Gone With the Wind is a story about a spoiled Southern girl’s hopeless love for a married man. The movie opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry “mealy mouthed” Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland).
Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett intends to throw herself at Ashley at an upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Alone with Ashley, she goes into a fit of histrionics, all of which is witnessed by roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the black sheep of a wealthy Charleston family, who is instantly fascinated by the feisty, thoroughly self-centered Scarlett.
Written from the perspective of the slaveholder, Gone with the Wind is Southern plantation fiction. Its portrayal of slavery and African Americans is controversial, as well as its use of a racial epithet and ethnic slurs. However, the novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to it in their writings, interpret and study it. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.
One of the most notorious and widely condemned scenes in Gone with the Wind depicts what is now legally defined as “marital rape”. The scene begins with Scarlett and Rhett at the bottom of the staircase, where he begins to kiss her, refusing to be told ‘no’ by the struggling and frightened Scarlett. Rhett overcomes her resistance and carries her up the stairs to the bedroom, where the audience is left in no doubt that she will “get what’s coming to her”.
The next scene, the following morning, shows Scarlett glowing with barely suppressed sexual satisfaction. Rhett apologizes for his behavior, blaming it on his drinking. The scene has been accused of combining romance and rape by making them indistinguishable from each other, and of reinforcing a notion about forced sex: that women secretly enjoy it, and it is an acceptable way for a man to treat his wife.
Director: Victor Fleming
Year of Release: 1939
Character to watch: Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara
Journal your answers to the following questions after you watch the movie.
- How does this particular character’s journey compare with yours?
- Did the character develop certain characteristics during the movie that you have or that you would like to have? If so, what are those characteristics?
- What obstacles did this character face? What was his or her biggest challenge?
- What would you have done differently if you had been in the same position as the character?
- Is this character the type of person you would be friends with? Why or why not?