One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
Fort Sumter fell on April 13, 1861. Margaret Mitchell set the opening scene of Gone With the Wind exactly two days later. (One of the glories of that completely engrossing work is that you
always know where you stand in the historical calendar. Scarlett and Rhett may have been entirely imaginary, but you could get out a calendar and chart the action, day by day.)
"You know there isn't oing to be any war," said Scarlett, bored. "It's all just talk. Why, Ashley Wilkes and his father told Pa just last week that our commissioners in Washington would come to--to--and amicable agreement with Mr. Lincoln about the Confederacy. And anyway, the Yankees are too scared of us to fight. There won't be any war, and I'm tired of hearing about it...."
"Why, honey, of course there's going to be a war," said Stuart. "The Yankees may be scared of us, but after the way General Beauregard shelled them out of Fort Sumter day before yesterday, they'll have to fight or stand branded as cowards before the whole world. Why, the Confederacy--"
Scarlett made a mouth of bored impatience.
"If you say 'war' just once more, I'll go in the house and shut the door...."
She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject.
Set 150 years ago--and published 75 years ago next month. What a novel.
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May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
True genius, at times, seems to be a one-note song. Although she she wrote a novella at age 15 (Lost Laysen, published in 1996), Miss Mitchell never again wrote anything to compare with Wind. I am not even sure she tried. Like Orson Welles with Citizen Kane and M. Night Shymalan and Sixth Sense, the most perfect work poured forth to the point of creative exhaustion.
And how far we have fallen that an exemption needed to be granted for Clark Gable to utter the word "damn" on screen.
May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
Seeing as I grew up in Atlanta, we had to read it in school. I enjoyed it. Rhett was the man you wanted to be in that book.
May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
"...the Yankees are better equipped than we - they've got factories, shipyards, coalmines - and a fleet to bottle up out harbors and starve us to death. All we've got is cotton and slaves - and arrogance."
Feb '11
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
One impression I have about the American Civil War is that many southerners wanted a war. Just not the war they got.
Scenes in "Gone With the Wind" and the more recent "Cold Harbor", where the reaction of many male characters to the start of the war is elation strike me as true.
And I usually hate people using reference to fiction in books or movies to make political or historical arguments!
May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
We tend to think of the Civil War as ancient history but to Margaret Mitchell, who was born in 1900, that was the war of her grandfather. (Her father, Eugene Mitchell was born the year after the war, 1866.)
The large section of world that she grew up in was still fighting that war, which is why it rings so true.
Apr '11
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
We like to think ,that war, was ancient history, but the truth is we're still feeling the effects even today.
May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
Peter, if you're ever in Atlanta, Margaret Mitchell's house is still preserved at the corner of Peachtree and 10th. It's odd juxtaposed against the surrounding skyscrapers.
When you live in the South, you can't escape reminders of the Civil War and its aftermath (and the aftermath, to be honest, lasted at least century). Old buildings still have seemingly extraneous restrooms, and it hits you hard when you realize they were built because of the Jim Crow laws. My profile picture is a photo of General Daniel Morgan's statue in Morgan Square in Spartanburg (my office overlooks the statue). General Morgan is credited with defeating the British at the Battle of Cowpens, and historians frequently point to Cowpens as a crucial turning point in the southern campaign during the Revolution. The federal government erected the statue in 1881 as one of the first goodwill gestures between North and South and as a celebration of the full country's common heritage.
If you want a really good take on lingering memories of the Civil War, I highly recommend Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. Very entertaining read.
Feb '11
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
The beauty of GWTW is that it teaches history in the most painless way. The dialog-- especially between Scarlett and Rhett-- is so entertaining that the reader doesn't notice she is getting a great Civil War tutorial at the same time.
Edited on Apr 15, 2011 at 5:43pmApr '11
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
The time whooshes by so quickly. The world in which Gone with the Wind was published is now closer to the end of the Civil War than it is to the present, as is most of the 1930s.
(As of today, April 16, 2011, the midway point between today and the surrender at Appomattox Court House is April 8, 1938, so most of the 1930s is closer to the Civil War than it is to the present.)
May '10
Re: One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago Today
Another one-note song is Harper Lee with To Kill a Mockingbird.