Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

When studying American literature, there are certain characters that have become undeniably synonymous with the category.  Tom Sawyer, Scout Finch, Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield: all have defied the harrows of time to claim a spot on the list of most influential figures in America's repertoire. 

Now, I like to consider myself well-read.  I've enjoyed the company of all the beloved characters listed above at one time or another and have read my way through the classics shelf to the point where I can say I'm fairly knowledgable in the field of American lit.  Yet still there remained one character so prominent, one woman so famous, that, I'm ashamed to say, I had yet to meet: Miss Scarlett O'Hara.

Gone With the Wind is arguably the most famous romance novel of the 20th century and on par in notoriety with famous British works such as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.  Published in 1936, Margaret Mitchell's first and only novel depicts life as it was during the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction.  Her wily and headstrong heroine, Scarlett, is a mere girl at the start of the war but a well-worn woman by the end, and she provides readers with an eye-opening look at this definitive period of American history while starring in a romance so bipolar and powerful that even modern readers find themselves enchanted by it.

At 16, Scarlett is the belle of rural Georgia, charming boys and stirring jealousy from here to three counties over.  She is raised to be a sheltered dove, luxuriating in the bounty that Tara, the cotton plantation she grew up on, produced each summer.  With an endless parade of parties and picnics, her life is all bliss aside from the fact that the one boy she truly cares for, Ashley Wilkes, is pledged to another.  In a fit of jealousy and pain at failing to pry him from this engagement, she becomes engaged to the brother of Melanie, his fiancée.  In this way all the central characters become permanently linked, despite her new husband's prompt death while on the battlefield for the Union.  Never having loved him much to begin with, Scarlett mourns his passing little, but is obliged to take up residence as a widow with Melanie and her aunt while Ashley continues his term in the infantry.

These arrangements would persist for years to come and Scarlett would most likely have remained a lonely widow in black were it not for the introduction of a man nearly as stubborn and unscrupulous as herself: Rhett Butler.  In the coming years, he would influence her to defy society, would help her to become a businesswoman of no compare, and would stand by idly as she trudged through a second marriage.  Between them develops a passionate relationship, composed as equally of respect and admiration as loathing and frustration.  Each with a ruthless determination to succeed and disdain for proprieties and false niceties, they clash like two thunderclouds but create a lightning that's withstanding and a delight to read.  Though it's obvious to the witness that these two should be together, their coupling is long-coming, and even then is born out of convenience rather than love.  Scarlett still pines for Ashley though she realizes he belongs to Melanie, and thus develops close ties to trusting Melanie just to keep him in her life.  This childish devotion to an impossible dream is what ultimately destroys Scarlett's spirit and ruins her one chance to be a truly happy woman. 

An accurate picture of America in the time of Lincoln, Gone With the Wind is more than a cheap romance novel. It tells a story of the Civil War and slavery that differs from what people today have come to know, showing that slaves were not all whipped continually or miserable at their master's hands.  It shows that Yankees could be as cruel as Confederates and that the American South was nearly destroyed by this brutal and bloody dispute, literally razed to the ground in several places.  With this overtone of political discontent, Mitchell succeeds in chronicling her experiences and opinions in regards to the war while still maintaining the integrity of the story. 

But this book is set apart by more than just it's educational aspects.  Granted, it is by definition a romance novel; the most engaging and important portion of the plot is devoted to the evolving relationship between Scarlett and Rhett.  But unlike her contemporaries, Mitchell does not indulge her readers at the end.  Whereas Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte permit their woebegone heroines the blessing of a happy ending, Scarlett receives nothing but a lifetime's worth of regret.  This is perhaps the one downfall of this iconic novel; the final chapter leaves the reader feeling cold and wanting, with only a vague hope that there is something better in store for Scarlett somewhere in the future.  This is only my opinion, however, and there are millions of fans who find the ending tantalizing in it's melancholy and a fitting fate for one such as Miss O'Hara. 

All in all, Gone With the Wind is a highly readable novel that  flows rapidly through the more than 1000 pages.  Dramatic but not overly so, romantic but not simpering or cliche, Mitchell surely accomplished a rare feat in crafting a historical novel of love and war that deserves it's reputation as a staple of American literature. A fan of romance or not, this celebrated read is a must for anyone who takes pride in their bookshelf and finds pleasure in pages.  8/10