles, Frank, and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South.<ref name=autogenerated173 /> Its power and influence have been diminished.

===Scallawag===
The word "scallawag" is defined as a loafer, a vagabond, or a rogue.<ref>John S. Farmer (1889), ''Farmer's Dictionary of Americanisms'', Thomas Poulter & Sons, p. 473. {{OCLC|702331118}}</ref> [[Scalawag|Scallawag]] had a special meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who accepted and supported Republican reforms.<ref>Leslie Dunkling (1990), ''A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address'', London; New York: Routledge, p. 216. {{ISBN|0-415-00761-5}}</ref> Mitchell defines scallawags as "Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably."<ref>Part 4, chapter 31</ref> Rhett Butler is accused of being a "damned Scallawag".<ref>Part 4, chapters 37 & 46</ref> In addition to scallawags, Mitchell portrays other types of scoundrels in the novel: Yankees, [[carpetbagger]]s, Republicans, prostitutes, and overseers. In the early years of the Civil War, Rhett is called a "scoundrel" for his "selfish gains" profiteering as a blockade-runner.<ref name=autogenerated1 />

As a scallawag, Rhett is despised. He is the "dark, mysterious, and slightly malevolent hero loose in the world".<ref name=autogenerated85>Numan V. Bartley (1988), ''The Evolution of Southern Culture'', University of Georgia Press, p. 99. {{ISBN|0-8203-0993-1}}</ref> Literary scholars have identified elements of Mitchell's first husband, Berrien "Red" Upshaw, in the character of Rhett.<ref name=autogenerated85 /> Another sees the image of Italian actor [[Rudolph Valentino]], whom Margaret Mitchell interviewed as a young reporter for ''The Atlanta Journal''.<ref>Margaret Mitchell and Patrick Allen (2000), ''Margaret Mitchell: Reporter'', Athens: Hill Street Press, pp. 152–154. {{ISBN|978-1-57003-937-9}}</ref><ref>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 259.</ref> Fictional hero Rhett Butler has a "swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes".<ref name=autogenerated86>Part 5, chapter 62</ref> He is a "scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor".<ref name=autogenerated86 />