Gone With The Wind Review

The following is the relevant section:

"You turned me out on the town while you chased him. By God, this is one night when there are only going to be two in my bed."

He swung her off her feet into his arms and started up the stairs. Her head was crushed against his chest and she heard the hard hammering of his heart beneath her ears. He hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened. Up the stairs he went in the utter darkness, up, up, and she was wild with fear. He was a mad stranger and this was a black darkness she did not know, darker than death. He was like death, carrying her away in arms that hurt. She screamed, stifled against him and he stopped suddenly on the landing and, turning her swiftly in his arms, bent over and kissed her with a savagery and a completeness that wiped out everything from her mind but the dark into which she was sinking and the lips on hers. He was shaking, as though he stood in a strong wind, and his lips, traveling from her mouth downward to where the wrapper had fallen from her body, fell on her soft flesh.

He was muttering things she did not hear, his lips were evoking feelings never felt before. She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her. She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again. Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast. For the first time in her life she had met someone, something stronger than she, someone she could neither bully nor break, someone who was bullying and breaking her. Somehow, her arms were around his neck and her lips trembling beneath his and they were going up, up into the darkness again, a darkness that was soft and swirling and all enveloping.

I'll admit that when I was young and hadn't had sex yet, I found this passage exciting, yet confusing. I didn't like the part about being bullied and broken but the other imagery was highly sexual because we know what it means. The character had an orgasm for the first time in her life. But the point of a truly loving relationship is not to come, but to care more about the other person's pleasure more than your own, ensuring that orgasm is more possible. So this book really sent me mixed messages about a married relationship.

Keeping in mind the time period in which the novel was written, the depiction of slaves and the way they talked and were treated is still highly disturbing. The O'Haras and the Wilkses might be a glorified bunch, but I don't care how nicely they treated their slaves, it's still slavery isn't it? And having a 17-inch waist as the perfection of womanhood? And not eating much to preserve that waist? And how about Scarlett herself. Is she someone to look up to or was she just another female opportunist who expediently bounced from man to man? You might think she displayed the strength of Buffy in her "As God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again," speech after all her travails up to that point, but her ability to get through tough situations was hardly selfless as Buffy often was in helping others.

In my opinion, Gone With The Wind is a potboiler novel full of cliched Southern ideals and thinking about the old South, where the "darkies" are all either smiling and pleasant like Mammy, or shiftless and lazy like Prissy, there to serve as background stereotypical figures to the white folk.

It's amazing how much a person's viewpoint can change over the years. I don't think I was ever truly comfortable as an adult watching the movie, I admittedly was more into the actors like Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable and the filmmaking process itself. The only scene that I truly love in the whole film is when Ashley comes back from the war and at first Melanie thinks it's a beggar from far off, coming up the roadway to ask for food:

She stopped so suddenly that Scarlett turned to look at her. Melanie's thin hand was at her throat, clutching it as if it was torn with pain, and Scarlett could see the veins beneath the white skin throbbing swiftly. Her face went whiter and her brown eyes dilated enormously.

She's going to faint, thought Scarlett, leaping to her feet and catching her arm.

But, in an instant, Melanie threw off her hand and was down the steps. Down the graveled path she flew, skimming lightly as a bird, her faded skirts streaming behind her, her arms outstretched. Then, Scarlett knew the truth, with the impact of a blow. She reeled back against an upright of the porch as the man lifted a face covered with a dirty blond beard and stopped still, looking toward the house as if he was too weary to take another step. Her heart leaped and stopped and then began racing, as Melly with incoherent cries threw herself into the dirty soldier's arms andhis head bent down toward hers. With rapture, Scarlett took two running steps forward but was checked when Will's hand closed upon her skirt.

"Don't spoil it," he said quietly.

"Turn me loose, you fool! Turn me loose! It's Ashley!"

He did not relax his grip.

"After all, he's HER husband, ain't he?" Will asked calmly and, looking down at him in a confusion of joy and impotent fury, Scarlett saw in the quiet depths of his eyes understanding and pity.

In the movie it was Mammy who stopped Scarlett, and it was the only time the two interacted as equals.