Extra-Credit Assignment

Until recent years, Gone With the Wind was considered the most historical of American films. Though it is still considered the most popular historical film in American culture, there are some serious questions of the South it is portraying. Using the following quotes and scenes from the film, discuss the South it shows us. What does it tell us about the South and the Civil War period? How is it different from the movie Glory?

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...

In silhouette, Ashley and Melanie move toward French windows. When they are opened, the lawn is revealed outside filled with festive surroundings and guests. Lovingly, the pale, white-skinned Ashley speaks to her: "You seem to belong here. As if it had all been imagined for you." Melanie describes the aristocratic Southern style that she is marrying into: "It's more than a house. It's a whole new world that wants only to be graceful and beautiful." Even war won't damage their love for each other - she promises: "Whatever comes, I'll love you just as I do now until I die."

In a "hushed and grim," beleaguered Atlanta after "two nations came to death grips on the farm lands of Pennsylvania," casualty lists for the Battle of Gettysburg ("some little town in Pennsylvania") are passed around to weary people gathered in the outdoor square outside the Examiner newspaper office. A bandmaster directs a rag-tag band composed of very young boys who play "Dixie" in tribute. Not entirely selflessly, Scarlett empathizes joyously with Melanie that Ashley's name hasn't turned up on the the lists. Rhett is enraged by the sheer, obvious waste of the death toll: "Look at them, all these poor tragic people. The South sinking to its knees. It'll never rise again. 'The Cause!' The cause of living in the past is dying right in front of us."

Panic hit the City with the first of Sherman's shells. Helpless and unarmed, the populace fled from the oncoming Juggernaut. And desperately, the gallant remains of an army marched out to face the foe.

Frightened and inadequate Prissy, who had previously bragged about her expertise and midwivery skills, is called upon to act in the doctor's place to deliver Melanie's baby. Prissy delivers an immortal line to Scarlett when brought in:

Lordse, we got to have a doctor. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!

Then, standing alone on a rise in the field, suffering the deprivations of war, an indomitable Scarlett slowly rises and with clenched fists raised toward heaven, resiliently and defiantly vows that she is unbroken by her tribulations. The Tara theme of the film also rises on the soundtrack. She will be transformed and will soon rise from the ashes of the war-ravaged land at Tara, remembering what she was taught by her father in happier times - it is one of the film's most dramatic, famous scenes:

As God is my witness, as God is my witness, they're not going to lick me! I'm going to live through this, and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again - no, nor any of my folks! If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill! As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.

In Part Two's opening, a title card reads: "And the wind swept through Georgia." "SHERMAN!" A reddish, flaming and swirling montage of Sherman's troops visualizes the march through Georgia, "leaving behind him a path of destruction sixty miles wide, from Atlanta to the sea." Life at Tara is one of deprivation, poverty and hard work:

Home from their lost adventure came the tattered Cavaliers...Grimly they came hobbling back to the desolation that had once been a land of grace and plenty. And with them came another invader...more cruel and vicious than any they had fought...the Carpetbagger.

Ashley criticizes Scarlett's ruthless methods, her consorting with scalawags, and her cold attitude - unlike other Southerners who are reputable and honest: "They're keeping their honor and their kindness too." Scarlett doesn't care what disapproving people think of her ruthless business strategy to make money and never be hungry again: "I'm going to make friends with the Yankee carpetbaggers and I'm going to beat them at their own game."

Independent and impulsive-minded Scarlett ignores Rhett's warning and drives alone to her lumber mill via dangerous, trouble-making black Shanty Town, filled with squalid tents and lean-tos. She stubbornly brags: "Don't worry about me. I can shoot straight, if I don't have to shoot too far." As she drives her own buggy away from Rhett, he exclaims: "What a woman!" At the edge of Shanty Town, Scarlett is assaulted by two men (one white, one black), and then saved by her father's ex-foreman Big Sam, who exclaims as they get away: "Horse make tracks." [In the novel, Scarlett was mauled and nearly attacked by a black man.]

On her return to town, Scarlett reports the attack but senses some indifference among the townspeople: "Nobody cares about me. You all act as though it were nothing at all." However, the attack is to be avenged following a "political meeting" attended by her husband and others. Scarlett, Melanie, and other women wait anxiously in their women's evening sewing circle for their husbands to return from the meeting - in reality, from a vigilante raid on the Shanty Town to avenge Scarlett's honor. [References to the KKK, that rode to Scarlett's defense in Margaret Mitchell's novel, were removed from the film.]

Rhett returns with her to Tara, understanding that Scarlett finds her strength there: "You get your strength from this red earth of Tara, Scarlett. You're a part of it. It's a part of you." To satisfy her, Rhett promises to rebuild the plantation to all its pre-war splendor, and also purchases a magnificent, ostentatious mansion for them in Atlanta.

He reacts insensitively to another one of her fits of crying, handing a weeping Scarlett a parting gift: "Here, take my handkerchief. Never at any crisis of your life have I known you to have a handkerchief." Before he walks down the stairs, she begs: "Rhett, Rhett. Where are you going?" He tells her about his plans for the future in the Old South where he will pursue a lost dream:

Rhett: I'm going to Charleston, back where I belong.
Scarlett: Please, please take me with you.
Rhett: No, I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Scarlett: No. I only know that I love you.
Rhett: That's your misfortune.

He parts from her at the front door. Scarlett asks: "Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?" Without sentimentality, he cooly responds for the last time:

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!

She hears her father Gerald: "Land's the only thing that matters, it's the only thing that lasts." Ashley: "Something you love better than me, though you may not know it. Tara." And Rhett: "It's from this you get your strength, the red earth of Tara." Each speech is repeated with increasing tempo and volume. Scarlett realizes that even if she doesn't get Rhett back, she can always return to the land - to Tara, to soak up its strength.

...Tara!...Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!