Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Synopsis:

This is a historical fiction novel by Margaret Mitchell set during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. It is the story of Scarlett O’Hara and her struggles and the trials she faces. In the book, she goes from the ages of sixteen to twenty-eight.

Scarlett first marries Charles Hamilton, the brother of Melanie Hamilton to make Ashley jealous because she is in love with Ashley, whom is marrying Melanie, and she has a son Wade Hampton Hamilton with Charles who dies in the war. Next, Scarlett marries Frank Kennedy for money to pay the taxes on Tara, her plantation, and Frank is shot dead to avenge Scarlett. They have a daughter, Ella Lorena Kennedy. Finally, Scarlett marries Rhett Butler for love and they have a daughter, Bonnie Blue Butler who is killed when she falls off a horse.

At the end of the book, after Melanie dies from complications due to childbirth, Scarlett realizes that she is no longer in love with Ashley and perhaps never was. She discovers that she has always loved Rhett, and he has always been in love with her. However, Rhett leaves her because he feels it is too late because of the years of neglect that Scarlett has shown toward him.

Review:

This is one of my all-time favorite books and I love the character of Scarlett and the journey she takes throughout the book, and Scarlett changes from a vain, spoiled, and self-centered girl to a strong, independent, resilient woman.

“She was seeing things with new eyes for, somewhere along the long road to Tara, she had left her girlhood behind her. She was no longer plastic clay, yielding imprint to each new experience. The clay had hardened, some time in this indeterminate day which had lasted a thousand years. Tonight was the last time she would ever be ministered to as a child. She was a woman now and youth was gone.”

“He never really existed at all, except in my imagination,” she thought wearily. “I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes and not him at all.”

“With the spirit of her people those who would not know defeat, even when it stared them in the face, she raised her chin. She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn’t get, once she set her mind upon him. I’ll think of it tomorrow at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

“For years she had had her back against the stone wall of Rhett’s love and had taken it as much for granted as she had taken Melanie’s love, flattering herself that she drew her strength from herself alone. And even as she had realized earlier in the evening that Melanie had been beside her in her bitter campaigns against life, now she knew that silent in the background, Rhett had stood, loving her, understanding her, ready to help. Rhett at the bazaar, reading her impatience in her eyes and leading her out in the reel, Rhett helping her out of the bondage of mourning, Rhett convoying her through the fire and explosion the night Atlanta fell, Rhett lending her the money that gave her her start, Rhett who comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from her dreams-why, no man did such things without loving a woman to distraction!”

“Now she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.”