View source for Gone with the Wind (novel)

{{Short description|1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox book
| name              = Gone with the Wind
| image             = Gone with the Wind (1936, first edition cover).jpg
| caption           = First-edition cover
| author            = [[Margaret Mitchell]]
| country           = [[American literature|United States]]
| language          = English
| cover_artist      = 
| genre             = [[Historical Fiction]]
| publisher         = [[Macmillan Inc.|Macmillan]]
| release_date      = June 30, 1936<ref name=author>About the Author {{full citation needed|date=April 2019}}</ref>
| media_type        = Print (hard & paperback)
| pages             = {{ubli|1,037 ([[first edition]])|1,024 ([[Warner Books]] paperback)}}
| isbn              = 978-0-446-36538-3
| isbn_note         = (Warner)
| dewey             = 813.52
| oclc              = 28491920
| preceded_by       = 
| followed_by       = {{ubli|[[Scarlett (Ripley novel)|Scarlett]]|[[Rhett Butler's People]]}}
}}
'''''Gone with the Wind''''' is a novel by American writer [[Margaret Mitchell]], first published in 1936. The story is set in [[Clayton County, Georgia|Clayton County]] and [[Atlanta]], both in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], during the [[American Civil War]] and [[Reconstruction Era]]. It depicts the struggles of young [[Scarlett O'Hara]], the spoiled oldest daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following [[William Tecumseh Sherman|Sherman]]'s destructive "[[Sherman's March to the Sea|March to the Sea]]". This historical novel features a [[coming-of-age story]], with the title taken from the poem {{lang|la|Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae}} by [[Ernest Dowson]].

''Gone with the Wind'' was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. As of 2014, a [[Harris Insights & Analytics|Harris poll]] found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the [[Bible]]. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-12-13 |title=Classic Hollywood: 75 years later, 'Gone With the Wind' never left |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/classichollywood/la-et-mn-ca-gone-wind-classic-hollywood-20141214-story.html |access-date=2025-08-14 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

''Gone with the Wind'' is a controversial reference point for subsequent writers of the [[Southern United States|South]], both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.

Mitchell received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] for the book in 1937. It was adapted into the [[Gone with the Wind (film)|1939 film of the same name]], which is considered to be one of the [[List of films considered the best|greatest movies ever made]] and also received the [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] for [[Best Picture]] during the [[12th Academy Awards|12th annual Academy Awards ceremony]]. ''Gone with the Wind'' is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1108.html "Obituary: Miss Mitchell, 49, Dead of Injuries"]. ''[[The New York Times]]''. August 17, 1949. Retrieved May 14, 2011.</ref>

==Plot==
===Part I===
It is April 15, 1861, the eve of a [[rebellion]] in which seven southern states declare their [[Secession in the United States#Seceded states form the Confederate States of America|secession]] from the United States (known as "the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]]") over a desire to continue the institution of [[slavery]], which was the economic engine of the South. In one of those states, [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], the family of wealthy Irish immigrant Gerald O'Hara owns a [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|plantation]] (called "[[Tara (plantation)|Tara]]").<ref name=autogenerated5>Part 1, chapter 1</ref>

The oldest of the three O'Hara daughters, 16-year-old [[Scarlett O'Hara|Scarlett]] is dismayed to learn that the man she secretly loves, her county neighbor [[Ashley Wilkes]], is set to announce his engagement to his cousin [[Melanie Hamilton]]. The next day, the Wilkeses throw an all-day party at their estate (known as "[[Twelve Oaks]]") where Scarlett notices someone leering at her. He turns out to be Rhett Butler, who has a reputation for seducing young women. Throughout the day, Scarlett attempts to turn Ashley's head by flirting with every man present, including Melanie's brother Charles Hamilton. In the afternoon, Scarlett gets Ashley alone and confesses her love for him, convinced he will return it. However, he says only that he cares for her as a friend and intends to marry Melanie. Stung, Scarlett insults Ashley and accuses him of being too cowardly to submit to his real feelings for her. As Ashley departs, Rhett reveals he has overheard their whole exchange. Scarlett feels humiliated.<ref name=autogenerated3>Part 1, chapter 6</ref>

Later, war is declared, and the men are going to enlist. Feeling petty and vengeful, Scarlett accepts Charles's marriage proposal. They marry, and two weeks later, Charles goes to war, where he dies of [[measles]] two months later. Scarlett gives birth to his child, Wade Hampton Hamilton.<ref name=autogenerated4>Part 1, chapter 7</ref> As a widow, she is bound to dye her dresses black, wear a veil in public, and avoid conversations with young men. Scarlett secretly mourns the loss of her youth, not the husband she barely knew.

===Part II===
Scarlett's mother, mistaking Scarlett's depression for grief, suggests that living with Melanie might lift her spirits. Melanie is living in [[Atlanta]] with her Aunt Sarah Jane, who is called by her childhood nickname "Pittypat". After moving there, Scarlett's spirit is revived by the excitement of living in a growing city. She busies herself with hospital work and sewing circles for the [[Confederate Army]]. However, her heart is not in it{{snd}}she does it primarily to avoid being gossiped about by the other women of Atlanta society. Additionally, she believes her efforts may aid Ashley, with whom she is still in love.

Scarlett is mortified when she runs into Rhett while staffing a sales stall at a public dance benefiting the troops.<ref name=autogenerated70 /> Rhett believes the war is a [[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|lost cause]] but is becoming rich as a [[blockade runner]] for profit. He sees through Scarlett's "lady in mourning" disguise and recognizes her longing to dance with the other young people, so he bids a lot of gold to win the honor of leading the first dance and chooses her as his partner. Scarlett scandalizes everyone by dancing joyfully while still dressed in widow's mourning. Her reputation is saved by Melanie, who is now her sister-in-law and highly respected in Atlanta; she argues that Scarlett is supporting the Confederate cause. Scarlett continues to act recklessly, flirting and dating while still in widow's clothes, always protected by Melanie's endorsement. She spends much of her time with Rhett, whose sexual attraction to Scarlett is ever-present. At one point, he enrages her with a silky proposition that she become his mistress. Still, she appreciates Rhett for his money, his sophistication, and their shared irritation with the hypocrisy of Atlanta society.<ref name=autogenerated70>Part 2, chapter 9</ref>

At Christmas (1863), Ashley is granted a furlough from the army and goes to Atlanta. Scarlett struggles to restrain her feelings for him. She remains convinced that he is secretly in love with her and is still married to Melanie out of duty. Scarlett is heartbroken when Melanie becomes pregnant with Ashley's child.

===Part III===
The war is going badly for the Confederacy. By September 1864, Atlanta is besieged from three sides.<ref name=autogenerated156>Part 3, chapter 17</ref> The city becomes desperate as hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers pour in. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett and a young enslaved woman called Prissy to assist, as all the trained doctors are attending to the soldiers. The tattered [[Confederate States Army]] sets flame to Atlanta before they abandon it to the [[Union Army]]. Amidst the chaos, Melanie gives birth to a boy, Beau.

Scarlett tracks down Rhett and begs him to take her, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at this idea, explaining that the Yankees have likely burned Tara. Still, he steals an [[emaciated]] horse and a wagon and begins driving them out of Atlanta. At the city's edge, Rhett has a change of heart and abandons Scarlett to join the army in their final, doomed push. Scarlett drives the wagon to Tara, which has avoided being burned like many of her neighbors' homes. However, the situation is bleak: Scarlett's mother is dead, her father has lost his mind with grief, her sisters are sick with [[typhoid fever]], the [[Field slaves in the United States|enslaved field workers]] have left, the Yankees have burned all the cotton, and there is no food.

A long struggle for survival begins, with Scarlett working in the fields. There are several hungry people and animals, along with an ever-present threat from Yankees who steal or burn what little they can find. At one point, Scarlett kills a Yankee soldier who attempts to invade her home and buries his body in the garden. A long post-war succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Eventually, Ashley returns from the war with his idealistic view of the world shattered. Finding themselves alone one day, he and Scarlett share a kiss. Unable to trust himself with her nearby, Ashley says he will take his family and move away. Scarlett says she can not let them leave when they have nowhere to go and promises not to throw herself at him again.

===Part IV===
Life at Tara begins to recover, but exorbitant taxes are levied on the plantation. Scarlett knows only one man with enough money to help her{{snd}}Rhett. She puts on her only pretty dress (made from the velvet curtains at Tara) and finds him in a jailhouse in Atlanta. He is being held on a murder charge and is likely to hang. Although she nearly wins him over with a southern belle routine, he declines to help after realizing her sweetness is an act meant to use his money. Leaving the jailhouse in a snit, Scarlett meets Frank Kennedy, a middle-aged storeowner betrothed to her sister, Suellen. Realizing that Frank also has money and that Suellen will turn her back on Tara once she is married, Scarlett hatches a plot to marry Frank. She lies to Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Dazed, Frank succumbs to Scarlett's charms and marries her two weeks later.<ref name=autogenerated56>Part 4, chapter 35</ref> Wanting to keep his wife happy, Frank gives Scarlett the money to pay the taxes.

While Frank has a cold and is pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett reviews the accounts at Frank's store and finds that many owe him money. Terrified of the possibility of more taxes and irritated with Frank's poor business sense, she takes control of the store; her business practices emasculate Frank and leave many Atlantans resentful of her. With a loan from Rhett, she also buys and runs a small [[sawmill]], which is viewed as even more scandalous conduct. To Frank's relief and Scarlett's dismay, she gets pregnant, which temporarily curtails her business activities. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage her mill while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley reluctantly accepts. Melanie becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to baby Ella Lorena.<ref name=autogenerated14>Part 4, chapter 42</ref>

Georgia is under [[martial law]], and life has become more frightening. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of his buggy. Her lone trips to and from the mill take her past a [[shanty town]] where criminals live. While on her way home one evening, she is accosted by two men who try to rob her. However, she escapes with the help of Big Sam, a black former foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge his wife, Frank and the [[Ku Klux Klan]] raid the shanty town, where Frank is shot dead in the fracas. Rhett puts on a charade to keep the raiders from being arrested. He enters the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside question Rhett, who says he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett, and his reputation among them improves. Meanwhile, the men's wives{{snd}}except Melanie{{snd}}are livid at owing their husbands' lives to the town madam. At Frank's funeral, Rhett asks Scarlett to marry him.<ref name=autogenerated12>Part 4, chapter 47</ref> She refuses at first, but after a bit of repartee, he kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment, she accepts. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement, which becomes the talk of the town.

===Part V===
[[File:The Bonnie Blue Flag - Project Gutenberg eText 21566.jpg|thumbnail|[[The Bonnie Blue Flag]] is an 1861 marching song that refers to the first unofficial flag of the Confederacy.]]
Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Returning to Atlanta, they build a gaudy mansion on [[Peachtree Street]]. Rhett happily pays for the house to be built to Scarlett's specifications but describes it as an "architectural horror".<ref name=autogenerated18>Part 5, chapter 50</ref> Shortly after moving into the house, the sardonic jabs between them become quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her and then, "with real hate in her eyes",<ref name=autogenerated18 /> tells Rhett she will have a baby, which she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his half-sister Eugenie Victoria is born. She has blue eyes, and Melanie nicknames her "Bonnie Blue" in reference to the [[Flags of the Confederate States of America|Bonnie Blue Flag]] of the Confederacy. After feeling well again, Scarlett makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley. In their conversation, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of Rhett. She returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, they sleep separately, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett. Rhett turns his attention entirely toward Bonnie, pampering her and working to ensure her a good reputation when she enters society.

Meanwhile, Melanie plans a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to stall him until the celebration – a rare opportunity to be alone together. The two reminisce about the old days and how far their lives have departed from what they imagined for themselves. They share an innocent embrace but are spotted in the moment by Ashley's sister, India. Before the party has even begun, a rumor of an affair between Ashley and Scarlett explodes across Atlanta, eventually reaching Rhett and Melanie. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of Scarlett, and India is expelled from the Wilkes home. That night at home, Rhett, drunker than Scarlett has ever seen him and acting more violent than ever, encourages Scarlett to drink with him. However, she declines with deliberate rudeness. Rhett pins her to the wall and tells her they could have been happy together if she could have let go of Ashley. He then takes her in his arms and carries her to her bedroom, where they engage in intercourse. Several days later, a chagrined Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy for three months. Scarlett is uncertain about her feelings surrounding Rhett, for whom she feels a mixture of desire and revulsion. She then learns she is pregnant with her fourth child.

When Rhett returns, he comments on Scarlett's paleness, and she reveals her pregnancy. Rhett sarcastically asks if the father is Ashley; Scarlett calls him a cad and says that no woman would want his baby, to which he replies, "Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage."<ref name=autogenerated15>Part 5, chapter 56</ref> She lunges at him but misses and tumbles down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost the baby and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful and fears Scarlett will die. Sobbing and drunk, he seeks consolation from Melanie and confesses he acted out of jealousy. Scarlett goes to Tara with Wade and Ella to regain her strength and vitality.<ref name=autogenerated16>Part 5, chapter 57</ref> She returns healthy to Atlanta and sells the mills to Ashley. Bonnie is four years old in 1873, and Atlanta society is charmed by Rhett's transformation into a doting father. Rhett buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, teaching her to ride sidesaddle and paying a trainer to teach the pony to jump. One day, Bonnie makes her father raise the bar to one-and-a-half feet. During the jump, she falls and dies of a broken neck.

In the months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though equally bereaved, is more presentable. Melanie conceives a second child but loses the baby and soon dies due to complications. As she comforts the widowed Ashley, Scarlett realizes she stopped loving him long ago and perhaps never did. She is shocked to realize that she has always loved Rhett, and he has loved her in return. She returns home, brimming with her new love and determined to begin anew with him. She discovers him sitting in the library. In the wake of Melanie's death, Rhett has decided he wants to rediscover the calm Southern dignity he once knew in his youth and is leaving Atlanta to find it. Scarlett tries to persuade Rhett to either stay or take her with him, but he explains that while he once loved Scarlett, the years of hurt and neglect have killed that love. He says he may "come back often enough to keep gossip down" (since they have decided not to get a divorce), but in reply to Scarlett's plea of "What shall I do?" he replies, "[[Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn|My dear, I don't give a damn]]", and walks upstairs. Amid her grief, Scarlett consoles herself with the knowledge that she still has Tara. She plans to return there with the certainty that she can recover and win Rhett back because "tomorrow is another day".<ref name=autogenerated50>Part 5, chapter 63</ref>

==Characters==
===Main characters===
* '''[[Scarlett O'Hara|Katie Scarlett Hamilton Kennedy Butler née O'Hara]]:''' Scarlett is the oldest O'Hara daughter. Her forthright Irish blood is always at variance with the French teachings of style from her mother. Scarlett marries Charles Hamilton, Frank Kennedy, and Rhett Butler, in that order, always wishing that she was married to Ashley Wilkes instead. She is secretly scornful of Melanie Wilkes,<ref name=autogenerated9 /> wife to Ashley, who has always shown her love. She has three children, one from each husband: Wade Hampton Hamilton (son to Charles Hamilton), Ella Lorena Kennedy (daughter to Frank Kennedy), and Eugenie Victoria "Bonnie Blue" Butler (daughter to Rhett Butler). During a quarrel with Rhett, she miscarries a fourth child (and her second with Rhett) when she accidentally falls down the stairs.<ref name=autogenerated15 /> Scarlett is unaware of the extent of Rhett's love for her or that she might love him.<ref name=autogenerated86 />
* '''[[Rhett Butler|Captain Rhett K. Butler]]:''' Scarlett's admirer and her third husband. He is often publicly shunned for his scandalous behavior<ref name=autogenerated3 /> and sometimes accepted for his charm. Rhett declares he is not a marrying man and initially propositions Scarlett to be his mistress,<ref name=autogenerated11>Part 3, chapter 19</ref> but marries her after the death of Frank Kennedy. He says he won't risk losing her to someone else since it is unlikely she will ever need money again.<ref name=autogenerated12 /> At the end of the novel, Rhett confesses to Scarlett, "I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett."<ref name=autogenerated50 /> Mitchell took the character's name from the prominent [[Rhett family]] of South Carolina.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Inn History |url=https://rhetthouseinn.com/inn-history/ |access-date=2023-08-09 |website=Rhett House Inn |language=en-US}}</ref>
* '''[[Ashley Wilkes|Major George Ashley Wilkes]]:''' Ashley is a noble and honorable man. He is well read and cultured. He marries his cousin, Melanie, because "Like must marry like or there'll be no happiness."<ref name=autogenerated3 /> He enlists in the [[Confederate States Army]] though he says he would have freed the people his father enslaved after his father's death if the war had not done it first.<ref name=autogenerated16 /> Although many of his friends and relations are killed in the Civil War, Ashley survives to see its brutal aftermath. Ashley is "the Perfect Knight",<ref name=autogenerated177>Part 2, chapter 11</ref> in the mind of Scarlett, even throughout her three marriages. "She loved him and wanted him and did not understand him."<ref name=autogenerated6 />
* '''[[Melanie Hamilton|Melanie Wilkes née Hamilton]]:''' Ashley's wife and cousin. Melanie is a humble, serene, and gracious Southern woman.<ref name=autogenerated13 /> Her extremely warm heart and tenderness towards all she loves is notable throughout her life. As the story unfolds, Melanie becomes progressively physically weaker, first by childbirth, then "the hard work she had done at Tara",<ref name=autogenerated13 /> and she dies after a miscarriage.<ref name=autogenerated53>Part 5, chapter 61</ref> As Rhett Butler says, "She never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart."<ref name=autogenerated53 />

===Secondary characters===
====Scarlett's immediate family====

* '''Ellen O'Hara née Robillard:''' is Scarlett's mother. Of French ancestry, Ellen married Gerald O'Hara, who was 28 years her senior, after her true love, Philippe Robillard, died in a bar fight. She is Scarlett's ideal of a "great lady".<ref name=autogenerated7 /> Ellen ran all aspects of the household and nursed enslaved people and poor whites.<ref name=autogenerated7>Part 1, chapter 3</ref> She dies from typhoid in August 1864 after nursing Emmie Slattery.<ref name=autogenerated9 />
* '''Gerald O'Hara:''' is Scarlett's Irish father.<ref name=autogenerated5 /> An excellent horseman,<ref name=autogenerated6>Part 1, chapter 2</ref> Gerald likes to jump fences on horseback while intoxicated, which eventually leads to his death.<ref name="autogenerated58">Part 4, chapter 39</ref> Gerald's mind becomes addled after the death of his wife, Ellen.<ref name=autogenerated8>Part 3, chapter 25</ref>
* '''Susan Elinor "Suellen" Benteen née O'Hara:''' is Scarlett's younger sister, born in 1846, whom Scarlett mostly despised due to her opinion of Suellen being "an annoying sister with her whining and selfishness". She became sickened by typhoid during the siege of Atlanta.<ref name=autogenerated11 /> After the war, Scarlett steals and marries Suellen's beau, Frank Kennedy.<ref name=autogenerated56 /> Later, Suellen marries Will Benteen, and they have a child, Susie.<ref name=autogenerated13>Part 4, chapter 41</ref>
* '''Caroline Irene "Carreen" O'Hara:''' is Scarlett's youngest sister, born in 1848. She was also ill with typhoid during the siege of Atlanta.<ref name=autogenerated11 /> She is infatuated with and later engaged to Brent Tarleton, who dies in the war.<ref name=autogenerated54>Part 3, chapter 30</ref> Broken-hearted by Brent's death, Carreen eventually joins a convent.<ref name=autogenerated58 />
* '''Gerald O'Hara Junior:''' are the three sons of Ellen and Gerald who died in infancy and are buried 100&nbsp;yards from the house. Each was named after the father; they were born and died in quick succession. The headstone of each boy is inscribed "Gerald O'Hara, Jr."<ref name=autogenerated7 /> 
* '''Charles Hamilton:''' is Melanie Wilkes' brother and Scarlett's first husband. Charles is a shy and loving man.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Father to Wade Hampton, Charles dies of pneumonia caused by measles before reaching a battlefield or seeing his son.<ref name=autogenerated4 />
* '''Wade Hampton Hamilton:''' is the son of Scarlett and Charles, born in early 1862. He was named for his father's commanding officer, [[Wade Hampton III]], as was the fashion for Southern boys at the time. Traumatized by the invasion and burning of Atlanta, he is a shy and fearful child, much to the annoyance of Scarlett, who frequently orders him to "be a little man." He hopes to attend [[Harvard University]] and become a lawyer like his father, although Scarlett strongly objects to him attending a "Yankee school," preferring the [[University of Georgia]]. He is fond of his pet [[St. Bernard (dog breed)|St. Bernard]] dog and his aunt Melanie. He mostly plays with his cousin Beau, since the families of other boys his age in Atlanta won't receive him on account of Scarlett's reputation.<ref name=autogenerated4 />
* '''Frank Kennedy:''' is Suellen O'Hara's former fiancé and Scarlett's second husband. Frank is an unattractive older man who runs a successful general store after the war. He originally proposes to Suellen, but instead, Scarlett marries him for his money to pay the taxes on Tara.<ref name=autogenerated19>Part 4, chapter 36</ref> Frank is unable to comprehend Scarlett's fears and her desperate struggle for survival after the war. He is unwilling to be as ruthless in business as Scarlett is.<ref name=autogenerated19 /> Unknown to Scarlett, Frank is involved in the [[Ku Klux Klan]]. He is "shot through the head",<ref name=autogenerated51>Part 4, chapter 46</ref> according to Rhett Butler, while attempting to defend Scarlett's honor after she is attacked.
* '''Ella Lorena Kennedy:''' is the daughter of Scarlett and Frank, named for her grandmother, Ellen, and given "the most fashionable name" for Southern girls at the time as a middle name. She is considered stupid and ugly by most, with the exception of Frank. She is afraid of all animals, very unlike both of her half-siblings. She does not get along well with Wade, who considers her slow, and has a childish enmity with her cousin Susie.<ref name=autogenerated14>Part 4, chapter 42</ref>
* '''Eugenie Victoria "Bonnie Blue" Butler:''' is Scarlett and Rhett's pretty and spoiled daughter, as Irish in looks and temper as Gerald O'Hara, with the same blue eyes. Originally named for the queens of [[Eugenie de Montijo|France]] and [[Queen Victoria|England]] at the time, she becomes known solely by her nickname after Melanie remarks that her eyes are "as blue as the [[Bonnie Blue Flag]]." Rhett adores Bonnie, giving her all the love and attention that Scarlett refuses to accept, and becomes determined to ensure a proper place for her in Southern society. He stops drinking because she dislikes the smell of liquor and comforts her when she cries in fear of the dark. Scarlett decides that Bonnie is her favorite child because she is bolder than Wade and prettier and more clever than Ella. Bonnie later dies of a broken neck after attempting to jump a high fence on her pony. Her death prompts Rhett to leave Scarlett at the end of the story.<ref name=autogenerated18 />

====Tara====
{{quote box
| quote = I made Tara up, just as I made up every character in the book. But nobody will believe me.
| source =—Margaret Mitchell<ref>[http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Margaret_Mitchell_Life_and_Times.pdf "The Strange Story Behind Gone With the Wind"], Actor Cordell, Jr. (February 1961) ''Coronet'', p. 106. Retrieved April 24, 2011.</ref>
| width = 30%
| align = right 
}}
* '''Mammy:''' {{anchor|Mammy}}is Scarlett's nurse. Scarlett's grandmother enslaved her; she raises Ellen O'Hara and later her daughters and grandchildren.<ref name=autogenerated6 /> Mammy is "head woman of the plantation" and takes her work and the good name of the O'Haras extremely seriously. She is very outspoken and quick to chastise the girls for improper behavior.<ref name=autogenerated2>Part 1, chapter 5</ref>
* '''Pork:''' is Gerald O'Hara's valet and the first person he enslaved. Gerald won the enslavement of Pork in a poker game (as he did ownership of the Tara plantation in a separate poker game).<ref name=autogenerated7 /> When Gerald died, Scarlett gave his pocket watch to Pork. She offered to have the watch engraved, but Pork declined the offer.
* '''Dilcey:''' is Pork's wife and an enslaved woman of mixed Native American and African descent.<ref name=autogenerated57>Part 1, chapter 4</ref> Scarlett encourages her father to buy Dilcey and her daughter from John Wilkes, the latter as a favor to Dilcey that she never forgets.<ref name=autogenerated6 />
* '''Prissy:''' is Dilcey's daughter.<ref name=autogenerated57 /> Prissy is Wade's nurse and goes with Scarlett to Atlanta.<ref name=autogenerated4 />
* '''Jonas Wilkerson:''' is the Yankee overseer of Tara before the Civil War. He impregnates Emmie Slattery out of wedlock, which prompts Ellen to insists on his dismissal. He later marries Emmie and becomes a carpetbagger, making an attempt to buy Tara from Scarlett, who flatly refuses.<ref name=autogenerated57 />
* '''Big Sam:''' is a strong, hardworking, enslaved field worker and the foreman at Tara. In post-war lawlessness, Sam rescues Scarlett from would-be thieves.<ref>Part 4, chapter 44</ref>
* '''Will Benteen:''' is a "South Georgia [[Cracker (term)|cracker]]",<ref name=autogenerated54>Part 3, chapter 30</ref> Confederate soldier, and patient listener to the troubles of all. Will lost part of his leg in the war and walks with the aid of a wooden stump. The O'Haras take him in on his journey home from the war; he manages the farm after his recovery.<ref name=autogenerated54 /> Fond of Carreen O'Hara, he is disappointed when she decides to enter a convent.<ref name=autogenerated58>Part 4, chapter 39</ref> He later marries Suellen and has at least one child, Susie, with her.<ref name=autogenerated13 />

====Clayton County====

* '''India Wilkes:''' is the sister of Honey and Ashley Wilkes. She is described as plain. Stuart Tarleton courted India before he and his brother Brent both fell in love with Scarlett. India despises Scarlett and spreads rumors about her and Ashley, which Melanie refuses to believe.<ref name=autogenerated5 />
* '''Honey née Wilkes (married last name unknown):''' is the sister of India and Ashley Wilkes. Honey is described as having the "odd lashless look of a rabbit".<ref name=autogenerated3 /> 
* '''John Wilkes:''' is the owner of the Twelve Oaks plantation<ref name=autogenerated6 /> and patriarch of the Wilkes family. John Wilkes is educated and gracious.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> He dies during the siege of Atlanta.<ref name=autogenerated11 />
* '''Tarleton boys: Boyd, Tom, and the twins, Brent and Stuart:''' The red-headed Tarleton boys were in frequent scrapes, loved practical jokes and gossip, and "were worse than the [[plagues of Egypt]]",<ref name=autogenerated5 /> according to their mother. The inseparable twins, Brent and Stuart, at 19 years old, were six feet two inches tall.<ref name=autogenerated5 /> All four boys were killed in the war, the twins just moments apart at the [[Battle of Gettysburg]].<ref name=autogenerated511>Part 3, chapter 29</ref> Boyd was buried somewhere in Virginia.<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* '''Tarleton girls: Hetty, Camilla, Randa, and Betsy:''' The "pretty, buxom" Tarleton girls have varying shades of red hair: plain red for Hetty, strawberry blond for Camilla, auburn for Randa, and carrot-red for Betsy. The fun-loving daughters treat Beatrice more as a friend than a parent, which Scarlett finds both shocking and endearing.<ref name=autogenerated2 />
* '''Beatrice Tarleton:''' is the mistress of the Fairhill plantation.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> She manages a large cotton plantation, a hundred negroes, eight children, and the largest horse-breeding farm in Georgia. Hot-tempered, she believed that "a lick every now and then did her boys no harm."<ref name=autogenerated5 />
* '''Calvert family: Raiford, Cade, and Cathleen:''' are the O'Haras' [[Clayton County, Georgia|Clayton County]] neighbors from another plantation, Pine Bloom.<ref name=autogenerated511 /> Cathleen Calvert was Scarlett's friend.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> Their widowed father '''Hugh''' married a Yankee governess.<ref name=autogenerated512>Part 3, chapter 26</ref> Raiford is killed at Gettysburg. Next to Scarlett, Cathleen "had had more beaux than any girl in the County",<ref name=autogenerated511 /> but eventually married their former Yankee overseer, Mr. Hilton.
* '''Fontaine family: Joe, Tony, and Alex''' are known for their hot tempers. Joe is killed at Gettysburg,<ref name=autogenerated59 /> while Tony murders Jonas Wilkerson in a barroom and flees to Texas, leaving Alex to tend to their plantation.<ref name=autogenerate44/> '''Grandma Fontaine''', also known as "'''Old Miss'''", is the wife of old '''Doc Fontaine''', the boys' grandfather. "'''Young Miss'''" and young '''Dr. Fontaine''', the boys' parents, and '''Sally Fontaine née Munroe''', wife to Joe,<ref>Part 2, chapter 10</ref> make up the remaining family of the Mimosa plantation.<ref name=autogenerated512 />
* '''Emmie Wilkerson née Slattery:''' is a poor white woman. The daughter of Tom Slattery, her family lived on three acres along the swamp bottoms between the O'Hara and Wilkes plantations.<ref name=autogenerated7 /> Emmie gave birth to a stillborn illegitimate child fathered by Jonas Wilkerson, a Yankee and the overseer at Tara, with Ellen O'Hara attending as midwife during Emmie's labor and delivery.<ref name=autogenerated57 /> Emmie later married Jonas. After the war, flush with carpetbagger cash, they try to buy Tara, but Scarlett refuses the offer.<ref>Part 4, chapter 32</ref>

====Atlanta====
* '''Sarah Jane "Pittypat" Hamilton:''' acquired the nickname "Pittypat" in childhood because she walked on tiny feet. Aunt "Pittypat" is an easily flustered spinster who lives in the red-brick house at the quiet end of [[Peachtree Street]] in Atlanta. The house is half-owned by Scarlett (after the death of Charles Hamilton). Her finances are managed by her brother, Henry, whom she doesn't especially care for. Aunt Pittypat raised Melanie and Charles Hamilton after the death of their father, with considerable help from "Uncle" Peter, who she enslaves.<ref name=autogenerated61 />
* '''Henry Hamilton:''' is Aunt Pittypat's brother, an attorney, and the uncle of Charles and Melanie.<ref name=autogenerated61 />
* '''"Uncle" Peter:''' is an older enslaved man who works as Aunt Pittypat's coach driver and general factotum. Uncle Peter looked after Melanie and Charles Hamilton when they were young.<ref name=autogenerated61 />
* '''Beauregard "Beau" Wilkes:''' is Melanie and Ashley's son, who is born in Atlanta when the siege begins and transported to Tara after birth. Like his cousin and playmate Wade, he is named for his father's commanding general, in this case [[P.G.T. Beauregard]]. When Ashley proposes moving North to find work, Melanie objects on the ground that they would have to send Beau to an integrated school. He was suggested as a future husband for Bonnie before her death.<ref>Part 3, chapter 23</ref>
* '''Archie:''' is an ex-convict and former Confederate soldier who was imprisoned for the murder of his adulterous wife (who was having an affair with his brother) before the war. Melanie takes in Archie, who becomes Scarlett's coach driver.<ref name=autogenerated14 />
* '''Meade family:''' Atlanta society considers '''Dr. Meade''' to be "the root of all strength and all wisdom".<ref name=autogenerated61 /> He looks after injured soldiers during the siege with assistance from Melanie and Scarlett.<ref name=autogenerated60>Part 3, chapter 21</ref> '''Mrs. Meade''' is on the bandage-rolling committee.<ref name=autogenerated61 /> Their two sons are killed in the war.<ref name=autogenerated60 />
* '''Merriwether family:''' '''Mrs. Dolly Merriwether''' is an Atlanta dowager along with Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Whiting.<ref name=autogenerated61>Part 2, chapter 8</ref> Post-war, she sells homemade pies to survive, eventually opening a bakery.<ref name=autogenerated13 /> Her father-in-law '''Grandpa Merriwether''' fights in the Home Guard<ref>Part 3, chapter 18</ref> and survives the war. Her daughter '''Maybelle''' marries '''René Picard''', a Louisiana [[Zouave]]. They have two sons, Napoleon and Raoul.<ref name=autogenerated70 />
* '''Belle Watling:''' is a prostitute<ref name=autogenerated1>Part 2, chapter 13</ref> and brothel madam<ref name=autogenerate44>Part 4, chapter 37</ref> who is portrayed as a loyal Confederate.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> Melanie declares she will acknowledge Belle when she passes her in the street, but Belle tells her not to.<ref name=autogenerated51>Part 4, chapter 46</ref>

====Robillard family====
* '''Pierre Robillard:''' is the father of Ellen O'Hara. Even though his family was Roman Catholic, he was staunchly [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]]. The thought of his daughter becoming a nun was worse than her marrying Gerald O'Hara.<ref name=autogenerated7 />
* '''Solange Robillard née Prudhomme:''' is the mother of Ellen O'Hara and Scarlett's grandmother. She was a dainty Frenchwoman who was haughty and cold.<ref name=autogenerated6 />
* '''Eulalie and Pauline Robillard:''' are the married sisters of Ellen O'Hara who live in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]].<ref name=autogenerated4 />
* '''Philippe Robillard:''' is the cousin of Ellen O'Hara and her first love. Philippe died in a bar fight in New Orleans around 1844.<ref name=autogenerated6 />

==Biographical background and publication==
Born in 1900 in [[Atlanta]], Margaret (Peggy) Mitchell was a Southerner and writer throughout her life. She grew up hearing stories about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction from her Irish-American grandmother, [[Annie Fitzgerald Stephens]], who had endured its suffering while living on the family plantation, [[Rural Home]]. Her forceful and intellectual mother, [[Maybelle Stephens Mitchell]], was a [[suffragist]] who fought for the rights of women to vote.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell|last=Edwards|first=Anne|publisher=Ticknor & Fields|year=1983|isbn=9780899191690|location=New Haven, Connecticut|pages=17–18}}</ref><!--Father and grandfathers? -->

As a young woman, Mitchell found love with an army lieutenant. He was killed in World War I, and she would carry his memory for the remainder of her life. After studying at Smith College for a year, during which time her mother died from the [[Spanish flu|1918 pandemic flu]], Mitchell returned to Atlanta. She married, but her husband was an abusive bootlegger. She took a job writing feature articles for the ''Atlanta Journal'' at a time when Atlanta debutantes of her class did not work. After divorcing her first husband, she married again to a man who shared her interest in writing and literature, John Marsh. He had been the best man at her first wedding.<ref>{{cite web |title=Biography of Margaret Mitchell |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/margaret-mitchell-american-rebel-biography-of-margaret-mitchell/2043/ |website=American Masters |date=March 29, 2012 |publisher=PBS |access-date=September 29, 2020}}</ref>

Margaret Mitchell began writing ''Gone with the Wind'' in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from a slow-healing injury from an auto crash.<ref name=autogenerated63>[http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/GWTW.pdf "People on the Home Front: Margaret Mitchell"], Sgt. H. N. Oliphant, ''Yank'', (October 19, 1945), p. 9. Retrieved May 12, 2011.</ref> In April 1935, [[Harold Latham]] of Macmillan, an editor looking for new fiction, read her manuscript and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references and rewriting the opening chapter several times.<ref name=autogenerated89>[https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/73feb/gone.htm Gavin Lambert, "The Making of Gone With the Wind"], ''Atlantic Monthly'', (February 1973). Retrieved May 14, 2011.</ref> Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first and then wrote the events that led to them.<ref name=autogenerated65>Joseph M. Flora, Lucinda H. MacKethan, Todd Taylor (2002), ''The Companion to Southern Literature: themes, genres, places, people, movements and motifs'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 308. {{ISBN|0-8071-2692-6}}</ref> ''Gone with the Wind'' was published in June 1936.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://login.ezproxy.auctr.edu:2050/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=17285442&site=lrc-live|title=Gone with the Wind|website=Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature|publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>

==Title==

The author tentatively titled the novel ''Tomorrow Is Another Day'', from its last line.<ref>Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy (2008), ''Who the Hell Is Pansy O'Hara?: The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World's Best-Loved Books'', Penguin Books, p. 96. {{ISBN|978-0-14-311364-5}}</ref> Other proposed titles included ''Bugles Sang True'', ''Not in Our Stars'', and ''Tote the Weary Load''.<ref name=autogenerated89 /> The title Mitchell finally chose is from the first line of the third stanza of the poem "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae" by [[Ernest Dowson]]:

{{poemquote|
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind&nbsp;...<ref>Ernest Dowson (1867–1900), [http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/non-sum-qualis-eram-bonae-sub-regno-cynarae "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae"]. Retrieved March 31, 2012</ref>}}

Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders if her home on a plantation called "[[Tara (plantation)|Tara]]" is still standing or if it had "gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia".<ref name=autogenerated9>Part 3, Chapter 24</ref> In a general sense, the title is a metaphor for the demise of a way of life in the South before the Civil War. When taken in the context of Dowson's poem about "Cynara", the phrase "gone with the wind" alludes to erotic loss.<ref>John Hollander, (1981) ''The Figure of Echo: a mode of allusion in Milton and after'', University of California Press, p. 107. {{ISBN|978-0-520-05323-6}}</ref> The poem expresses the regrets of someone who has lost his feelings for his "old passion", Cynara.<ref>William Flesch, (2010) ''The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry, 19th Century'', Infobase Publishing, p. 89. {{ISBN|978-0-8160-5896-9}}</ref> Dowson's Cynara, a name that comes from the Greek word for [[artichoke]], represents a lost love.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/14/non-sum-qualis-cynarae-dowson Poem of the week: "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae" by Ernest Dowson], Carol Rumen (March 14, 2011) ''The Guardian''. Retrieved January 2, 2014.</ref>

It is also possible that the author was influenced by the connection of the phrase "Gone with the wind" with Tara in a line of [[James Joyce]]'s [[Ulysses (novel)|''Ulysses'']] in the chapter "Aeolus".{{cn|date=September 2023}}

==Structure==

===Coming-of-age story===
Margaret Mitchell arranged ''Gone with the Wind'' chronologically, focusing on the life and experiences of the main character, Scarlett O'Hara, as she grew from adolescence into adulthood. During the novel's period, from 1861 to 1873, Scarlett ages from sixteen to twenty-eight. This is a type of ''[[Bildungsroman]]'',<ref name=autogenerated88>Kathryn Lee Seidel (1985), ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', University Presses of Florida, p. 53. {{ISBN|0-8130-0811-5}}</ref> a novel concerned with the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming-of-age story). Scarlett's development is affected by the events of her time.<ref name=autogenerated88 /> Mitchell used a smooth linear narrative structure. The novel is known for its exceptional "readability".<ref name=autogenerated90>[http://edpapenfuse.com/gwtw/ecp-10-223/pierpont.pdf "A Critic at Large: A Study in Scarlett"] Claudia Roth Pierpont, (August 31, 1992) ''The New Yorker'', p. 87. Retrieved May 15, 2011.</ref> The plot is rich with vivid characters.

===Genre===
''Gone with the Wind'' is often placed in the literary subgenre of the [[historical romance]] novel.<ref>Ken Gelder (2004), ''Popular Fiction: the logics and practices of a literary field'', New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library, p. 49. {{ISBN|0-203-02336-6}}</ref> Pamela Regis has argued that it is more appropriately classified as a [[historical novel]], as it does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre.<ref>Pamela Regis (2011), ''A Natural History of the Romance Novel'', University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 48. {{ISBN|0-8122-1522-2}}</ref> The novel has been described as an early classic of the erotic historical genre because it is thought to contain some degree of pornography.<ref>Deborah Lutz (2006), ''The Dangerous Lover: Villains, Byronism, and the nineteenth-century seduction narrative'', The Ohio State University, p. 1 & 7. {{ISBN|978-0-8142-1034-5}}</ref>

==Plot elements==

===Slavery===

[[Slavery in the United States|Slavery]] in ''Gone with the Wind'' is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things.<ref>Junius P. Rodriguez (2007), ''Slavery in the United States: a social, political and historical encyclopedia''. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Vol. 2: p. 372. {{ISBN|978-1-85109-549-0}}</ref> Southern plantation fiction (also known as [[Anti-Tom literature]], in reference to reactions to [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s [[Abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery]] novel, ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in ''Gone with the Wind'', is written from the perspective and values of an enslaver and tends to present slaves as docile and happy.<ref>Tim A. Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses: the American Novel of Slavery since Gone With the Wind'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 69. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-3322-4}}.</ref>

====Caste system====

The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black house servant class. The enslaved people depicted in ''Gone with the Wind'' are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork, Prissy, and Uncle Peter.<ref>Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses'', pp. 22–23.</ref> House servants are the highest "[[caste]]" of enslaved people in Mitchell's caste system.<ref name=autogenerate44/> They choose to stay with their masters after the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] of 1863 and subsequent [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] of 1865 sets them free. Scarlett thinks of the servants who stayed at Tara, "There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy."<ref name=autogenerated47>Part 4, chapter 38</ref>

The [[Field slaves in the United States|enslaved field workers]] make up the lower class in Mitchell's caste system.<ref name=autogenerate44/><ref>Ryan (2008), ''Calls and Responses'', p. 23.</ref> The enslaved field workers from the [[Tara (plantation)|Tara plantation]] and the foreman, Big Sam, are taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches<ref name=autogenerated156 /> and never return to the plantation. Mitchell wrote that other enslaved field workers were "loyal" and "refused to avail themselves of the new freedom",<ref name=autogenerate44/> but the novel has no enslaved field workers who stay on the plantation to work after emancipation.

American [[William Wells Brown]] escaped from slavery and published his memoir, or [[slave narrative]], in 1847. He wrote of the disparity in conditions between the house servant and the field hand:

<blockquote>During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant{{snd}}a situation preferable to a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing bell, but about a half-hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave.<ref>William Wells Brown (1847), ''Narrative of William W. Brown, Fugitive Slave'', Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, No. 25 Cornhill, p. 15. {{OCLC|12705739}}</ref></blockquote>

====Faithful and devoted slave====
{{quote box
 |quote = Way back in the dark days of the Early Sixties, regrettable tho it was{{snd}}men fought, bled, and died for the freedom of the negro{{snd}}her freedom!{{snd}}and she stood by and did her ''duty'' to the last ditch{{snd}}

It was and is her life to ''serve'', and she has done it well.

While shot and shell thundered to release the shackles of slavery from her body and her soul{{snd}}she loved, fought for, and ''protected''{{snd}}Us who held her in bondage, her "Marster" and her "Missus!"
|source =—Excerpt from ''My Old Black Mammy'' by James W. Elliott, 1914.<ref>James W. Elliott (1914), ''My Old Black Mammy'', New York City: Published weekly by James W. Elliott, Inc. {{OCLC|823454}}</ref>
|width = 30%
|align = right
}}

Although the novel is more than 1,000 pages long, the character of Mammy never considers what her life might be like away from Tara.<ref>Kimberly Wallace-Sanders (2008), ''Mammy: a century of race and Southern memory'', University of Michigan Press, p. 130. {{ISBN|978-0-472-11614-0}}</ref> She recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases, saying, "Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go", but Mammy remains duty-bound to "Miss Ellen's chile".<ref name=autogenerated12 /> (No other name for Mammy is given in the novel.)

Eighteen years before the publication of ''Gone with the Wind'', an article titled "The Old Black Mammy", written in the ''[[Confederate Veteran]]'' in 1918, discussed the romanticized view of the [[Mammy archetype in the United States|mammy character]] persisting in [[Southern United States literature|Southern literature]]:

<blockquote>for her faithfulness and devotion, she has been immortalized in the literature of the South; so the memory of her will never pass, but live on in the tales that are told of those "dear dead days beyond recall".<ref>[http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Black_Mammy.pdf "The Old Black Mammy"], (January 1918) ''Confederate Veteran''. Retrieved April 24, 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.james-joyce-music.com/song06_lyrics.html "Love's Old, Sweet Song"], J.L. Molloy and G. Clifton Bingham, 1884. Retrieved April 27, 2011.</ref></blockquote>

[[Micki McElya]], in her book ''Clinging to Mammy'', suggests the myth of the faithful enslaved person, in the figure of Mammy, lingered because white Americans wished to live in a world in which African Americans were not angry over the injustice of slavery.<ref>Micki McElya (2007), ''Clinging to Mammy: the faithful slave in twentieth-century America'', Harvard University Press, p. 3. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02433-5}}</ref>

The best-selling anti-slavery novel, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, is mentioned briefly in ''Gone with the Wind'' as being accepted by the Yankees as "revelation second only to the Bible".<ref name=autogenerated47/> The enduring interest of both ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and ''Gone with the Wind'' has resulted in lingering stereotypes of 19th-century enslaved Black people.<ref>Flora, J.M., et al., ''The Companion to Southern Literature: themes, genres, places, people, movements and motifs'', pp. 140–144.</ref> ''Gone with the Wind'' has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white alike.<ref>Carolyn Perry and Mary Louise Weaks (2002), ''The History of Southern Women's Literature'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 261. {{ISBN|0-8071-2753-1}}</ref>

===Southern belle===
{{quote box
|quote = Young misses whut frowns an' pushes out dey chins an' says 'Ah will' an' 'Ah woan' mos' gener'ly doan ketch husbands.
|source =—Mammy<ref name=autogenerated7 />
|width = 30%
|align = right
}}

The [[southern belle]] is an [[archetype]] for a young woman of the [[antebellum South|antebellum American South]] upper class. The southern belle was considered physically attractive but, more importantly, personally charming with sophisticated social skills. She is subject to the correct code of female behavior.<ref>Seidel, K.L., ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', pp. 53–54</ref> The novel's heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, charming though not beautiful, is a classic southern belle.

For young Scarlett, her mother, Ellen O'Hara, represents the ideal southern belle. In "A Study in Scarlett", published in ''The New Yorker'', [[Claudia Roth Pierpont]] wrote:

<blockquote>The Southern belle was bred to conform to a subspecies of the nineteenth-century "lady"&nbsp;... For Scarlett, the ideal is embodied in her adored mother, the saintly Ellen, whose back is never seen to rest against the back of any chair on which she sits, whose broken spirit everywhere is mistaken for righteous calm<ref>Pierpont, C.R., "A Critic at Large: A Study in Scarlett", p. 92.</ref></blockquote>

However, Scarlett is not always willing to conform. Kathryn Lee Seidel, in her book, ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', wrote:

<blockquote>part of her does try to rebel against the restraints of a code of behavior that relentlessly attempts to mold her into a form to which she is not naturally suited.<ref>Seidel, K.L., ''The Southern Belle in the American Novel'', p. 54.</ref></blockquote>

Scarlett, the figure of a pampered southern belle, lives through an extreme reversal of fortune and wealth and survives to rebuild Tara and her self-esteem.<ref>Perry, C., et al., ''The History of Southern Women's Literature'', pp. 259, 261.</ref> Her bad belle traits (Scarlett's deceitfulness, shrewdness, manipulation, and superficiality), in contrast to Melanie's good belle traits (trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty), enable her to survive in the post-war South and pursue her main interest, which is to make enough money to survive and prosper.<ref>Betina Entzminger (2002), ''The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern women writers and the dark seductress'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 106. {{ISBN|0-8071-2785-X}}</ref> Although Scarlett was "born" around 1845, she is portrayed to appeal to modern-day readers for her passionate and independent spirit, determination, and obstinate refusal to feel defeated.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/showbiz/movies/gone-with-the-wind-75th-anniversary-love-hate/ Why we love – and hate – 'Gone with the Wind']. Todd Leopold (December 31, 2014) [[CNN]]. Retrieved February 26, 2015.</ref>

====Historical background====

Marriage was supposed to be the goal of all southern belles, as that of their husbands largely determined women's status. All social and educational pursuits were directed towards it. Despite the Civil War and the loss of a generation of eligible men, young ladies were still expected to marry.<ref>Giselle Roberts (2003), ''The Confederate Belle'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 87–88. {{ISBN|0-8262-1464-9}}</ref> By law and Southern social convention, household heads were adult, white propertied males, and all white women and all African Americans were thought to require protection and guidance because they lacked the capacity for reason and self-control.<ref>Laura F. Edwards (2000), ''Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Southern Women and the Civil War Era'', University of Illinois Press, p. 3. {{ISBN|0-252-02568-7}}</ref>

The [[Atlanta History Center|Atlanta Historical Society]] has produced many ''Gone with the Wind'' exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled "Disputed Territories: ''Gone with the Wind'' and Southern Myths". The exhibit asked, "Was Scarlett a Lady?", finding that historically most women of the period were not involved in business activities as Scarlett was during Reconstruction when she ran a sawmill. White women performed traditional jobs such as teaching and sewing and generally disliked work outside the home.<ref>Jennifer W. Dickey (2014), ''A Tough Little Patch of History: Gone with the Wind and the politics of memory'', University of Arkansas Press, p. 66. {{ISBN|978-1-55728-657-4}}</ref>

During the Civil War, Southern women played a significant role as volunteer nurses in makeshift hospitals. Many were middle- and upper-class women who had never worked for wages or seen the inside of a hospital. One such nurse was Ada W. Bacot, a young widow who had lost two children. Bacot came from a wealthy [[South Carolina]] plantation family that enslaved 87 people.<ref>Ada W. Bacot and Jean V. Berlin (1994), ''A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot, 1860–1863'', University of South Carolina Press, pp. ix–x, 1, 4. {{ISBN|1-57003-386-2}}</ref>

In the fall of 1862, Confederate laws were changed to permit women to be employed in hospitals as members of the Confederate Medical Department.<ref>Kate Cumming and Richard Barksdale Harwell (1959), ''Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse'', Louisiana State University Press, p. xiii. {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2267-9}}</ref> Twenty-seven-year-old nurse [[Kate Cumming]] from Mobile, Alabama, described the primitive hospital conditions in her journal:

<blockquote>They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all.<ref>Cumming, K., et al., ''Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse'', p. 15.</ref></blockquote>

===Battles===
[[File:Battle of Kenesaw Mountian.01850u.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Battle of Kennesaw Mountain]], June 27, 1864.]]
The Civil War ended on April 26, 1865, when [[Joseph E. Johnston]] surrendered his armies in the [[Carolinas campaign]] to U.S. Army General [[William Tecumseh Sherman]]. Several battles are mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind.

====Early and mid war years====

* [[Seven Days Battles]], June 25 – July 1, 1862, Richmond, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated70 />
* [[Battle of Fredericksburg]], December 11–15, 1862, Fredericksburg, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated59>Part 2, chapter 14</ref>
* [[Streight's Raid]], April 19 – May 3, 1863, in northern Alabama. U.S. Army Colonel [[Abel Streight]] and his men were captured by Confederate General [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]].<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Chancellorsville]], April 30 – May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville, Virginia, a Confederate victory.<ref name=autogenerated59 />
:Ashley Wilkes is stationed on the Rapidan River, Virginia, in the winter of 1863,<ref>Part 2, chapter 15</ref> later captured and sent to a U.S. Army prisoner-of-war camp, [[Rock Island Arsenal]].<ref name=autogenerated513>Part 2, chapter 16</ref>
* [[Siege of Vicksburg]], May 18 – July 4, 1863, Vicksburg, Mississippi, a Union victory.<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Gettysburg]], July 1–3, 1863, fought in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a Union victory. "They expected death. They did not expect defeat."<ref name=autogenerated59 />
* [[Battle of Chickamauga]], September 19–20, 1863, northwestern Georgia. The first fighting in Georgia and the most significant Union defeat.<ref name=autogenerated513 />
* [[Chattanooga campaign]], November–December 1863, Tennessee, a Union victory. The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.<ref name=autogenerated513 />

====Atlanta Campaign====
[[File:Atlanta campaign.svg|thumb|Sherman's Atlanta Campaign]]
The [[Atlanta campaign|Atlanta Campaign]] (May–September 1864) took place in northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta.

Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from [[Battle of Rocky Face Ridge|Dalton]] (May 7–13)<ref name=autogenerated156 /> to [[Battle of Resaca|Resaca]] (May 13–15) to [[Battle of Kennesaw Mountain|Kennesaw Mountain]] (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the [[Skirmish at Pace's Ferry|Chattahoochee River]], where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to [[Battle of Peachtree Creek|Peachtree Creek]] (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.

* [[Battle of Atlanta]], July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta. The city would not fall until September 2, 1864—heavy losses for Confederate [[John Bell Hood]].
* [[Battle of Ezra Church]], July 28, 1864, Sherman's failed attack west of Atlanta where the railroad entered the city.
* [[Battle of Utoy Creek]], August 5–7, 1864, Sherman's failed attempt to break the railroad line at [[East Point, Georgia|East Point]], into Atlanta from the west, heavy Union losses.
* [[Battle of Jonesborough]], August 31 – September 1, 1864, Sherman successfully cut the railroad lines from the south into Atlanta. The city of Atlanta was abandoned by General Hood and then occupied by Union troops for the rest of the war.

====March to the Sea====

[[Sherman's March to the Sea]] was conducted in Georgia during November and December 1864.

====President Lincoln's murder====

Although [[Abraham Lincoln]] is mentioned in the novel 14 times, no reference is made to his [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|assassination]] on April 14, 1865.

===Manhood===
{{quote box
|quote = Somebody's darling! so young and so brave!
Wearing still on his pale, sweet face{{snd}}
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave{{snd}}
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace!
|source =—''Somebody's Darling'' by Marie La Coste, of Georgia.<ref name=autogenerated156 /><ref>Henry Marvin Wharton (1904), ''War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, 1861–1865'', Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co., p. 188. {{OCLC|9348166}}</ref> 
|width = 35%
|align = right
}}

Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood in Scarlett's eyes. A [[Planter class|planter]] by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died.<ref name=autogenerated176>Daniel E. Sutherland (1988), ''[[The Confederate Carpetbaggers]]'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 4. </ref> However, Ashley's name signifies paleness. His "pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death".<ref name=autogenerated173>Elizabeth Young, (1999) ''Disarming the Nation: Women's Writing and the American Civil War'', University of Chicago Press, p. 254. {{ISBN|0-226-96087-0}}</ref>

Ashley contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other ex-Confederate transplants there.<ref name=autogenerated176 /> Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been "in a state of suspended animation" since the surrender. He feels he is not "shouldering a man's burden" at Tara and believes he is "much less than a man{{snd}}much less, indeed, than a woman".<ref name=autogenerated13 />

A "young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight",<ref name=autogenerated177 /> Ashley is like a young girl himself.<ref name=autogenerated178>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 252</ref> With his "poet's eye",<ref>[[William Shakespeare]], ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', Act 5, Scene 1: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.</ref> Ashley has a "feminine sensitivity".<ref>Anne Goodwyn Jones (1981), ''Tomorrow Is Another Day: The woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, pp. 354–355. {{ISBN|0-8071-0776-X}}</ref> Scarlett is angered by the "slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was "born queer".<ref name=autogenerated6 /> (Mitchell's use of the word "queer" is for its sexual connotation because [[queer]], in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.)<ref name=autogenerated181>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 253.</ref> Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness, and sexual impotence.<ref>Jones, A.G., ''Tomorrow is Another Day: the woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', p. 355.</ref> He rides, plays poker, and drinks like "proper men", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated191>Darden Asbury Pyron (1991), ''Southern Daughter: the life of Margaret Mitchell'', New York: Oxford University Press, p. 320. {{ISBN|978-0-19-505276-3}}</ref> The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of [[Medusa]] on his [[Cravat (early)|cravat]] pin.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated181 />

Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands{{snd}}the "calf-like"<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Charles Hamilton, and the "old-maid in britches",<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Frank Kennedy{{snd}}are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction.<ref>Craig Thompson Friend, (2009) ''Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on Manhood in the South since Reconstruction'', University of Georgia Press, p. xviii. {{ISBN|978-0-8203-3674-9}}</ref> Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy,<ref>Part 4, chapter 33</ref> is effeminate or "gay-coded".<ref>Lutz, D., ''The Dangerous Lover: Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-century Seduction Narrative'', p. 84.</ref> Charles, Frank, and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South.<ref name=autogenerated173 /> Its power and influence have been diminished.

===Scallawag===
The word "scallawag" is defined as a loafer, a vagabond, or a rogue.<ref>John S. Farmer (1889), ''Farmer's Dictionary of Americanisms'', Thomas Poulter & Sons, p. 473. {{OCLC|702331118}}</ref> [[Scalawag|Scallawag]] had a special meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who accepted and supported Republican reforms.<ref>Leslie Dunkling (1990), ''A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address'', London; New York: Routledge, p. 216. {{ISBN|0-415-00761-5}}</ref> Mitchell defines scallawags as "Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably."<ref>Part 4, chapter 31</ref> Rhett Butler is accused of being a "damned Scallawag".<ref>Part 4, chapters 37 & 46</ref> In addition to scallawags, Mitchell portrays other types of scoundrels in the novel: Yankees, [[carpetbagger]]s, Republicans, prostitutes, and overseers. In the early years of the Civil War, Rhett is called a "scoundrel" for his "selfish gains" profiteering as a blockade-runner.<ref name=autogenerated1 />

As a scallawag, Rhett is despised. He is the "dark, mysterious, and slightly malevolent hero loose in the world".<ref name=autogenerated85>Numan V. Bartley (1988), ''The Evolution of Southern Culture'', University of Georgia Press, p. 99. {{ISBN|0-8203-0993-1}}</ref> Literary scholars have identified elements of Mitchell's first husband, Berrien "Red" Upshaw, in the character of Rhett.<ref name=autogenerated85 /> Another sees the image of Italian actor [[Rudolph Valentino]], whom Margaret Mitchell interviewed as a young reporter for ''The Atlanta Journal''.<ref>Margaret Mitchell and Patrick Allen (2000), ''Margaret Mitchell: Reporter'', Athens: Hill Street Press, pp. 152–154. {{ISBN|978-1-57003-937-9}}</ref><ref>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 259.</ref> Fictional hero Rhett Butler has a "swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes".<ref name=autogenerated86>Part 5, chapter 62</ref> He is a "scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor".<ref name=autogenerated86 />

==Themes==

===Survival===

<blockquote>If ''Gone with the Wind'' has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality "gumption." So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.<ref name=author /><br />
— Margaret Mitchell, 1936</blockquote>

===Colors===

Mitchell's use of color in the novel is symbolic and open to interpretation. Red, green, and a variety of hues of each of these colors are the predominant palette of colors related to Scarlett.<ref name=Americana>[http://www.americanpopularculture.com/archive/bestsellers/mitchell.htm "Color Symbolism and Mythology in Margaret Mitchell's Novel Gone with the Wind"], O. Levitski and O. Dumer (September 2006) ''Magazine Americana''. Retrieved December 8, 2013.</ref>

===Irishness===
In ''Gone with the Wind'', Mitchell explores some complexities in racial issues. A Yankee woman asked Scarlett for advice on whom to appoint as a nurse for her children; Scarlett suggested a "darky", much to the disgust of the Yankee woman who was seeking an Irish maid, a "Bridget".<ref name=autogenerated47 /> African Americans and Irish Americans are treated "in precisely the same way" in ''Gone with the Wind'', writes David O'Connell in his 1996 book, ''The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind''. Ethnic slurs on the Irish and Irish stereotypes pervade the novel, O'Connell claims, and Scarlett is not an exception to the terminology.<ref>O'Connell, D., ''The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind'', pp. 14–15 & 71.</ref> Irish scholar Geraldine Higgins notes that Jonas Wilkerson labels Scarlett: "you highflying, bogtrotting Irish".<ref>Part 5, chapter 49</ref> Higgins says that, as the Irish American O'Haras were enslavers and held African Americans in bondage, the two ethnic groups are not equivalent in the ethnic hierarchy of the novel.<ref>Giemza, B.A., ''Rethinking the Irish in the American South: Beyond Rounders and Reelers'', pp. 80–81 & 83.</ref>

==Critical reception==

===Reviews===
The sales of Margaret Mitchell's novel in the summer of 1936, as the nation was recovering from the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] and at the virtually unprecedented price of three dollars, reached about 1 million by the end of December.<ref name=autogenerated90 /> The book was a bestseller when reviews began appearing in national magazines.<ref name=autogenerated65 /> Herschel Brickell, a critic for the ''New York Evening Post'', lauded Mitchell for the way she "tosses out the window all the thousands of technical tricks our novelists have been playing with for the past twenty years."<ref>Pierpont, C.R., ''A Critic at Large: A Study in Scarlett'', p. 88.</ref>

Ralph Thompson, a book reviewer for ''The New York Times'', was critical of the length of the novel and wrote in June 1936:<blockquote>I happen to feel that the book would have been infinitely better had it been edited down to say, 500 pages, but there speaks the harassed daily reviewer as well as the would-be judicious critic. Very nearly every reader will agree, no doubt, that a more disciplined and less prodigal piece of work would have more nearly done justice to the subject-matter.<ref>[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/print/ababgwtw/Mitchrev.html "Books of the Times: ''Gone With the Wind'' by Margaret Mitchell"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604232010/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/ababgwtw/Mitchrev.html |date=June 4, 2011 }}, Ralph Thompson, (June 30, 1936) ''The New York Times''. Retrieved May 13, 2011.</ref></blockquote>Some reviewers compared the book to [[William Makepeace Thackeray|William Thackeray]]'s ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]'' and [[Leo Tolstoy]]'s ''[[War and Peace]]''. Mitchell claimed [[Charles Dickens]] as an inspiration and called ''Gone with the Wind'' a "'[[Victorian era|Victorian]]' type novel."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/gone-wind-novel|title=Gone With the Wind (Novel)|last=McAlexander|first=Hubert H.|date=January 20, 2004|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia|access-date=April 25, 2019}}</ref>[[File:Gone with the Wind three dollars.jpg|thumbnail|Mitchell worried the high $3.00 price would ruin its chance for success. When Mary Louise received this copy from Mother and Dad in December 1937, the novel was the best American fiction bestseller for the second year.<ref>Brown, E., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', Taylor Trade Publishing, pp. 44 & 167.</ref>]]

[[Helen Keller]] read the 12-volume Braille edition. The book brought her fond memories of her Southern infancy, but she also felt sadness compared to what she knew about the South. Keller's father had enslaved people and fought as a Confederate captain, but Helen would later support the [[NAACP]] and the [[American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]].<ref name="Nielsen2007">{{cite journal| title=The Southern Ties of Helen Keller| year=2007| last=Nielsen| first=Kim E.| journal=Journal of Southern History| volume=73| issue=4| url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242408791|url-access=registration |doi=10.2307/27649568 |jstor=27649568 |jstor-access=free| page =800 }}</ref>

The book was popular in Nazi Germany; within two days of its publication there in 1937, it had sold 12 thousand copies; by 1941 it had sold 276 thousand copies. [[William L. Shirer]] noted in 1939 that it was one of the most popular novels in Germany; the novel for the most part received positive reviews. The novel continued to have high sales until 1942, when books by American authors were banned.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Haag |first1=John |author-link=John Haag |title=Gone With the Wind in Nazi Germany |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |date=1989 |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=278–304 |jstor=40581977 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40581977 |access-date=23 June 2025 |issn=0016-8297}}</ref>  

===Scholarship: Racial, ethnicity and social issues===
''Gone with the Wind'' has been criticized for its stereotypical and derogatory portrayal of African Americans in the 19th century [[Southern United States|South]].<ref name=autogenerate45>James Loewen [http://www.ushistory.org/us/historians/loewen.asp "Debunking History"], US History transcript from May 12, 2000. Retrieved April 2, 2011.</ref> Former field hands during the early days of Reconstruction are described as behaving "as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild{{snd}}either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance."<ref name=autogenerate44/>

Commenting on this passage of the novel, [[Jabari Asim]], author of ''The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why'', says, in "one of the more charitable passages in ''Gone With the Wind'', Margaret Mitchell hesitated to blame black 'insolence' during Reconstruction solely on 'mean niggers',<ref name=autogenerate44/> of which, she said, there were few even in slavery days."<ref>Jabari Asim (2007), ''The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why'', New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 150. {{ISBN|978-0-618-19717-0}}</ref>

The novel has been criticized for promoting plantation values and romanticizing the white supremacy of the antebellum South. Mitchell biographer Marianne Walker, author of ''Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind'', believes those who attack the book on these grounds have not read it. She said that the popular 1939 film "promotes a false notion of the [[Old South]]". Mitchell was not involved in the screenplay or film production.<ref>Marianne Walker (1993), ''Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story behind Gone With the Wind'', Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, p. vii (preface to 2011 edition). {{ISBN|978-1-56145-617-8}}</ref>

[[James W. Loewen|James Loewen]], author of ''[[Lies My Teacher Told Me|Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong]]'', says this novel is "profoundly racist and profoundly wrong".<ref name=autogenerate45 /> 

The novel came under intense criticism for alleged racist and white supremacist themes in 2020 following the [[murder of George Floyd]], and the ensuing [[George Floyd protests|protests]] and focus on systemic [[racism in the United States]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=After 84 Years, Gone With the Wind Finally Acknowledged as Racist as Shit|url=https://gizmodo.com/after-84-years-gone-with-the-wind-finally-acknowledged-1844147115|access-date=June 28, 2020|website=Gizmodo|date=June 25, 2020 |language=en-us}}</ref>

As a result of this criticism, the novel has faced challenges a number of times leading to a successful ban in Anaheim, California (1978) and an unsuccessful attempt to remove it from schools in Waukegan, Illinois (1984).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jarvis |first=Zeke |title=Silenced in the Library: Banned Books in America |publisher=Greenwood |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4408-4394-5 |edition= |location=Santa Barbara, California |publication-date=2017 |pages=20}}</ref>

===Reconstruction===

Critics say that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and their abuse of freedmen. Author [[Pat Conroy]], in his preface to a later edition of the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having "the same romanticized role it had in ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' and appears to be a benign combination of the [[Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks|Elks Club]] and a men's equestrian society".<ref>Pat Conroy, Preface to ''Gone With the Wind'', Pocket Books edition</ref>

Regarding the historical inaccuracies of the novel, historian [[Richard N. Current]] points out:

<blockquote>No doubt it is indeed unfortunate that ''Gone with the Wind'' perpetuates many myths about [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], particularly with respect to blacks. Margaret Mitchell did not originate them and a young novelist can scarcely be faulted for not knowing what the [[Dunning School|majority of mature, professional historians]] did not know until many years later.<ref>Albert E. Castel (2010), ''Winning and Losing in the Civil War: Essays and Stories'', University of South Carolina Press, p. 87. {{ISBN|978-1-57003-917-1}}</ref></blockquote>

===Awards and recognition===

In 1937, Margaret Mitchell received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] for ''Gone with the Wind'' and the second annual [[National_Book_Award_for_Fiction#Most_Distinguished_Novel_(1935–1936)|National Book Award for Fiction]] from the [[American Booksellers Association]].<ref>"5 Honors Awarded on the Year's Books:", ''The New York Times'', February 26, 1937, page 23. ProQuest Historical Newspapers ''The New York Times'' (1851–2007)</ref> It is ranked as the second favorite book by American readers, just behind the Bible, according to a 2008 [[Harris Insights & Analytics|Harris poll]].<ref name=harrispoll>[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080408005148/en/Bible-Americas-Favorite-Book-Wind The Bible is America's Favorite Book Followed by ''Gone With the Wind''], (April 8, 2008) ''Business Wire''. Retrieved May 10, 2011.</ref> The poll found the novel has the strongest following among women, those aged 44 or more, both Southerners and Midwesterners, both whites and Hispanics, and those who have not attended college. In a 2014 Harris poll, Mitchell's novel ranked again as second, after the Bible.<ref>[http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1422/Default.aspx "The Bible Remains America's Favorite Book"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924025030/http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1422/Default.aspx |date=September 24, 2015 }}, Harris Interactive; Retrieved April 29, 2014.</ref> The novel is on the [[list of best-selling books]]. As of 2010, over 30 million copies have been printed in the United States and abroad.<ref name=Brown>Brown, Ellen F., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', p. 320.</ref> More than 24 editions of ''Gone with the Wind'' have been issued in China.<ref name=Brown /> ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine critics [[Lev Grossman]] and [[Richard Lacayo]] included the novel on their list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.<ref name=Time100b>Grossman, Lev & Lacayo, Richard (October 16, 2005). [https://web.archive.org/web/20100216130650/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1951793,00.html "All Time 100 Novels"], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. Retrieved May 10, 2011.</ref><ref name=Time100a>Kelly, James (October 16, 2005). [https://web.archive.org/web/20100310070348/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1952018_1952023,00.html "Time's List of the 100 Best Novels"], ''Time''. Retrieved May 10, 2011</ref> In 2003, the book was listed at number 21 on the BBC's [[The Big Read]] poll of the UK's "best-loved novel".<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml "BBC – ''The Big Read''"]. BBC. April 2003, Retrieved October 27, 2012</ref>

=== Censorship ===
''Gone with the Wind'' frequently has been the center of controversy.

In 1978, the book was banned from English classrooms in the Anaheim Union High School District in [[Anaheim, California]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Office of Intellectual Freedom|date=March 26, 2013|title=Banned & Challenged Classics|url=https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics|access-date=June 20, 2021|website=American Library Association|language=en}}</ref> 

In 1984, an alderman in Waukegan, Illinois, challenged the book's inclusion on the reading list of the Waukegan School District on the grounds of "racism" and "unacceptable language". He objected to the frequent use of the racial slur ''[[nigger]]''. He also objected to several other books: ''[[The Nigger of the 'Narcissus']]'', ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', and ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' for the same reason.<ref>Dawn B. Sova (2006), ''Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds'', New York: Infobase Publishing, p. 166. {{ISBN|0-8160-6271-4}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
''Gone with the Wind'' has been adapted several times for stage and screen:

* The novel was adapted into the classic [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-winning [[Gone with the Wind (film)|1939 film]]. The film has been considered one of the [[List of films considered the best|greatest Hollywood movies ever made]], and upon release, was immensely popular in its own right. It stars [[Clark Gable]], [[Vivien Leigh]] and [[Olivia de Havilland]].<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/ ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939)], IMDb; Retrieved February 11, 2013.</ref>
* The book was adapted into a musical, ''[[Scarlett (musical)|Scarlett]]'', which opened in Tokyo in 1970 (in 1966 it was produced as a nine-hour play without music), and in London in 1972, where it was reduced to four hours. The London production opened in 1973 in Los Angeles and again in Dallas in 1976.<ref>Brown, E. F., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', pp. 292–293.</ref>
* The Japanese [[Takarazuka Revue]] produced a musical adaptation of the novel, ''Kaze to Tomo ni Sarinu'', which was performed by the all-female Moon Troupe in 1977.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20101227114052/http://takarazuka-revue.info/tiki-index.php?page=Gone+With+the+Wind+%28Moon+1977%29 Gone with the Wind (Moon 1977)] Retrieved February 3, 2014.</ref><ref>[https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Gone+With+the+Wind+%28Moon+1977%29 Gone with the Wind (Moon 1977)] Retrieved February 13, 2023.</ref> The most recent performance was in January 2014 by the Moon Troupe, with Todoroki Yuu as Rhett Butler and Ryu Masaki as Scarlett O'Hara.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130911181708/http://takarazuka-revue.info/tiki-index.php?page=Gone+With+the+Wind+%28Moon+2014%29 ''Gone with the Wind'' (Moon 2014)] Retrieved February 3, 2014.</ref><ref>[https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Gone+With+the+Wind+%28Moon+2014%29 ''Gone with the Wind'' (Moon 2014)] Retrieved February 13, 2023.</ref>
* An [[unabridged]] [[audiobook]] adaptation narrated by Liza Ross was released in 1998, winning the UK Talkies Awards.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Liza Ross - CV |url=http://www.lizaross.com/cv.html |access-date=2025-09-29 |website=www.lizaross.com}}</ref> This edition was re-released in 2025.
* A 2003 French musical adaptation was produced by [[Gérard Presgurvic]], ''[[Autant en emporte le vent]]''.<ref>[[:fr:Autant en emporte le vent (comédie musicale)]]</ref>
* The book was adapted into a British musical, ''[[Gone with the Wind (musical)|Gone with the Wind]]'', and opened in 2008 in the U.K. at the [[Gillian Lynne Theatre|New London Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]].<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/apr/23/theatre2 Gone With The Wind, New London Theatre, London], Michael Billingon, (April 22, 2008)''The Guardian''. Retrieved February 11, 2013.</ref>
* A full-length three-act classical ballet version, with a score arranged from the works of [[Antonín Dvořák]] and choreographed by Lilla Pártay, premiered in 2007 as performed by the [[Hungarian National Ballet]]. It was revived in their 2013 season.<ref>[http://www.opera.hu/en/balett/Elfujta_a_szel/201302271900/info Gone With the Wind Dvorak, A. / Pártay L.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130204232152/http://www.opera.hu/en/balett/Elfujta_a_szel/201302271900/info |date=February 4, 2013 }} Retrieved November 6, 2012</ref>
* A new stage adaptation by Niki Landau premiered at the [[Manitoba Theatre Centre]] in Winnipeg, Canada in January 2013.<ref>[http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/homepage-promo/2013/01/11/rmtcs-gone-with-the-wind-is-frankly-worth-giving-a-damn-about/ ''Gone With the Wind'' is frankly worth giving a damn about]. Retrieved March 9, 2013.</ref>

==In popular culture==
[[File:Women's Press Club skit.jpg|thumbnail|1940 Women's Press Club skit in which Mammy Congress puts Scarlett O'Budgett into her corset before going to a 'lection party.]]
''Gone with the Wind'' has appeared in many places and forms in popular culture:

===Books, television and more===
* A 1945 cartoon by World War II cartoonist [[Bill Mauldin]] shows an American soldier lying on the ground with Margaret Mitchell's bullet-riddled book. The caption reads: "Dear, Dear Miss Mitchell, You will probably think this is an awful funny letter to get from a soldier, but I was carrying your big book, ''Gone with the Wind'', under my shirt and a&nbsp; ..."<ref>Walker, M., ''Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind'', p. 454.</ref>
* The novelist [[Vladimir Nabokov]] considered ''Gone with the Wind'' to be a "cheap novel", and in his ''[[Bend Sinister (novel)|Bend Sinister]]'' a book meant to resemble it is used as toilet paper.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Naiman |first1=Eric |title=Nabokov, Perversely |date=2011 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-6023-4 |pages=65 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_utDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Norman |first1=Will |title=Nabokov, History and the Texture of Time |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-53963-0 |pages=88 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1fcIAL8hls0C&pg=PA88 |language=en}}</ref>
* In the [[List of I Love Lucy episodes|season 3 episode]] of ''[[I Love Lucy]]'', "Lucy Writes a Novel", which aired on April 5, 1954, "Lucy" ([[Lucille Ball]]) reads about a housewife who makes a fortune writing a novel in her spare time. Lucy writes a novel, which she titles ''Real Gone with the Wind''.<ref>[http://www.cbs.com/shows/i_love_lucy/video/?pid=rVDQ1hOS1fuL I Love Lucy-Lucy Writes a Novel]. Retrieved February 11, 2013</ref>
* ''Gone with the Wind'' is the book that [[S. E. Hinton]]'s runaway teenage characters, Ponyboy and Johnny, read while hiding from the law in the young adult novel ''[[The Outsiders (novel)|The Outsiders]]'' (1967).<ref>Marylou Morano Kjelle (2008), ''S. E. Hinton: Author of The Outsiders'', Lake Book Mfg, p. 28. {{ISBN|978-0-7660-2720-6}}</ref>
* A film parody titled "[[Went with the Wind!]]" aired in a 1976 episode of ''[[The Carol Burnett Show]]''.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0536579/ The Carol Burnett Show: Season 10, Episode 8]. Retrieved February 11, 2013.</ref> Burnett as Starlett descends a long staircase wearing a green curtain complete with hanging rod. The outfit, designed by [[Bob Mackie]], is displayed at the [[Smithsonian Institution]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Carol Burnett – We Just Can't Resist Her!|url=http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2009/05/carol-burnett-we-just-cant-resist-her/|access-date=August 19, 2011|date=May 14, 2009|archive-date=July 7, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120707045257/http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2009/05/carol-burnett-we-just-cant-resist-her/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* Come Back With the Wind is a parody novel of Gone with the Wind by British comic writer [[Les Dawson]], published in 1990. The story is set in a fictitious 20th century civil war between the North and the South of Britain. The main characters are Carla O'Mara and Red Butler, substituted for Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler from the original story. ({{ISBN|9780450559068}})
* ''[[Mad (magazine)|Mad]]'' magazine created a parody of the novel "Groan with the Wind" (1991),<ref>"Groan with the Wind", Jack Davis and Stan Hart (January 1991), ''Mad'' #300.</ref> in which Ashley was renamed Ashtray and Rhett became Rhetch. It ends with Rhetch and Ashtray running off together.<ref name=autogenerated178 />
* A pictorial parody in which the enslaved people are white and the protagonists are black appeared in a 1995 issue of ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' titled "Scarlett 'n the Hood".<ref>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: Women's Writing and the American Civil War'', p. 281</ref>
* In a ''[[Mad TV|MADtv]]'' comedy sketch (2007),<ref>[[MADtv (season 12)]]</ref> "Slave Girl #8" introduces three alternative endings to the film. In one ending, Scarlett pursues Rhett wearing a [[jet pack]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCA6FHoWsvs ''Gone with the Wind'' (Alternate Endings)]. Retrieved September 19, 2012.</ref>
[[File:Curtain Dress.JPG|thumbnail|The "Curtain Dress" from ''The Carol Burnett Show'' on display at the [[Smithsonian Institution]] in 2009]]

===Collectibles===
On June 30, 1986, the 50th anniversary of the day ''Gone with the Wind'' went on sale, the U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent stamp showing an image of Margaret Mitchell. The stamp was designed by Ronald Adair and was part of the U.S. Postal Service's [[Great Americans series]].<ref name=autogenerated80>[http://arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=4&cmd=2&eid=417&slide=14 ''Gone With the Wind'' Stamps]</ref>

On September 10, 1998, the U.S. Post Office issued a 32-cent stamp as part of its [[Celebrate the Century]] series, recalling various important events in the 20th century. The stamp, designed by Howard Paine, displays the book with its original [[dust jacket]], a white [[Magnolia]] blossom, and a [[hilt]] placed against a background of green velvet.<ref name=autogenerated80 />

To commemorate the 75th anniversary (2011) of the publication of ''Gone with the Wind'' in 1936, Scribner published a paperback edition featuring the book's original jacket art.<ref>Margaret Mitchell and Pat Conroy (1936), ''Gone With the Wind'', 75th Anniversary Edition (2011 paperback), New York: Scribner. {{ISBN|978-1-4516-3562-1}}</ref>

===The Windies===
The Windies are ardent ''Gone with the Wind'' fans who follow all the latest news and events surrounding the book and film. They gather periodically in costumes from the film or dressed as Margaret Mitchell. Atlanta, Georgia, is their meeting place.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/us/13windies.html "Frankly, My Dear, the 'Windies' Do Live for This"] Kim Severson, (April 13, 2011) ''The New York Times''. Retrieved May 2, 2013.</ref>

==Legacy==
The novel appeals worldwide due to its universal themes: war, love, death, racial conflict, class, gender, and generation, which speak especially to women.<ref>Perry, C., et al., ''The History of Southern Women's Literature'', pp. 266–267.</ref> In North Korea, readers relate to the novel's theme of survival, finding it to be "the most compelling message of the novel".<ref>[http://entertainment.time.com/2012/10/25/reading-gone-with-the-wind-in-pyongyang/ Reading ''Gone With the Wind'' in Pyongyang] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029155657/http://entertainment.time.com/2012/10/25/reading-gone-with-the-wind-in-pyongyang/ |date=October 29, 2012 }}, Tim Sullivan, (October 25, 2012) ''Time'' magazine. Retrieved November 4, 2012.</ref> Margaret Mitchell's personal collection of nearly 70 foreign language translations of her novel was given to the [[Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System|Atlanta Public Library]] after her death.<ref>{{cite book |author=Brown, E.F. |title=Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood |page=278|display-authors=etal}}</ref>

===The Lost Cause===
One legacy of ''Gone with the Wind'' is the persistence in the people's minds of its representation of the history of the [[Old South]] and how the American Civil War and Reconstruction changed it. The film adaptation of the novel "amplified this effect".<ref>Joel Williamson (1993), ''William Faulkner and Southern History'', Oxford University Press, p. 245. {{ISBN|0-19-507404-1}}</ref> The plantation legend was "burned" into the mind of the public.<ref>Flora, J.M., et al., ''The Companion to Southern Literature: themes, genres, places, people, movements and motifs'', p. 143.</ref> Moreover, her fictional account of the war and its aftermath has influenced how the world has viewed the city of Atlanta for successive generations.<ref>Dickey, J.W., ''A Tough Little Patch of History: Gone with the Wind and the politics of memory'', p. 40.</ref>

Helen Taylor wrote:

{{blockquote|''Gone with the Wind'' has almost certainly done its ideological work. It has sealed in popular imaginations a fascinated nostalgia for the glamorous southern plantation house and ordered hierarchical society in which slaves are "family" and there is a mystical bond between the landowner and the rich soil those slaves work for him.<ref>{{cite book |author=Helen Taylor |chapter=''Gone with the Wind'' and its Influence |pages=258–67 |editor-first=Carolyn |editor-last=Perry |editor-first2=Mary |editor-last2=Weaks-Baxter |title=The History of Southern Women's Literature |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uQSYeomI_CAC&pg=PA266 |year=2002 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-2753-7 |access-date=December 11, 2015 |archive-date=May 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506100559/https://books.google.com/books?id=uQSYeomI_CAC&pg=PA266 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

David W. Blight wrote:
{{blockquote|From this combination of Lost Cause voices, a reunited America arose pure, guiltless, and assured that the deep conflicts in its past had been imposed upon it by otherworldly forces. The side that lost was especially assured that its cause was true and good. One of the ideas the reconciliationist Lost Cause instilled deeply into the national culture is that even when Americans lose, they win. Such was the message, the indomitable spirit, that Margaret Mitchell infused into her character [[Scarlett O'Hara]] in ''Gone With the Wind'' ...<ref>{{cite book |author=David W. Blight |title=Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266 |year=2001 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-00332-3 |pages=283–84 |access-date=December 11, 2015 |archive-date=June 10, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610020739/https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Southerners were portrayed as noble, heroic figures, living in a doomed romantic society that rejected the realistic advice offered by the [[Rhett Butler]] character and never understood the risk that they were taking in going to war.

===Differences with the film===
Some readers of the novel have seen the film first and read the novel afterward. One difference between the film and the novel is the staircase scene, in which Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs. In the film, Scarlett weakly struggles and does not scream as Rhett starts up the stairs. In the novel, "he hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened."<ref name=autogenerated17>Part 5, chapter 54</ref><ref name=autogenerated105>Celia R. Daileader (2005), ''Racism, Misogyny, and the Othello Myth: Inter-racial Couples from Shakespeare to Spike Lee'', Cambridge University Presses, pp. 168–169. {{ISBN|978-0-521-84878-7}}</ref>

Earlier in the novel, in an intended rape at Shantytown (Chapter 44), Scarlett is attacked by a black man who rips open her dress while a white man grabs hold of the horse's bridle. She is rescued by another black man, Big Sam.<ref name=autogenerated40>Entzminger, B., ''The Belle Gone Bad: white Southern women writers and the dark seductress'', p. 109.</ref> In the film, she is attacked by a white man while a black man grabs the horse's bridle.

===Place in American literature===
The [[Library of Congress]] began a multiyear "Celebration of the Book" in July 2012 with an exhibition on ''Books That Shaped America'' and an initial list of 88 books by American authors that have influenced American lives. ''Gone with the Wind'' was included in the Library's list. Librarian of Congress, [[James H. Billington]] said:

<blockquote>This list is a starting point. It is not a register of the 'best' American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/bookfest/books-that-shaped-america/ Books That Shaped America] Retrieved July 5, 2012.</ref> </blockquote>

Among books on the list considered to be the [[Great American Novel]] were ''[[Moby-Dick]]'', ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'', ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'', ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]'', ''[[Invisible Man]]'', and ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]''.

===Margaret Mitchell Estate===
On August 16, 2012, the [[Archdiocese of Atlanta]] announced that it had been bequeathed a 50% stake in the trademarks and literary rights to ''Gone With the Wind'' from the [[Margaret Mitchell estate|estate]] of Margaret Mitchell's deceased nephew, [[Joseph Mitchell (Mitchell Estate director)|Joseph Mitchell]]. Margaret Mitchell had separated from the Catholic Church.<ref>[http://www.ajc.com/news/margaret-mitchells-nephew-leaves-1500982.html "Margaret Mitchell's Nephew Leaves Estate to Atlanta Archdiocese"], Shelia M. Poole, (August 16, 2012) ''[[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]''. Retrieved August 17, 2012.</ref> However, one of Mitchell's biographers, Darden Asbury Pyron, stated that Margaret Mitchell had "an intense relationship" with her mother, who was a Roman Catholic.

== Publication history ==

===Original manuscript===
[[File:Crescent Apartments, Atlanta, Georgia.jpg|thumbnail|The Crescent Apartments in Atlanta, Georgia, where Margaret Mitchell wrote her novel, is now operated as the [[Margaret Mitchell House and Museum]].]]

Although some of Mitchell's papers and documents related to the writing of ''Gone with the Wind'' were burned after her death, many documents, including assorted draft chapters, were preserved.<ref>Brown, E. F., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', pp. 271–272.</ref> The last four chapters of the novel are held by the [[Pequot Library]] of Southport, Connecticut.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/books/gone-with-the-wind-chapters-get-pequot-library-display.html?pagewanted=all A Piece of 'Gone With the Wind' Isn't Gone After All], Charles McGrath, (March 29, 2011) ''The New York Times''. Retrieved October 29, 2012.</ref>

===Publication and reprintings (1936 – US)===
The first printing of 10,000 copies contains the original publication date: "Published May, 1936". After the book was chosen as the Book-of-the-Month Club's selection for July, the publication was delayed until June 30. The second printing of 25,000 copies (and subsequent printings) contains the release date: "Published June, 1936". The third printing of 15,000 copies was made in June 1936. Additionally, 50,000 copies were printed for the Book-of-the-Month Club July selection. ''Gone with the Wind'' was officially released to the American public on June 30, 1936.<ref>Brown, E. F., et al., ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood'', pp. 61, 75, 81–82 & 91.</ref>

===Sequels and prequels===

Although Mitchell refused to write a sequel to ''Gone with the Wind'', Mitchell's estate authorized [[Alexandra Ripley]] to write a sequel, which was titled ''[[Scarlett (Ripley novel)|Scarlett]]''.<ref>Alexandra Ripley (1994), ''Scarlett'', Pan Books. {{ISBN|978-0-330-30752-9}}</ref> The book was subsequently adapted into a [[Scarlett (miniseries)|television mini-series]] in 1994.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108915/ IMDb Scarlett (TV mini-series 1994)]</ref> A second sequel was authorized by Mitchell's estate titled ''[[Rhett Butler's People]]'', by [[Donald McCaig]].<ref>Donald McCaig (2007), ''Rhett Butler's People'', Macmillan. {{ISBN|978-0-312-94578-7}}</ref> The novel parallels ''Gone with the Wind'' from Rhett Butler's perspective. In 2010, Mitchell's estate authorized McCaig to write a prequel, which follows the life of the house servant Mammy, whom McCaig names "Ruth". The novel, ''Ruth's Journey'', was released in 2014.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/business/media/gone-with-the-wind-prequel-coming-in-october.html?hpw&rref=arts "Mammy Revealed, and Not Just Her Red Petticoat ''Gone With the Wind'' Prequel Coming in October"] Julie Bosman (March 26, 2014) ''The New York Times''. Retrieved March 26, 2014.</ref>

The copyright holders of ''Gone with the Wind'' attempted to suppress publication of ''[[The Wind Done Gone]]'' by [[Alice Randall]],<ref>Alice Randall (2001), ''The Wind Done Gone'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. {{ISBN|978-0-618-10450-5}}.</ref> which retold the story from the perspective of the enslaved people. A federal appeals court denied the plaintiffs an injunction (''[[Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co.|Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin]]'') against publication on the basis that the book was a parody and therefore protected by the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]]. The parties subsequently settled out of court, and the book became a [[The New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times'' Best Seller]].

A book sequel unauthorized by the copyright holders, ''The Winds of Tara'' by Katherine Pinotti,<ref>Katherine Pinotti (2008), ''The Winds of Tara'', Fontaine Press. {{ISBN|978-0-9803623-5-0}}</ref> was blocked from publication in the United States. The novel was republished in Australia, avoiding U.S. copyright restrictions.

Away from copyright lawsuits, Internet fan fiction has proved to be a fertile medium for sequels (some of them book-length), parodies, and rewritings of ''Gone with the Wind''.<ref>Gomez-Galisteo, M. Carmen ''The Wind Is Never Gone Sequels, Parodies and Rewritings of Gone with the Wind''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011.
</ref>

Numerous unauthorized sequels to ''Gone with the Wind'' have been published in Russia, mostly under the pseudonym Yuliya Hilpatrik, a cover for a consortium of writers. ''The New York Times'' states that most have a "Slavic" flavor.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/29/books/frankly-my-dear-russians-do-give-a-damn.html "Frankly My Dear, Russians Do Give a Damn"], Alessandra Stanley, (August 29, 1994) ''The New York Times''. Retrieved June 10, 2011.</ref>

Several sequels were written in Hungarian under the pseudonym Audrey D. Milland or Audrey Dee Milland by at least four different authors (who are named in the colophon as translators to make the book seem a translation from the English original, a procedure common in the 1990s but prohibited by law since then). The first picks up where Ripley's ''Scarlett'' ended; the next is about Scarlett's daughter Cat. Other books include a prequel trilogy about Scarlett's grandmother, Solange, and a three-part miniseries about a supposed illegitimate daughter of Carreen.<ref>[http://katherines-bookstore.blogspot.hu/2010/12/es-boldogan-eltek-amig.html Sequels of famous novels]</ref>

=== Copyright status ===
''Gone with the Wind'' has been in the [[public domain]] in Australia and Canada since 1999 (50 years after Margaret Mitchell's death).<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/technology/one-internet-many-copyright-laws.html|title=One Internet, Many Copyright Laws|last=Shannon|first=Victoria|date=November 8, 2004|work=The New York Times|access-date=December 30, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> On January 1, 2020, the book entered the public domain in the European Union ([[2020_in_public_domain#Entering_the_public_domain_in_countries_with_life_+_70_years|70 years after the author's death]]). Under an extension of copyright law, ''Gone with the Wind'' will not enter the public domain in the United States until January 1, 2032.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/technology/one-internet-many-copyright-laws.html|title=One Internet, Many Copyright Laws|last=Shannon|first=Victoria|date=November 8, 2004|work=The New York Times|access-date=December 30, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

==See also==
* ''[[Lost Laysen]]'', 1916 novella also written by Margaret Mitchell
* [[Southern literature]]
* [[Southern Renaissance]]
* [[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]]
* [[Confederate novel]]

==References==
{{Reflist|25em}}

==Further reading==
* Adams, Amanda. "'Painfully Southern': Gone with the Wind, the Agrarians, and the Battle for the New South", ''Southern Literary Journal'' (2007) 40:58–75. 
* Bevilacqua, Kathryne. "History Lessons from Gone With the Wind", ''Mississippi Quarterly'', 67 (Winter 2014), 99–125.
* Bonner, Peter. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131127122453/http://peterbonner.com/store.html "Lost In Yesterday: Commemorating The 70th Anniversary of Margaret Mitchell's ''Gone With The Wind'' "]. Marietta, GA: First Works Publishing Co., Inc., 2006.
* Brown, Ellen F. and John Wiley, ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood''. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade, 2011.
* Dickey, Jennifer W. ''A Tough Little Patch of History: Gone with the Wind and the Politics of Memory''. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2014.
* Farr, Finis. ''Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta: The Author of Gone with the Wind''. New York: Morrow, 1965.
* Gomez-Galisteo, M. Carmen ''The Wind Is Never Gone Sequels, Parodies and Rewritings of Gone with the Wind''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011.
* Haag, John. "''Gone With the Wind'' in Nazi Germany", ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' 73#2 (1989): 278–304. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40581977 in JSTOR]
* Harwell, Richard, ed. ''Gone with the Wind as Book and Film'' Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1983.
* Harwell, Richard, ed. ''Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind Letters, 1936–1949''. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
* Haskell, Molly. ''Frankly My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
* Pyron, Darden Asbury, ed. ''Recasting: Gone with the Wind in American Culture''. Florida International University Press, 1983.
* Pyron, Darden Asbury. ''Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell and the Making of Gone with the Wind''. Athens, GA: Hill Street Press, 1991.
* Rubin, Anne Sarah. "Revisiting Classic Civil War Books: 'Why ''Gone with the Wind'' Still Matters; or, Why I Still Love ''Gone with the Wind''{{'"}}, ''Civil War History'' (March 2013) 59#1 pp 93–98 [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/civil_war_history/v059/59.1.rubin.html online]

==External links==
*{{commonscat-inline|Gone with the Wind|''Gone with the Wind''}}
*{{wikiquote-inline|Gone with the Wind (novel)|''Gone with the Wind'' (novel)}}
* {{FadedPage|id=20160920|name=Gone with the Wind}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090729092835/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mitchell/margaret/gone/complete.html ''Gone with the Wind'' (public domain in Australia)]  at eBooks@Adelaide (The University of Adelaide Library)
* [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/masters/margaret-mitchell/ Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel] – American Masters documentary (PBS)
* [http://www.thescarlettletter.com/ ''The Scarlett Letter'', a quarterly publication devoted to the ''Gone with the Wind'' phenomenon]

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