Editing Gone with the Wind (novel) (section)

====Faithful and devoted slave====
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 |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>