Well I finished the story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. It was quite a read. Some thoughts:
MM view of history is informed by being a Southern Woman in the 1930's. This was approximately 65 to 70 years after the Civil War. There were still a few around who were alive during that time. The South of her girlhood and adulthood was still smarting from the defeat. The Lost Cause school was going strong among popular historians and During the 20 and 30's the new medium of The Movies.
Birth of a Nation gave popular voice to this view to millions of small town rural Americans and it became received wisdom to many. Slavery was mainly a benign institution, "the Negro" was not fully human and was more childlike and actual loved their masters, that it was Northern abolitionists, who for their own gain, "stirred up" the slaves. After the war the freed slaves and the Northern Carpetbaggers aided by Southern "scalawags" oppressed the south. And the "darkies" lusted after the flesh of "white women" (sounds like lots of suppressed sexual fantasies to me). And the Klan was there to protect the tender flesh of Southern Womanhood. Oh my
This loathsome fantasy of the war and reconstruction was soundly refuted by real historians in the following decades but it still exists among the far right. MM was not unusual in her adherence to it.
The book did have a surprising amount of feminism in it. The right to vote was given only a few years before it was written. Scarlett as the New Woman, not in need for any man. Southern men do not come off so good.
Interesting in how Scarlett discovered at the end that it was Melanie that she loved. That Ashley was a made up illusion by a young girl who romanticized an ideal of southern manhood. She discovered also that she loved Rhett but I do not really believe it. This book was more about Scarlett's coming into her own and realizing that Melanie was the person who stood by her all through the years even when she hated her. Melanie's death released them all, Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley, from their illusions. Scarlett still thought that she loved Rhett but I think in the future she would understand that she did not. I do not think that given the story if it was continued Scarlett and Rhett would get back together. The said and did so many horrible things to each other that they had nothing left to build a relationship on. I picture Rhett going to Charleston, living the life of a wealthy retiree who has a mistress and dies sometime around the turn of the century. I picture Scarlett never marrying again, working in her mills (that she gets back from Ashley), raising her kids and becoming a old dragon who lives well into the 30's.
Lots of implied Sex which made it scandalous at the time. MM was evidently quite a naughty lady. Heaving bosoms' and rape fantasies.
Final verdict: History-F, Feminism-A, Rip roaring story-A, somewhat convoluted plot and plot holes-C. Over all score a B. Read it for the story, laugh at the nonsense and be incensed and beware of the historical inaccuracies. It is an artifact of the times. It will inform you of just how Jim Crow came about and was so hard to get rid of. The true legacy of the Civil War.
Now reading as remedy Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball and Race and Reunion, a good history of how we came to think of the Civil War the way we did.
MM view of history is informed by being a Southern Woman in the 1930's. This was approximately 65 to 70 years after the Civil War. There were still a few around who were alive during that time. The South of her girlhood and adulthood was still smarting from the defeat. The Lost Cause school was going strong among popular historians and During the 20 and 30's the new medium of The Movies.
Birth of a Nation gave popular voice to this view to millions of small town rural Americans and it became received wisdom to many. Slavery was mainly a benign institution, "the Negro" was not fully human and was more childlike and actual loved their masters, that it was Northern abolitionists, who for their own gain, "stirred up" the slaves. After the war the freed slaves and the Northern Carpetbaggers aided by Southern "scalawags" oppressed the south. And the "darkies" lusted after the flesh of "white women" (sounds like lots of suppressed sexual fantasies to me). And the Klan was there to protect the tender flesh of Southern Womanhood. Oh my
This loathsome fantasy of the war and reconstruction was soundly refuted by real historians in the following decades but it still exists among the far right. MM was not unusual in her adherence to it.
The book did have a surprising amount of feminism in it. The right to vote was given only a few years before it was written. Scarlett as the New Woman, not in need for any man. Southern men do not come off so good.
Interesting in how Scarlett discovered at the end that it was Melanie that she loved. That Ashley was a made up illusion by a young girl who romanticized an ideal of southern manhood. She discovered also that she loved Rhett but I do not really believe it. This book was more about Scarlett's coming into her own and realizing that Melanie was the person who stood by her all through the years even when she hated her. Melanie's death released them all, Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley, from their illusions. Scarlett still thought that she loved Rhett but I think in the future she would understand that she did not. I do not think that given the story if it was continued Scarlett and Rhett would get back together. The said and did so many horrible things to each other that they had nothing left to build a relationship on. I picture Rhett going to Charleston, living the life of a wealthy retiree who has a mistress and dies sometime around the turn of the century. I picture Scarlett never marrying again, working in her mills (that she gets back from Ashley), raising her kids and becoming a old dragon who lives well into the 30's.
Lots of implied Sex which made it scandalous at the time. MM was evidently quite a naughty lady. Heaving bosoms' and rape fantasies.
Final verdict: History-F, Feminism-A, Rip roaring story-A, somewhat convoluted plot and plot holes-C. Over all score a B. Read it for the story, laugh at the nonsense and be incensed and beware of the historical inaccuracies. It is an artifact of the times. It will inform you of just how Jim Crow came about and was so hard to get rid of. The true legacy of the Civil War.
Now reading as remedy Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball and Race and Reunion, a good history of how we came to think of the Civil War the way we did.
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