From County Belle to Cunning Businesswoman Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind, a classic that gives insight into the Confederate lifestyle before and after the Civil War, is known as one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story centers around a former Southern belle named Scarlett O’Hara who grows up in the heart of Georgia on her plantation named Tara. Scarlett doesn’t care about anything or anyone except for her lover, Ashley Wilkes, and finds herself heartbroken when he marries his plain Jane cousin, Melanie Hamilton. As the Yankees get closer and closer to her beloved home, destroying everything she’s ever known and forcing her to flee to Atlanta, Scarlett finds herself forced to fight for what she loves. Though …show more content…
Scarlett doesn’t end up with Ashley, nor do the Confederates meet victory at the end of the war, she ends up building a new life for herself. Gone With the Wind is a story about what the Southerners were truly fighting for-- their homeland and lifestyle—and how their identity was stripped from them once they lost both. Throughout her struggles, Scarlett slowly but surely changes from a conceited and charming narcissist into a desperately conniving girl, and eventually shifts into an independent adult who couldn’t care less about what other people think about her. From Scarlett, we can learn that rebuilding oneself after a great loss is difficult, but not impossible. From the start, Scarlett presents herself as a very narcissistic and even inconsiderate girl. As Scarlett sits with her beaus on the porch of Tara, she grows rather disinterested with the topic at hand: war. She snaps at the two men, saying, “‘If you say ‘war’ just once more, I’ll go in the house.’ She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject” (5). Since this scene is in the first chapter, it’s evident that the author intends to introduce Scarlett as a pampered brat who for her entire life has had everything handed to her. Because of her upbringing, Scarlett has never been raised to strongly feel compassion or to even be remotely thoughtful towards others. She believes that the world revolves around her, and so she doesn’t really think about anything but her own personal needs. This snippet exhibits Scarlett’s disdain for topics that don’t regard her. Earlier, her two beaus are discussing the Civil War and rumors of its commencement. But Scarlett couldn’t care less about the welfare of the South and the impending battle, not if she doesn’t see how it doesn’t connect to her. Scarlett’s blunt manner of snapping at the boys also shows that her wish is everyone’s command on Tara. Was she raised to consider others or have just a bit of patience, she would have requested their annulment of the topic a bit more politely. Later on, Scarlett attempts to rile Ashley up by flirting with all of the guys at the barbeque, and flirts with shy bachelor Charles Hamilton. “Why, Charles Hamilton, you handsome thing, you!” she exclaims. “I’ll bet you came all the way from Atlanta just to break my poor little heart” (97)! Here, Scarlett is flirting up a storm with poor dullard Charles Hamilton. Scarlett manages to steal his heart with a few well-placed words and a stunning smile, and that was exactly her intention. However, she doesn’t remotely fancy him, nor does she really want to spend time with him. All she wants is to make Ashley jealous and whisk him away from Melanie, even if it could potentially hurt people around her. Scarlett shows no consideration for Charles’s possible feelings about this, and uses her charm as an advantage to her ulterior motives. This emphasizes Scarlett’s persona as a very egocentric person, because even if she did end up breaking Charles’s heart, it wouldn’t matter to her. Scarlett wants Ashley, and she doesn’t care about what she has to do to get to him. Through Scarlett’s actions, we can see that the author intends to establish Scarlett as a very thoughtless and conceited person. About five hundred pages later, we re-meet Scarlett as an older and less childish person.
The middle of this chronicle really puts our petty protagonist to the test. After the Confederates lost the Civil War, Scarlett makes her way home to her beloved plantation to find her mother dead and sisters bedridden with illnesses. Only a few of their slaves remain after formal emancipation, and after Ellen O’Hara’s death, Scarlett’s father is in no emotional state to oversee affairs. The wellbeing of her family and plantation are all left up to Scarlett. To be fair to her, she does a good job for the first few months. But soon enough, the big bad wolves come in to demand the O’Hara’s pay taxes on Tara. The consequences to not doing so are high. Scarlett doesn’t have any money to pay them, but she’d rather let Tara burn than give it to the tax collectors. When Scarlett returns to Atlanta after a grueling few seasons at Tara, she decides that she wants to get the money she so desperately needs from Rhett. She thinks, “She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged. Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate...If she could somehow manage to marry him while he was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should he be executed” (565). Throughout the story, it’s made pretty clear that once Scarlett sets her eyes on something, she’ll go to any length to get it. In the beginning, it’s Ashley Wilkes in a pathetic attempt to make him jealous. Now, it is money she needs, and money she will have. Scarlett can’t even think about losing her home, much less Rhett’s feelings while she attempts to exploit him. However, her manipulation of Rhett shows a slight character shift in terms of her perspective. Earlier, Scarlett is utterly convinced in her charm and believes it’ll get her anything she wants. Now, Scarlett shows a bit more desperation in getting what she needs. Finally, Scarlett realizes that life isn’t a
smooth ride, and that to overcome the obstacles she needs to work harder. This quote also further emphasizes how self-serving Scarlett really is. Rhett could die for all she cares, so long as the money goes straight to her. But even after every trick she had in her book, Rhett rejects her and leaves her with great consternation. Scarlett needs to find another way to save her homeland, or, looking into it more deeply, the last remnant of her old lifestyle. Once she sees Frank Kennedy going down the street in his carriage, an idea seems to go off in her head as she thinks, “Suellen should not have Frank and his store and his mill! Suellen didn’t deserve them. She [Scarlett] was going to have them herself” (557). Once things fail with Rhett Butler, however, Scarlett has absolutely no shame about going to another guy. Even if Frank Kennedy was technically her sister’s fiancé, Scarlett doesn’t mind stealing him from right under her sister’s nose. Scarlett knows that she needs the money, and as Frank keeps blabbing on and on about his prosperity with his new store, Scarlett hopes that she can charm him into proposing to her. She hopes that if she bats her eyelashes enough and flatters his ego, she can use the money to pay taxes on her plantation. Scarlett’s actions assert her refusal to be helpless, and that she’s no longer the carefree country girl she once was. As readers near the conclusion of Scarlett’s story, the tenaciousness she’s developed pops out at them. She still will do anything to survive, but doesn’t bother to hide her claws anymore. Before Scarlett leaves for work one time, Melanie Hamilton tries to warn her against going alone. She tries to politely explain that it’s bad for her reputation, and that Atlanta’s dangerous for a woman these days. Scarlett, however, simply disregards the advice, as the author narrates, “…and she still made her rounds by herself, with Frank’s pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy” (777). Scarlett’s carriage rides show a shift in her character because of how now; she doesn’t use manipulation or petty techniques to get what she wants. She does exactly what she needs and goes about it directly, without a worry for what people will think. In the beginning, all Scarlett cared about was other people’s opinions. She wanted to be the prettiest, the smartest, and the most desired. Later on, Scarlett knows that being a beauty isn’t everything anymore, but still uses covert methods to get what she wants in fear of soiling her reputation as a “great lady” if she does otherwise. But now, people often gossip about how unseemly it is for her to ride by herself, own a mill and successful business. Many of the other women in Atlanta have shunned her for being so successful in a time they weren’t. In the nineteenth century, an intelligent and sensible woman suffered the worst ostracism from society. It was shameful for women to be anything but fair and helpless, and a few years ago, perhaps Scarlett would’ve cared more about what they said. But now, she knows that there’s nothing wrong with earning herself a living. She’s learned that what the general crowd thinks isn’t necessarily right, and because of that, she doesn’t mind travelling by herself to her work. A few months later, however, Scarlett finds herself holding Melanie’s hand as she dies from a miscarriage. Extremely distraught by Melanie’s passing, Scarlett seeks comfort in Ashley but finds none. She finds a broken boy looking for the same thing in her, and realizes, “I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is, and I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it, whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all” (940). This shows that while Scarlett’s determination hasn’t changed over time, her wishes have. In the beginning, all Scarlett ever wanted was to be on Ashley Wilkes’s arm. Over time, she realizes that other things are more important. She realizes that while she has grown into a strong and self-sufficient woman, Ashley has only retrogressed. Because of this, Scarlett realizes that she doesn’t need him at all. She’ll stay with him out of newfound respect for Melanie and her dying wish, but her passionate feelings have turned into complete apathy. Scarlett has become strong and intelligent, and appreciates those like her who have taken an awful situation and prospered from it. Unlike her, Ashley can’t let go of the South and considers himself too much of a gentleman to take up work in the new era. Scarlett realizes that she loved the image of Ashley that she built up, not what he really was. She loved him because she couldn’t have him, not because she genuinely cared for him. Scarlett’s sudden awareness of this shows her new maturity. By realizing this she leaves behind her sixteen-year old self, and accepts that when she was younger, she had only wanted Ashley because he didn’t want her. She renounces the old childhood fancy that consumed her for years, and this shows her completing her transition from adolescent to adult. From Scarlett, readers learn that rebuilding oneself after a great loss is difficult, but not impossible. After the Confederates lost the war, Scarlett lost her land, the lifestyle she knows, both of her parents, her old reputation, her daughter, and the true love of her life. That’s all “gone with the wind,” but she doesn’t let the end of her old life end her. Scarlett always manages to look forward, and say, “Well, tomorrow is another day” (953).
Gone with the Wind is a novel that is set during the civil war. During the second part, the protagonist Scarlett reads a letter that was sent by a confederate soldier named Ashley. The letter talks about his opinion on the war and the reason he fights. Ashley joined the war with the hopes of fighting for States’ Rights and preserving the old ways. However, once the fighting started he realized that the old ways are not going to come back, “And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future, try though I may.” He is not happy about fighting in the war, and he does not have confidence
In the movie Gone With the Wind, Scarlett, the main character was a woman with many struggles in her life. She lived on a farm with her father, her mother, and her slaves but when she left to go help the wounded, the Yankees came to her house and used it as a base camp. The Yankees took all of Scarlett?s family?s food, crops, and animals. Also while Scarlett was gone her mother got sick. Once Scarlett came back to her farm (Terra) her mother was dead. When the war ended her family was too poor to pay the taxes so she married Frank, a rich businessman, so she could pay the taxes. After her husband died she remarried a richer man named Rhett and they had a child named Bonnie.
The film Blade Runner (1982) directed by Ridley Scott depicts women in a negative connotation. Blade Runner is considered a popular science fiction film and is seen to have shaped the genre, however, the film displays women as sex symbols and secondary characters, who are unimportant to the storyline. The film is centered around strong male leads who use their authority and power to abuse, belittle and sexualize women. The film’s misogynistic point of view gives the impression to the audience that this treatment of women is acceptable, which is offensive and completely inaccurate.
In L. Frank Baum’s second Oz novel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, he includes a prominent philosophical theme of feminism. During his novel, conflicts arise among powerful male figures, such as the Scarecrow King, and oppressed females, including those in General Jurjur’s Army, that demonstrate the inequality between the two genders. However, Baum’s incorporation of a strong sense of feminism is present to illustrate independent females longing for the establishment of an equal status quo in society. The overall solution to injustice treatment of women is present in Baum’s plot twist that ended with a highly liked, powerful female ruler over the Land of Oz.
Singer Joan Jett is know as a punk pioneer for aggressive and popular music and a women’s role model. Joan once said, “People don’t want to see women doing things they don’t think women should do.” Joan was apart of the 70’s all girl teen rock group know as The Runaways. Feminists filled the 1970s with the women’s movement, Females had worked hard to make room for women in male-dominated fields ranging from medical, law, national secuirity, and even rock and roll. The main argument was that there is no reason that a women can’t do the same work as a man in any field of work. To be able to fit in with a male-dominated field, the women had to act like the men in their attitueds and approaches to do well. If the women showed any vulnrtablity or femininity at all the womens stautus might fall. Even after all this there was still an unseen boundry perventing women from suceeding in a male’s world. This bountry continues to cut of wmen from really entering the male dominated carreers. In the film Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is a trainee at the FBI academy. She faces being one of the only women in the male ran field of national secierity. Although she is seen as a vunrable and is seen as having no athority around the men she has to work with, Clarice’s character is smart and has what it takes to work in a male dominated world. Clarice has to constantly prove that she can work in a male domineted world without having to rely on her feminity. Women are able to hold jobs like men and become leaders like Calrice has done while being a female in a male-dominated world.
In her novel, Margaret Mitchell explains how the women's responsibilities became more important when the men left for war, even though their rights did not evolve much and how those women dealt with these changes. When the war starts most of the men leave except for the children, the seniors and the sick. The women then have to take over the control of their homes and continue the business of their husbands or fathers. In Gone with the Wind, the beginning of the war will be a huge change in Scarlett's life. She leaves for Atlanta when her husband goes to war to visit Melanie and Aunt Pittypat. There she sees wounded soldiers and is asked to do tasks that would have never occurred to her before. She has to nurse the wounded in the soldiers' hospital and is disgusted by this voluntary work. The young woman's mother, Ellen O'Hara, dies soon after the beginning of the war and her father, Gerald, falls into depression and insanity. Scarlett decides to come home to Tara when the taxes are raised on her family's property. She had been used to a carefree life, and finds herself in ch...
However, the narrative fallacy with nostalgia is that it surrounds the notion of glorifying the most positive aspects of the past, and disregarding the negatives. In the case of Gone With the Wind the film glorifies the American spirit of the plantation lifestyle without acknowledging the presence of slavery. It is within this facet of the films narrative that its racism is exposed. In order for the audience to identify with the struggle of Scarlett O’Hara, the film must first present her surroundings and lifestyle as being both elegant and in tune with the spirit of America. The film’s opening credits achieve this effect in its flowery display of southern landscapes, including the images of slaves working in the cotton fields. This imagery, which is set to an emotionally orchestrated score, prepackages the narrative as being honorable and patriotic even through the explicit portrayal of slavery. The audience’s loyalty to the characters and lifestyle is purchased though the noble portrayal of the Old
Pretty Woman is a modern take on the classic Cinderella story where a poor misguided girl meets her prince and her life is dramatically changed. This film has fairy tale elements, but the biggest element in the movie is the use of sex; Vivian, the main character, is a prostitute. She meets her “prince” and is swept off of her feet, but what this really means is that she is bought for an entire week by a handsome, wealthy business man. One would assume that he was buying her for sex, but this is not your average prostitute transaction. This movie has a lot of third wave feminism ideals. Third wave feminism deals with using the female gender and sexuality to further the cause and portray their views. The ultimate goal of this paper is to show that Vivian Ward (portrayed by Julia Roberts), is the poster girl for third wave feminism.
After WWII, many movements in the United States secured greater liberties such as social, political, and personal freedoms. Along with many others, the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements were very successful during this time. These movements were both significant in our society because they changed the history of the United States.
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Gender Roles and Feminism in Killing a Mockingbird. When the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee, the Southern United States was still clinging tightly to traditional values. Southern societies pressured men to behave as gentlemen, and women were expected to be polite and wear dresses. These stringent gender roles were adhered to in small southern towns because they were isolated from the more progressive attitudes in other areas of the United States.
In chapters 7, 8, and 9 of Brave New World by Anja Manuel, Manuel focuses on feminism, environmental degradation, and public protests within China and India. Both countries struggle with issues that often put certain vulnerable or weak parties at a disadvantage. However, in recent years both countries have seen a stirring of their citizens who are finding these issues more important. China went through a push for democracy while India is fully benefiting from their already democratic economy. Although China and India seem to have positive ideals in mind for their future, achieving these goals may not be so easy.
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The feeling of not being heard or not being allowed to do what you want is placed upon women in the 1930s. Harper Lee’s depiction of women, in her novel To Kill A Mockingbird, is they should be able to have an important voice in society, make changes they feel are important, and do certain actions without conforming to gender normalities.