GWTW--post #1!

LauraMax

LauraMax

Cathlete
OK since it's been about 17 or 18 years since I last read it, I'm gonna offer some random thoughts about things I don't remember the first 2 times around.

First, let's get the unpleasantness out of the way. I don't remember being so uncomfortable w/Mitchell's portrayal of slavery. She's clearly trying to justify it to those who didn't grow up with it. I find it very hard to believe slaves lived such gentle, easy lives. Crap, she makes ME want to be a slave at Tara! She makes it seem as though slaves ruled plantations instead of their owners, & that slaves manipulated their masters/mistresses into doing whatever they wanted. She pretty much says it outright in many scenes w/Gerald--how he went to Twelve Oaks to buy his butler's new wife b/c his butler asked him to, and also bought her daughter as well b/c Dilcey asked him to. Oh brother. :rolleyes: I think there's a lot more of this throughout the book, esp. w/Mammy. My intro makes the point that Mitchell was trying to discredit Uncle Tom's Cabin. I'm not entirely sure which is more realistic, but I have a hunch it was Uncle Tom's Cabin. ;)

Second, more fun stuff--I think the character of Scarlett is supposed to represent the battle between the old south & the new south. Mitchell spends a lot of time in the beginning describing Gerald & Ellen. Gerald, the immigrant, hard working & newly wealthy & Ellen, the Old South pedigreed who's supposed to live a life of liesure. So they created Scarlett, who wants to be a real lady like Ellen, but is really going through the motions like Gerald. You see a tomboy vs. a lady, new vs. old, Irish vs. French, crassness vs. class. Lots of conflict in young Scarlett.

Those are my initial thoughts. Feel free to expand. :)
 
I agree about feeling conflicted on her portrayal of slavery. No doubt there were instances where slaves were treated far better than others and when presented with the chance to run or stay I'm not surprised that house slaves would be more likely to stay than field slaves. I think a lot of it depended on the personalities involved. Undoubtedly, there were situations where slave owners were very weak people whose slaves would have had more sway. However, when faced with the choice of following the Yankees into an unknown world or staying in an environment they were familiar with, there would have been those who would have chosen to stay with the familiar. I also think slaves were viewed differently, based on the person viewing them. Daughters of the wealthy who never lifted a finger would see them differently than someone like Gerald who had, prior to life at Tara, had to do for himself. Also, there were slaves who stayed on the plantations and became share croppers after the war.

I find Mitchell's ability to write and paint such a clear picture of what life was like at that time, at least the view of it she portrays, to be incredible. I haven't seen the movie in years and certainly it couldn't possibly recreate a book of that length, but the story itself in book form totally blows away the story in the movie. It is so much richer and fuller and allows for so much more understanding of the characters. Scarlett's emotional conflicts with virtually everyone in her life could never be fully brought to life on film.

I watched "John Adams" last week and I couldn't help but think that GWTW, done today as a long mini series of that quality, could come far closer to the book, but would still in many ways fall short. A book of that length and detail simply could never be recreated in any visual form that would truly do it justice.

I did a brief search and reading on slaves at the time of Civil War and one thing that strikes me is that, as with much of history, it is hard to piece together a truly accurate picture of what happened, because each person who wrote about it had their own agenda and perspective, things which can make reality clouded.
 
I am about halfway through. I am really enjoying the book so far, much more than I thought I would. I hadn't realized how much of the detail of the war she put in the book, and I like the contrast of the old South/new South (since I am a resident of the current South.) I have also been researching the places that she mentions in Atlanta...I live here and I've seen so many of the historical markers around town marking important events and battles, but never really paid much attention to them. It is so weird to think that certain army companies marched past where my mom and grandma live now to get to Decatur!

I don't really have a problem with the way she has portrayed slavery, with some caveats. If a book written today showed that kind of view it would be ridiculous and outright racist, but Mitchell herself grew up for a time not even realizing that the South had lost the war! I think her portrayal of slavery shows much about her own background. Obviously slavery was a horrible thing, but I am willing to believe that some would prefer staying with their masters to the unknown of starting a new life from scratch, especially for those who were house slaves. I'm sure there are a lot of aspects of their relationships with their owners that we couldn't understand now. But I've never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I haven't done much research into the subject, so my own knowledge is limited.
 
I feel so far behind. I'm only on page 15! I agree the book far blows away the movie. Mitchell is so descriptive, she really does a great job of portraying life as it was down here then. I think the book has more meaning to me now that I live down here and can relate to all the places she's talking about. Clayton County now isn't like it was then.

Marcy
 
jodijodi said:
I am about halfway through. I am really enjoying the book so far, much more than I thought I would. I hadn't realized how much of the detail of the war she put in the book, and I like the contrast of the old South/new South (since I am a resident of the current South.) I have also been researching the places that she mentions in Atlanta...I live here and I've seen so many of the historical markers around town marking important events and battles, but never really paid much attention to them. It is so weird to think that certain army companies marched past where my mom and grandma live now to get to Decatur!

I don't really have a problem with the way she has portrayed slavery, with some caveats. If a book written today showed that kind of view it would be ridiculous and outright racist, but Mitchell herself grew up for a time not even realizing that the South had lost the war! I think her portrayal of slavery shows much about her own background. Obviously slavery was a horrible thing, but I am willing to believe that some would prefer staying with their masters to the unknown of starting a new life from scratch, especially for those who were house slaves. I'm sure there are a lot of aspects of their relationships with their owners that we couldn't understand now. But I've never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I haven't done much research into the subject, so my own knowledge is limited.
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I hear what you're saying--as a 19th c southerner Mitchell has a different perspective than a 20th c Yankee--but I'll never be able to comprehend how someone could believe one human being would not only be OK with, but also prefer, to be owned by another human being. Other than fear of the unknown.

I think the one major reason the book appeals to women around the world is Scarlett & only Scarlett. We haven't really gotten there yet (well, Jodi has LOL), but Scarlett always got what she wanted, no matter what. I for one admire that. ;)

PR, wasn't John Adams awesome? I was riveted to that series. That's the period of history I studied too.
 
I'm about 1/2 way through to and I have to say I can't ever remember reading a book that so clearly lays out in such a descriptive manner how devastated the south was by the war. The land, the buildings, the people, all life was decimated and the level of poverty especially for those who could never have conceived of being without was harsh. There are parts of the world today where people live just as it's described Scarlet and her family lived and some are even worse off and that all seems sort of unreal to me living my middle class American existence. Somehow reading this makes their plight seem more real to me than just a story on the radio. I wonder if I were faced with a similar situation how would I fare.
 
i am also wayyy behind as i had to wait until monday night to get the book downloaded to my reader. i wont be able to keep up with you ladies so i will read at the pace i can. i really enjoy reading your thoughts on the book.

i was born in savannah and raised in atlanta, so the places are very real to me. i have hiked many times on kennesaw mountain and climbed stone mountain and so many other places. unfortunately, the only history of the south that i really know is a very ignorant, redneck view that i grew up around. i am so glad that lauramax started this reading and inspired me to finally read it after 40 years!
 
I only have a minute but wanted to say that I am enjoying this book so much. I had a head start on most of you because I have so lil' time to read these days. (I am on page 490, almost halfway.) I had hoped to have time to read when I went down to FLA for Thanksgiving but it didnt happen. Ill probably be still reading this in January but that is okay because I will disappointed when it's finished. I picked up the book "Rhett Butler's People" last week because I love reading his character too.I doubt it will be as good but decided to but it anyway. Scarlet sure is spoiled but it makes me smile when I read how she thinks! I can't wait to see the movie and I am purposely waiting til I am done with the book so it doesn't spoil it for me. (I did see the movie when I was in high school but cannot remember most of it UNTIL I read it in the book!) Laura, thanks so much for the idea...even though I only get small reads in here & there in spurts, I am truly enjoying it!
 
I didn't officially join this thread before, but i hope I can jump in. I've read GWTW countless times over the last 30 years, too many to keep track of. It is my favorite, hands down, best loved book and movie of all time. My sister and I quote the movie and book lines all the time, and it's Scarlett's speech in the turnip field with her hand raised that I invoke whenver I feel the need for strength (as God is my witness.......). I know this book backwards and forwards, and love every page of it.

As far as the slavery descriptions, yes it's uncomfortable at times, but I beleive there is some truth to it. Not all slaveowners were monsters; it's the culture they were brought up with, and didn't see a human slave as anything other than another work "animal" on a farm. Obviously, hard to comprehend now, but I think that's how it was then, for some. Africans also captured slaves to sell the white trade too, that's just a fact. Just as we can't understand now why some people would prefer to live under a dictator, some slaves may have grown comfortable living as they were.....in some ways its easier, somebody telling you what to do at every waking moment, it makes things easier, but as modern day Americans it's hard to understand the mentality of someone who would prefer beiing taken care of. I couldn't live that way, but some people did and still do. That's essentially what people living under dictatorships so....they are slaves to that regime. I see it in some people around me....they are happy to take money from a government system, happy to let me take care of paying thier bills so they can sit home and watch TV all day, happy to leave any and all decisions to someone else.... Guess that's another subject though.....!

Anyway, for those of you first reading this book, what a treat! I read it at least once very 2 years. I love the descriptions, I love the strength and bull-headedness of Scarlett, I love how Rhett and Ashely are 2 sides of the same coin, new Georgia vs old, and Scarlett is fiighting those 2 wars within herself.

You know, I'vebeen stressing out at work a lot lately, I jsut said I need to read a good book. I have an original 1939 copy on my shelf that I may just dust off.....

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charms as the Tarleton twins were......"
 
Another thought on slavery. It wasn't invented by southern Americans, as it predates written history and was practiced by many cultures. It appears to be one of those acts of humans that started in many places around the world at a time when people were not able to communicate at great distances and they couldn't have known that slavery was occurring on the other side of the world. And sadly, while it has been made illegal in most countries, it is still practiced in some places today.

While it is a very hard concept for us to fathom today, at the time of the Civil War and especially in south where their whole foundation of life was centered on using slaves, slave owners simply could not conceive of another way of life. They were so entrenched it in that the thought of life without slaves was inconceivable to the majority.

Here's a link to some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

This was really eye opening to me:

"Although outlawed in nearly all countries, forms of slavery still exist in some parts of the world. [77][78] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people (although some put the number as high as 200 million) who worked in virtual slavery in 2007, spread all over the world.[79] According to FTS, these slaves represent the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once."
 
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Peaceful Rainbow said:
Another thought on slavery. It wasn't invented by southern Americans, as it predates written history and was practiced by many cultures. It appears to be one of those acts of humans that started in many places around the world at a time when people were not able to communicate at great distances and they couldn't have known that slavery was occurring on the other side of the world. And sadly, while it has been made illegal in most countries, it is still practiced in some places today.

While it is a very hard concept for us to fathom today, at the time of the Civil War and especially in south where their whole foundation of life was centered on using slaves, slave owners simply could not conceive of another way of life. They were so entrenched it in that the thought of life without slaves was inconceivable to the majority.

Here's a link to some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

This was really eye opening to me:

"Although outlawed in nearly all countries, forms of slavery still exist in some parts of the world. [77][78] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people (although some put the number as high as 200 million) who worked in virtual slavery in 2007, spread all over the world.[79] According to FTS, these slaves represent the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once."
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Oh gosh yes, slavery was commonplace probably since the beginning of time. It was typical for the victors of war to take the losers into slavery, & it was acceptable & expected. And the slaves themselves held their own kind of social status. It wasn't an ethnic thing, it was a cultural thing.

I'm sure there were some slave owners who treated their slaves well, some even like family. Which I imagine was the case w/Mitchell's family. But human nature being what it is, the Hobbesian kind of human nature, I suspect the opposite was the norm. Anyway, probably not something any of us will ever know.

Lisa, you have an original 1939 copy? DO NOT read it! LOL! Put it in a case & get a crappy paperback version!

Yes, it is an eye opener when it comes to how southerners had to live post-war. Total devastation of their economy (which I think had more to do w/the loss of slaves than the war itself, but combine it w/the loss of most of the young male population & it was a death knell for the southern financial world). And also a tribute to the determination & strength of southern Americans, which I think Scarlett represents. And I think Ellen represents the old south, which died when Atlanta burned.

For those of you worried about keeping up, don't. I'll be lucky if I can get in 50 pages a week. :eek:
 
Good morning all! I didn't get to pop in yesterday, but was so happy to see more posts today. This was such a great idea. I'm glad to be re-reading the book.

Like everyone else here, it is so interesting to see the portrayal of the slaves in the book. the strong house slaves who basically raise the white kids. And even the relationship between the slave children and the white children who were raised together. The Tarleton boys and their sidekick ....can't remember his name right now( who was not in the movie, but in the book)

I've been also thinking about the war between what was considered proper and what was just not tolerated in society. As Rhett says to Scarlett at the bazaar, it is not until your reputation is completely ruined that you realize what restrictions you were under. And some of those restrictions were so ridiculous.....wearing black for how long? Years? Not socializing even a year after the death of a husband. Wow. Anyway, I had better get back to work.

Have a great day everyone!
 
Anyone still out there?

I'm past page 700 now and the other day something really struck me. I'm well into 1866 now and there has been nothing on Lincoln's assassination. In reading how southerners felt about reconstruction and the way in which the north went about it, I can't help but wonder how much differently things would have played out had Lincoln lived. He's been talked about as a uniter, someone who brought former rivals to serve with him, one would have expected that he would want to structure things after the war to bring the south back into the fold instead of stirring up more anger and hatred towards the north, as happened.

Scarlett's relationship with Rhett in the book is far, far more intriguing than how it plays out in the movie and she has to be one of the most complex characters ever created in fiction.
 
Hey, you're right! I hadn't even thought about that! That is an interesting point.

I finished yesterday, but I was waiting to post until more people caught up a bit. I will say one thing, though, although I said I didn't have too much of a problem with the way slavery was portrayed in the first part of the book (given Mitchell's background), the way African Americans were shown in the second half of the book REALLY made me uncomfortable. It seems as though once Scarlett (and the rest of the Old South) found that the slaves were no longer under her thumb, her attitude certainly changed! If she had been patronizing in the beginning, she was downright offensive later on! (And that doesn't even really begin to sum up how I feel about it.) Yikes!
 
Holy crap, you guys are WAY too far ahead! I'm on page 124. :eek:

PR, interesting thought on Lincoln. I don't believe he's ever mentioned after the war started. Truthfully though, despite what pundits are saying about Lincoln today, I'm not sure he was much of a uniter. Even if he was, I doubt it would've made a difference b/c southerners despised him.

Rhea, that's the one recurring thing in the book--about what women were supposed to be in southern culture as opposed to what they actually were. I just got through the scene where they met Mrs. Tarleton on their way to the Twelve Oaks BBQ, & while Scarlett consciously criticizes her for her freedom & the relationship she has w/her daughters, she's also subconsciously jealous.

And the pitiful portrait of Ellen--her true love dies so she marries for convenience & always wears that "stiff upper lip" regardless of how unhappy she truly is. And she's the model women, everyone in the book looks up to her & thinks she's so perfect. This is what early 19th c. southern women should aspire to? So sad. :(

ETA: the women in this book were much worse off than the slaves! LOL!
 
LauraMax said:
ETA: the women in this book were much worse off than the slaves! LOL!
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So, true. It's simply incredible how many restrictions are placed on them and how many of them simply accept the restrictions as if they are reasonable!

I'm not saying that Lincoln would have gone all out in reuniting the country, after all he didn't see blacks as equal to whites, but I can't see him agreeing with a lot of things that were going on. For instance, they were creating rules to keep white southern men from voting and pushing the idea that black people could vote. Though this didn't in reality happen for the majority until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 even though legally they had the right to vote in 1870. Lincoln seemed like someone who believed in justice and the laws were applied differently depending on who you were, which led to a lot of problems, problems that in some ways continue even today.

The freedom of the slaves created an interesting situation given that while those in the north were uncomfortable with slavery and felt it should be abolished, they also were not, in large part, comfortable being around black people with whom they had had little or no contact. There's a scene with Scarlett and some Yankee wives about that very issue. While the northerners weren't that comfortable around blacks, for the most part southerners were, especially with former house slaves, some of whom had helped raise them and their children. So, you had some blacks heading north where people weren't comfortable with them and some staying in the south and trying to fit in to a new life amongst those who had formerly owned them with neither group able to really grasp how to make that transition.
 
Peaceful Rainbow said:
The freedom of the slaves created an interesting situation given that while those in the north were uncomfortable with slavery and felt it should be abolished, they also were not, in large part, comfortable being around black people with whom they had had little or no contact. There's a scene with Scarlett and some Yankee wives about that very issue. While the northerners weren't that comfortable around blacks, for the most part southerners were, especially with former house slaves, some of whom had helped raise them and their children. So, you had some blacks heading north where people weren't comfortable with them and some staying in the south and trying to fit in to a new life amongst those who had formerly owned them with neither group able to really grasp how to make that transition.
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I thought that scene was very interesting! Scarlett recommended finding a former house slave to help with the children, and the Yankee wives were horrified at the idea of having former slaves in their homes. Seems rather ironic.
 
That is interesting. I guess I'll have more to say on that in 2009 WHEN I GET THERE you crazy speed readers!!!!!!!!
 
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