Homework Help: Books, Novels & Plays: Gone With the Wind

The American civil war, (also know as The War Between the States and the War of Secession), began on April 12, 1861 and ended on April 9, 1865. It was a war between the confederates and the union. The north wanted to abolish slavery while the south was all for slavery, but this was only a minor reason for the war. The war started mainly because of economic fighting. The south had cotton plantations and the north had machinery, so the south grew the cotton for the north to manufacture in the industrial city. Conflicts began when the south wanted to build factories to manufacture their cotton. If the south were manufacturing the cotton where would the north get the cotton to manufacture in their factories?

The film, Gone with the Wind made it seem that the only reason that the Civil war began was because of the differences of opinion between the North and South on the issue of slavery. When in fact, as I have just shown, this is not correct.

The movie is based around the character Scarlett O'Hara and her life, love life in particular. It shows the civil war from the point of view of the people from the South. It starts off at the plantation Tara that the O'Hara family owns. It also shows Green Acres, which the Wilkes family owns. It shows Atlanta and for a very short time, London.

At the beginning of the movie, an introduction scrolled down the screen pausing at certain times to allow time to read it. The introduction talked about the civil war, reasons for it and upcoming events. These facts are all historically correct.

The movie is set over a twelve-year time span. It starts just before the war, a considerate amount of the movie is set during the war but most of the movie takes place after the war. For a short time after the war, the focus of the movie is still remotely on the civil war and the result of it on the people and the land, but after not long the civil war is forgotten completely and the remainder of the movie revolves around the love story.

When the movie starts, the twin suitors (Brent and Stuart Tarleton) are sitting with Scarlett and talking about war. The men are excited about it and what it will mean. Both men are sure that the south will win. Scarlett is not as excited, she is sick of hearing about war and claims that war is destroying all fun.

"Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides, there isn't going to be any war...If either of you boys says 'war' just once again, I'll go in the house and slam the door."

Male slaves were used to pick cotton and crops in the field, while the women and young girls were house slaves. Usually tending to the needs of the children while serving the Master and his wife. In the movie, black men are seen in the fields just before 'Quittin' time? where they are telling each other that it is time to finish up for the day. An old black woman is seen nurturing Scarlett and her two younger sisters and being motherly to them. She helps them dress and makes sure that they eat properly. She orders them around like a stern parent but is affectionate to them like they were her own children. This black slave is called Mammy. She is referred to as "shrewd, protective, tenacious and sassy", by a person doing a review on the movie. When the white girls got older and became women, they were very affectionate towards the black slaves that brought them up.

After the war, when the slaves were free, some stayed on because they were being paid and the rest left because their former masters could not afford to keep them on. In the movie, Scarlett drives alone to the lumber mill and passes through an unsafe town, where two men assault her. Her father's ex-foreman, Big Sam, saves her. Although he is no longer working for the O'Hara family he is still affectionate towards Scarlett and always willing to help. He drives her carriage and her back to town.

While Scarlett and the other young ladies in the house are taking a rest in the middle of the day, young black girls are fanning them to ensure that they stay cool while sleeping.

Even though the blacks are slaves, they are treated well and nearly equally in the movie. I am not sure that this is the case in history. The blacks in this movie are almost respected and they are fed well and clothed.

The movie is based on the book Gone with the Wind by Margret Mitchell. Most of the characters in this book are taken from people she knew in her life. For instance, Rhett Butler was based upon her first husband and Missy was based upon her maid when she was growing up. All the characters in the film were fictional. John Wilkes who was Ashley's father in the movie may have been thought to have some connection to John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Abraham Lincoln and was also from the south, but does not. The only characters in the movie who were real people were Lincoln, Sherman and Lee.

Although the movie is set around the time of the Civil war, the main focus of the movie is the love affairs that affect the life of Scarlett. The book is classified as fictional and the movie would not be used as a historical resource. For a start, the story is biased to the Confederates because the story revolves around the people living in the south. The movie does not show enough detail to the war.

While writing her book, Mitchell ensured that the setting and dates were all accurate. The setting and dates were very close to directly being taken from the book and put into the movie.

The clothes that the characters wore were all very accurate to real life history. Before the war, the women wore hooped dresses and skirts and after the war, they were out of fashion. This is shown in the movie. When the north came knocking on the door while the women were sewing, the officer that came inside was dressed much like the cavalry captain during the civil war. Therefore the costumes were very accurate in the movie.

During the period of the war and for a short time afterwards, Scarlett was poverty stricken. She had no money for food and all the food she had was stolen by the Yankees along with her clothes and jewellery. She was living out of one dress, which was beginning to get very dirty and quite worn from her working in the fields because the black slaves were now gone. So Scarlett took down the velvet curtains and made a very glamorous dress and bonnet out of them. The dresses the women wore during that time was much like the one she made. Tight and thin around the bodice and fuller coming out from the waist in layers. The dresses, although fuller at the bottom, were not hooped.

During and after the war, the blacks were also greatly affected. They too were poverty-stricken and went with little or no food. Both the blacks and the whites referred to this time as "a world worse than death." After the war, things did not improve too greatly for the blacks. Although they were now free, the whites did not treat them equally. They were given, '40 acres and a mule' as well as voting rights. This was shown in the movie. In real history, the blacks were given freedom and land but not yet voting rights.

In an encyclopedia it states that the weaponry used were among other things, rifles, but there is no mention of handguns, which both Scarlett, Melanie and some of the men are equipped with. Explosives are also used in the movie during the scene where Melanie, Missy, Bo, Scarlett and Rhett are escaping and buildings are on fire. This historical scene was not in November, 1964, but represents the night, two months earlier, when the retreating Confederate army torched its own ammunition dumps to keep the Union army from capturing them. There is no mention in any reliable sources about ammunition being used. It mentions cannons, which if I remember correctly could be heard in the background during parts of the movie.

During the film, we are given the powerful contrast between the civilisation as it once was compared to how it is after it has been affected by war. We see the culture and civilisation slowly decay and vanish in the South. Rhett Butler tells Scarlet that that day is a historic moment in history - the day that the South disappeared.

"Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night."

In real history, the south believed that they would win the war and that the West would help them win. When in fact the West joined the North and helped them and the south lost the war. In the movie the south were said to have boasted that they "would lick the north" but they were foolish and lost. The war ended when the south surrendered.

The music in the film is all very accurate. Inspirational marching songs were written and played to boost the morals of the soldiers on both sides. This is not shown in the movie. There are no actual scenes that I can remember that are from the war site where the soldiers are fighting. Therefore the songs that were sung by soldiers when they were sad or homesick could not have been heard. Drumbeats were used for two reasons. Firstly to tell the soldiers what to do and also to keep them in step. These were used in the movie in one scene where soldiers were marching down a street to the sound of drums beating.

A point brought across very strongly in the film is the fact that although 627,000 men died in the war, more men died from sickness than from battle. This is shown in the scenes where Scarlett and Melanie are nursing and many men are lying on beds sick and bleeding. There aren't enough beds so a lot of men are lying on mats and sheets on the floor. There also weren't enough doctors or nurses. There wasn't enough money for cures or to minimise the pain while body parts were being amputated. An Encylopedia confirms that more than twice as many soldiers died of disease - especially of dysentery, malaria or typhoid - as were killed in battle.

The south lacked adequate resources for taxation and this is shown in the film when Jonas Wilkerson shows up at Tara and makes an offer to buy it from Scarlett because he believes that she cannot afford to pay her tax debt of $300. After the war the Yankees stole all money from the houses of the Confederates. They were left with the worth of their land and no cash, food or clothes. So this is why when Jonas and his wife came to Tara they believed that Scarlett could not afford the $300. She of course could not, and married her sister's fiancé (Frank Kennedy) to be able to pay the tax debt.

During and for a short time after the war, the Yankees captured men from the southern army and put them in jails. During the war Ashley Wilkes was put in jail and for a very short time after the war, Rhett Butler was put in jail. I am not sure if this happened during the time of the civil war.

When films set in the past are created, the filmmakers try to use dialogue that would have sounded like it was from that period of time. So, the phrases, 'Great Balls of Fire', 'Fiddle De Dee' and the words 'Tacky' and "Stupid" would all have been used around the time of the civil war.

The costumes, sets and changes on Stephen Foster songs and other extracts from the period of the civil war enhanced the authenticity of the film. The movie is fictional and although it takes place around the civil war, the focus of the film is on Katie Scarlett O'Hara, her love life and the lives of the people around her. Aspects of the film are historically correct but the film would not be used as a historical resource. Gone with the Wind lightly shows the horrific realities of slavery in the south. The south is shown as if it was paradise before the war. Essentially it is the story of a woman with great problems and great ambition. The movie is a love story, not a documentary about the civil war.

English: Books, Novels, & Plays

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