The Great Gone With the Wind Readalong – Part 1 (Chapters 1-7)

Enjoying my re-read very much. The first time I read it I was like 11 or 12, I think. I’ve re-read it every few years. Something different jumps out at me every time. I’ve gone the gamut from hating Scarlett to loving her. She’s a spoiled brat, no doubt, but I have to admire her determination to get what she wants. This is a trait that serves her well later on. This time through, I’ve paid more attention to Elken and her life and what her thoughts must have been. My daughters are 16 and while they are nothing like Scarlett (Thank God), I can’t help viewing Scarlett the rough a Mother’s eyes this time around. I know I have more thoughts on this but I’m super distracted right now. The Three Musketeers is on right now. Plus my husband and one daughter are talking through the movie–a pet peeve of mine. I’ll try to collec my thoughts after everyone goes to bed and post more later.

I am loving this reread so far! Scarlett is just as much fun to me today as she was as a teenager. I can appreciate her lust for life even more as an adult than I did when I was younger. I’m trying to remember which number this reread is, but it’s the first time since college, I believe. 

What has surprised me the most about this book was just how in her own world Scarlett was about Ashley. I didn’t remember her elopement fantasies at all.

I’m also surprised at my reactions toward Ellen O’Hara. When I read this when I was younger, I understood why Scarlett would want to talk more to her father than to her mother. This time I kept urging Scarlett to talk to her mother. She viewed her mother as above the average human. I think she would have been shocked at her mother’s reaction if she told her about the girls’ gossiping at the barbecue instead of grasping at straws trying to get out of the situation. It’s amazing what young women don’t give their mothers credit for.

As with all of my prior readings of GWTW, I feel the same way toward Melanie as Scarlett. She is so good that you either want to ignore her altogether or smack her silly. I still feel guilty about that reaction to her. She’s an honorable character, the type of person you should want to emulate. But does she really live?

The opening line about Scarlett not being beautiful always gets to me. Before I read the book for the first time, I already viewed Vivien Leigh as Scarlett. Vivien Leigh is gorgeous. Each time I’m taken aback by her description. Before I even knew it, Scarlett had me wrapped around her little finger.

I do feel bad about Wade Hamilton. Things don’t bode well for him at all. I can’t remember exactly what happens to him in the book, but I’m hoping that he’s able to get past his mother’s indifference someday. This time, as I read of her reaction to her pregnancy, I wondered if he’d have even been born had Scarlett lived in a different time or place. I also loved Mammy telling her that her birth was common because it should have pained a lady more. Gah! I’d rather be common. No doubt about it.

Thanks again for hosting the read-a-long! Fun!

I just have to make this comment, since so many are mentioning the dichotomy of, on one hand, opposites attract and, on the other hand, marriage only works when two are alike. I read a study that explained it. Love actually requires both, but in different areas. Opposite personality types (extrovert/introvert, e.g.) work because they balance each other, hence the attraction. But a long-term relationship must be based on similar beliefs, coming from a similar background, in order for a couple to form a partnership. So the Scarlett/Ashley and Gerald/Ellen attractions make sense. And Gerald/Ellen are a traditional team, working from the same beliefs. But Scarlett/Ashley lack that. Later, Scarlett will realize she shares Rhett’s outlook. 

I have posted my response to these questions in detail here.

In short: I’m simply loving it so far! Reading each page is like savouring my favourite candy. I wish I’d never waited so long to experience the beauty of such story-telling. But, perhaps, I can better appreciate it now. Scarlett, to me, is definitely frivolous. But hers is a dynamic personality and one can’t help being drawn to her, love her or despise her. As regards the lives of the slaves, I suspect the narrative flows as from the eyes of Scarlett. I doubt she’d see a blight in her world if it did not concern Ashley.

As far as marriages go, I think Mitchell’s kept it very realistic so far. Not everyone marries for love. There are so many other factors involved. And yes, Mammy is absolutely adorable!:D

~Risa

A couple of people have mentioned Mrs. Tarleton. I think she’s a great character, too, but it struck me as funny how Mrs. T can be so different and yet still so accepted by everyone in their crowd, a crowd that does not easily accept “different” especially when it comes to its women.

Mrs. T also has a much more relaxed relationship with her daughters – Scarlett finds this interesting and wishes, for a moment, that she could “romp” with her own mother. Is Mrs. T able to do this because she’s not so concerned with everyone’s opinions?

But isn’t it easier to not care about the opinions of others when you already have the acceptance? Later on in the book – no spoilers, I promise! – the idea of conforming and being a hypocrite comes up even more. 

I concur with so many of you on the brilliance of Mitchell’s weaving of description and action. Even when she moved from past to present and back again, I found the narrative easy to follow and absorb. I first noticed this when the Tarlton twins were trying to decide where to visit in hopes of avoiding their mother by receiving a dinner invitation (since Scarlett had snubbed them). Through their plotting, the whole neighborhood is outlined and briefly characterized.

My feelings toward Scarlett are surprisingly compassionate. She is certainly flawed, but one can tell by what she thinks she wants (Ashley) that she doesn’t even know herself. I think Mitchell’s description to close chapter IV, despite its obvious implications for the next day, speaks clearly of Scarlett’s immaturity and self-centered nature. The passage brings out a sense of foreboding even while it gives us a window into her private attitudes:

“She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.”

Interesting to read a narrator in a distance voice. The narrator knows more than we do, in some places, he or she even speaks from the future. This style is refreshing to me after reading so much popular fiction – the kind with few descriptions, crazy dialogue, and a simple character/plot/suspense/conclusion style process of first person.

Such a thrill to read together, Erin! Thanks for hosting!

I’ve now finished Part I and thoroughly enjoyed it.  

A few things stood out for me.  I wonder how Scarlett could maintain the tiniest waist size in the county when Mammy was feeding her ham with gravy, yams, and hot cakes with syrup.  HA!  

Then, I was disappointed with Gerald when he left Ellen to deal with the overseer that he’d just fired.  I think he’s a man who talks big and leaves the dirty work to his wife. Aren’t the men supposed to be strong and the women constantly fainting?

I was also amazed at the physical description of Rhett.  It fits Clark Gable to a T!  Could someone explain what “not received” means?

Gerald didn’t want Scarlett to marry Ashley even if he’d asked her because, in my interpretation, Ashley wasn’t “redneck” enough.  He appreciated books and other more high-class things that the O’haras thought were “sissy.”  I noticed that Ashley prejudice against Scarlett when the Borgias were mentioned.  It seems that both Ashley and Gerald were aware of the social differences between the two families. 

The history of Scarlett’s parents and the other families is very interesting.  It gives me a whole new understanding of the characters. 

I’m still cutting Scarlett some slack because she’s only 16.  How mature could she be after being raised in seclusion and given everything she ever wanted?

This is a multiple re-read for me. I simply adore this book, but it never fails to surprise me just how awful Scarlett is in these first few chapters. Frivolous, obnoxious, spoiled, self-absorbed, and so rooted in fantasy that it really is scary. For those who are reading it for the first time, I can understand why people give up so quickly on Scarlett and the novel. I love your comment about Gerald and marriage. Knowing what we do about the rest of the story, Gerald’s comment about marriage is more indicative of happy marriages. Gerald and Ellen aren’t exactly happily married, or at least Ellen is not. The rest of the marriages portrayed in the novel (to come) are all of like marrying like, and they work. Scarlett is too much like her father to learn this lesson in her first two marriages.Ms. Mitchell’s portrayal of the South is eye-opening, if only because it does romanticize the South in a way that is somewhat appalling today. It is no wonder that the idealization of the South remains so popular. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but Ms. Mitchell does give Mammy the power and respect she deserves.  Also, I think it vital to the rest of the story that Ms. Mitchell took the time to set the stage and spend so much time describing how life was like before the war because the reader cannot understand Scarlett’s choices and transformation without it.

I read this almost 20 years ago, so for the stuff not included in the movie, its almost like a first read because I’ve forgotten- like Honey Wilkes, and all the background on Scarlett’s parents.  Probably forgot a bunch of it because I’ve seen the movie so many times. Scarlett in the book is rather naive, frivolous, and selfish.  Her plans on how to steal Ashley away from Melanie. It makes me wonder how she could think Ashley would possibly elope with her, given what she knew of his character. I could see that working with one of the Tarleton boys, but now Ashley.

Antebellum life- I did a paper in college on women during the Civil War, and since them I’ve thought that Mitchell (and even the screen writers on the film) did a fairly accurate depiction of women’s life in this time period, at least for this class of women.  Mitchell’s depictions seem consistent with my readings while researching the paper.

I think the depictions of the slaves represents the time and place that the book is set in, and likely, the time it was written in, to a point. Some people have called it racist, but being that its a book written in the South before segregation, about a girl who comes to believe in the glory of her plantation home, its to be expected.