Editing Gone with the Wind (novel) (section)

====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>