'Gone with the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell (Chapters 17 - 30)

Note: Since I'll be discussing my thoughts of the book in sections, there will be some spoilers, but I'll still attempt to hedge around crucial points carefully. However, as I've said before, I do consider old classics are fair game. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

The historical drama escalates to a high pitch.

 At the start of this section, it becomes evident the Yankee invasion of Atlanta is inevitable and indeed the Union Troops are moving steadily closer. Scarlett continues to despise Melanie, who is now pregnant. Yet she feels bound by her promise to Ashley to care for his wife. Melanie still has no idea of Scarlett's true feelings toward her. In fact she'd prefer Scarlett to adopt her baby if anything goes wrong, rather than either of Ashley's two sisters. Meanwhile, poor little Wade is terrified by the sound of gunfire and shells, and Rhett asks Scarlett to be his mistress because he admires her pluck and stubbornness. She refuses. 

Whoa, then all hell breaks loose! On the day Melanie's baby is born, the Yankees are moving in and the Confederates are blowing up all their own powder magazines before leaving town. Wounded soldiers prevent the doctor from attending the birth. No sooner does Melanie finish her gruelling labour than they must flee behind a rickety old horse. Rhett starts them on their way and then nicks off to join the army, (leaving it until the last possible second to muster his patriotic fervour, I must say). Unprepared Scarlett finds herself in charge of a wagon full of dependents. It includes depleted Melanie who dodged dying in childbirth by a cat's whisker, Prissy the panicking slave girl, Beau the vulnerable newborn and Wade the terrified toddler.

Scarlett's wild thoughts at this stage include the title of the book. 'Was Tara still standing? Or was it gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?' Her family has certainly been tragically affected. 

I can't help wondering whether this huge trial will soften Scarlett or harden her even more. I've read that some people under pressure become 'carrots' while others prove themselves to be 'eggs.' In a pivotal moment after their homecoming, Scarlett resolves to survive, and opts for the 'egg' route. She'll be like her ancestors who have 'taken the worst fate can hand them and hammer it into the best.' A certain hardness is inevitable, if she's to maintain Tara. Scarlett decides she needs to be brusque and demanding with everyone. Vulnerability would open a floodgate that must remain closed, so postponing her own feelings of devastation becomes a survival tactic. 'I won't think about it now. I'll think about it later.' Hmm, does this sort of deferral ever end well?

Scarlett vows, 'As God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again!' (Personally, I think she's drawing from the same sense of bitterness that guided her to marry Charles. This time it's directed at the Yankees instead of Honey Wilkes and Melanie. Yet the narrator remarks that few of the returning soldiers are bitter. They'd fought a good fight and lost. We're told, 'they left bitterness to their women and old people.')

Another interesting observation is how Scarlett shrugs off the values of kindness and gentility her mother had spent pains teaching her. She decides that Ellen's standards were obviously wrong and way out of touch for the real world. Yet even the narrator remarks that they were fine for the era they were just emerging from. Ellen could not have foreseen the complete and sudden collapse of the civilisation in which she had raised her daughters, requiring an abrupt shift of standards. And Scarlett couldn't see that her mother's code of femininity and kindness was perfect in its place. (I'm thinking it probably wasn't hard for Scarlett to shrug off Ellen's values in crisis time, since she'd only ever donned them as a veneer anyway.)

Meanwhile, I see Melanie, who nurtures her nephew and son, as doing vital groundwork for the next generation. Her own baby, Beau, is largely oblivious at this stage, but I'm concerned about the impact all this trauma and fear will have on Wade's psyche for the future.   

Being 'Gone with the Wind' there's always plenty of dirty racism to raise our hackles. Gerald O'Hara's butler, Pork, refers to his fellow slaves as 'trash' for deciding to leave with the Yankees, yet he's loyal to a family who treats him with abominable imperialism to the slightest detail. They save all the fresh meat from a fresh killed hog for themselves, and only throw the chitterlings (intestines) to their negroes. It fascinates me to see so many family slaves, embodied mostly by young Prissy's viewpoint, are terrified of the Yankees and believe they're coming to 'get' them. They seem to have no idea that the opposing army is fighting for their rights. What crazy times down south they must have been. 

The final chapter in this section introduces Will Benteen; a returned soldier who the family care for when he's sick. He's a 'Cracker' or small farmer far below their station, but social stigma has 'gone with the wind' at this stage, along with so much else. Margaret Mitchell has already set Will up as a legend, even though we've just been introduced to him. With his 'patient, mild eyes and wooden leg' this plain young man has become a natural sounding board for everyone's grievances. I like him a lot after his brief introduction. 

Ooh, what's just happened? The war is over and Ashley has just staggered home. And Scarlett still intends to steal him from Melanie if she possibly can! That girl still has such a one-track mind after all that's gone down. Is she going to stoop to something sneaky and malicious?

Excuse me while I get on with the next section. I'll be back when I can to discuss Chapters 31 - 47.