jethrien

Title: Gone With the Wind
Author: Margaret Mitchell
Genre:Sweeping historical epic
Thingummies: 3.5 (5 for entertainment value, 1.5 for truly appalling racism)

Synopsis: Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara may have been raised a lady, but after the Civil War and Reconstruction destroys the world she was raised for, she finds that she is willing to do anything to succeed.

Thoughts: This is a fascinating novel about terrible people.

The author leaves no illusions from the very beginning that Scarlett is no lady in her heart. She's spoiled, self-centered, arrogant, shallow, scheming, and almost completely devoid of compassion. She's a sociopath. But Mitchell writes her so skillfully that her actions, while appalling, are also understandable. And the truth is that while many of Scarlett's actions are reprehensible in any context (stealing her friends and sisters' suitors! abusing her children! using convict labor!), her society gives her as much or more grief about actions that are completely legitimate (being good at business! putting her family's welfare ahead of modesty!). Scarlett was raised in a world in which she was told that she and every other woman was a weak-minded child who must dutifully submit to the menfolk around her (no matter how stupid or wrong they might be), because she lacked the sense or strength to do anything of use herself. Over the course of the book, she discovers that she's smarter and stronger and braver than most of the men, and watching her snap her fingers in the face of society's ridiculously, obviously incorrect beliefs is a joy.

Which is what makes the incredible racism all the more grating. We are told without a trace of irony that black people are simple-minded, childlike creatures who have to be carefully managed for their own good. But while Mitchell fully refutes this assertion when applied to women, she completely believes it when applied to blacks. The hypocrisy and ignorance is breathtaking. The really enraging thing is that it's not necessary--the vast bulk of the plot could happen without any of this. Prissy's lies could easily be teenaged pride instead of eye-rolling ignorance. Pork's reluctance to give the watch over to be engraved is portrayed as a childish inability to delay gratification, but I wouldn't trust Scarlett not to take back a valuable present either. But Mitchell insists that there are good slaves (who are willingly self-abasing) and bad slaves (who are lazy and ungrateful), but that slavery is the best thing for them all. Her blacks can be clever and sometimes even wise, but never, ever intelligent.

I can't help but feel that this book tells us far more about race relations and the southern mindset in the 1930s than it does about the 1860s.

This was particularly interesting to read basically back-to-back with Beloved, which is set in the same time period and is also by a feminist female author. Both are fiction. I've read primary sources supporting both views of slaveholders--that they were horrible monsters who abused their slaves terribly, and that they were decent people who tried to treat their slaves humanely. (Interestingly enough, both agree that Northerners vehemently against slavery were nonetheless perfectly capable of being blatantly racist and not treating the freed slaves like people.) Aside from the fact that I think Mitchell is serving a flawed agenda, I have to go with Morrison's overall portrayal because of Mitchell's own words. Gerald is a model of a compassionate slaveholder, who has only whipped someone once, when his horse wasn't properly rubbed down. (That's an offense worth causing incredible pain and scars over?) He's so foolishly sentimental that he allows himself to be talked into buying an extra child slave when he buys her mother, who's the wife of one of his house slaves. (He then declares he's never letting a slave marry off the plantation again, because it's too expensive.) Oh, what a softy! Grudgingly not separating a child from her mother! And oh, you'll regret that oversentimentality, since Prissy turns out to be useless. But isn't it sweet? I'm sorry--no. You don't get a cookie for being slightly less of a terrible person.

There's also some super-awesome classism here, too--poor white trash might as well just go drown themselves, for all the respect they'll ever get. Really, if you aren't a gently raised white from a sufficiently long-named family, you're scum and should be ashamed of yourself. I think only Will manages to overcome this, with great effort.

I'll admit, though, that I was expecting this. I wasn't expecting it to be as grating as it turned out to be, but it's pretty well known that the book's racist. I wasn't expecting the very mixed portrayal of the pre-War society. I'd kind of always figured, from the past-worship that seems to go along with fandom of this book, that Mitchell would completely romanticize the society. And she does, somewhat--she longs for the graces and elegance that was only possible with the wealth from the plantation system. But she thinks the war was insane. And while she tries to romanticize the uselessness of the upper classes, whose women are only fit to dance and flirt and decorously excuse themselves while pregnant and whose men are only fit to ride and hunt and drink, she cannot help a certain amount of scorn from creeping in. Melanie is truly the paragon of the book, a true great lady. But the truth is, the reader's sympathy lies with Scarlett, and her modern boldness and practicality and work ethic. Ashley may be useless with all his refinements, but Rhett combines that same learning and well-traveled culturedness with a cynicism and worldliness that is utterly at odds with the now-dead Southern society and yet is still wildly appealing. The Old South is a beautiful dream to Mitchell--but that's all it ever was. A dream.

In conclusion, every time white people interact with black people, it's skin-crawlingly awkward. But every time white people face off against other white people, it's a delicious, guilty pleasure. This is the kind of crack soap operas are made of. And Mitchell is wise enough to leave us not with a resolution, but the knowledge that the drama will continue on forever.