Book

Gone With the Wind

Gone with the Wind, first published in May 1936, is a romantic novel written by Margaret Mitchell, who won the Pulitzer Price for the book in 1937. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The novel depicts the experiences of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty that she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.. The book is the source of the 1939 film of the same name.Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from an auto-crash injury that refused to heal. In April, 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor who was looking for new fiction, read what she had written, and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references, and rewrote the opening chapter several times. Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first, and then wrote the events that lead up to it. As to what became of her star-crossed lovers, Rhett and Scarlett, after the novel ended, Mitchell did not know, and said, "For all I know, Rhett may have found someone else who was less difficult." Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.

Synopsis

Scarlett O'Hara is the belle of the county and she knows it. She participates in a seemingly endless round of parties, dances and barbecues, always surrounded by boys with whom she appears to be playing an elaborate game. She receives the first shock of her young life when Ashley Wilkes, son of a neighboring plantation owner, announces his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton. When she cannot convince Ashley to change his plan, she quickly throws herself at Charles Hamilton who is shocked and thrilled to think that she would even consider him. Her plans are further disrupted when war breaks out, taking the young men away as soldiers, and Charles is among the first to die. She spends several years in Atlanta where she tries to enjoy life in her own way in spite of the disapproval of other women of her class.

Her life is further complicated by the presence of Rhett Butler who is known to be a privateer and opportunist and is "not received" in his own hometown of Savannah. Scarlett admits that she is fond of Rhett, but his candor and frank observations of her character infuriate her whenever he is near. During the siege of Atlanta, she flees home to Tara along with her sister-in-law, Melanie, and the newborn baby Beau. There she learns to survive unspeakable hardships from work in the fields to shooting a Yankee soldier in defense of her home.

Just when Scarlett thinks the war is over and she can finally put Tara to rights, a major crisis comes in the form of new taxes-levied deliberately by the new government administrators and scalawags to try to take Tara away from her. She returns to Atlanta, hoping to trick Rhett into marrying her so she will have access to his money. When this fails, she steals her sister's fiancé, who happens to have a store and a little money saved toward his wedding. She marries him and takes his savings to pay her taxes. Two weeks after the wedding, she borrows money from Rhett to buy a lumber mill. She manages the mill herself and runs sharp bargains with her lumber, stealing customers from other lumber mills and preying on the sympathies of Yankees to sell her own. As the political climate in Atlanta worsens, Scarlett's careless behavior turns the people even more solidly against her. Finally, expectations are fulfilled and Scarlett is attacked. The Ku Klux Klan, of which nearly all the men are a part, pursue vengeance on her behalf and her second husband, Frank is killed.

Scarlett finally marries Rhett who believes he can't get her any other way, and the two have a tempestuous marriage in which Scarlett often fantasizes that Rhett is Ashley. Any chance of salvaging a relationship with Rhett is lost when their four-year old Bonnie dies in a fall from her pony. When Melanie dies, leaving Scarlett virtually friendless, and then Rhett leaves her, she returns again to Tara.