Book Review: Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind is a fast-paced tale of the effect the American civil war had on the south, and the loss caused and fortunes made by its destruction and reconstruction. After introducing us to genteel southern society Mitchell takes us at breakneck pace through the horrors of the war - for both men and women - and the fears and uncertainties of reconstruction.

The protagonist of Gone with the Wind is the perhaps damnably foolish, but strong-willed and resilient, Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett is the life force of the novel and is resolutely American, determinably Southern, and spiritedly Irish in her manner. Along with Scarlett, from safe, childish beginnings on a large plantation in respectable society, we are hurtled through the civil war and the destruction and unstable reconstruction of the south. Scarlett quickly looses everything she has - money, society, family, friends, status and security, and at each turn finds more obstacles in her way in her quest to rebuild her life and home.

The abolition of slavery plays a large part in Gone with the Wind. Margaret Mitchell describes the emancipation of slaves and its immediate consequences, such as the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, from the naturally biased point of view of a southerner, with clear prose and some historical analysis. It is left to the willfull Scarlett, rather than the narrator, to react to events, but as Scarlett's world has always been local and immediate, her focus post-war immediately becomes her family's safety. Unfortunately her newly acquired fear of hunger and poverty, combined with her strong will, inadvertently causes the deaths of her husband and others due to his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan.

As well as an engaging historical novel of the civil war, Gone with the Wind is also an epic love story. Rhett Butler, a wealthy opportunist, enters Scarlett's life pre-war as a witness to an undoubtedly teenage stomping fit where Scarlett doesn't get to marry the boy she wants. Rhett immediately falls for Scarlett's spirited ways and Rhett and Scarlett go on to have a tempestuous relationship and finally a heartbreaking marriage. Rhett, knowing Scarlett's coquettish ways, doesn't admit his love for her for several years ("You're so brutal to those who love you." - Rhett Butler, Chapter 62). The reader feels Rhett's frustration at Scarlett's persistent inability to both read and understand people and to recognise her own feelings until it is too late - too late for Ashley and Melanie Wilkes, Suellen O'Hara and Frank Kennedy, and finally, after the tragic death of Bonnie Butler, too late for Scarlett and Rhett. The novel ends on Rhett's famous rebuttal: "My dear, I don't give a damn" - but we are given a final thread of hope with Scarlett's aphorism: "Tomorrow is another day."

Gone with the Wind is intensely readable, gripping, historical and romantic. It is a character-driven novel whilst retaining an equally as significant plot. I would recommend it to everyone- and that's not a phrase lightly used by me! Have you read Gone with the Wind? Did you like it as much as I did? I'm off to see the film now, and excited to see how it compares with the book.

Rating: 5/5. Buy the book: Paperback / Kindle / DVD. Follow me: Goodreads / Twitter / Bloglovin