Gone with the Wind

Description

Scarlett O’Hara begins as the privileged daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, preoccupied with social triumph and her unreturned love for Ashley Wilkes. The Civil War destroys the world that once protected her, and Sherman’s campaign leaves her fighting to preserve Tara and escape poverty. Scarlett’s determination makes her resourceful, ruthless, and willing to treat marriage, business, and social convention as tools for survival. Her fixation on Ashley persists even as the forceful Rhett Butler repeatedly challenges her illusions and matches her defiance. Spanning war and Reconstruction, the novel joins coming-of-age, romance, and historical upheaval while presenting the fall of a slaveholding society through a viewpoint deeply entangled with its racial hierarchy, nostalgia, and myths.

Themes