Gone with the Wind. Did it influenced your political/historical opinions?
By spicymary
@spicymary (558)
Romania
January 15, 2013 9:04am CST
It's hard not to like the story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. She is a brave and witty woman, who can seduce everybody (except the one she thinks she likes). He is self-confident man, with a lot of charm. Great characters and an interetsing plot make an incredible book and movie.
What I am curious about is if the story did influenced your political and historical opinions. The context is the Civil War and the characters are from the South, love the South and fight for its ideals.
Tara and the land in general is an important motif in the plot. Slavery is seen as normal and the abolition of it is just an antisocial behavior or a bunch of traitors.
Would you also see the South (as a concept of what it was) better than before, being familiar with "Gone with the Wind"? Did you become more interested in the Civil War? Do you agree with the political views of the main characters? Do you still love them, even if you disagree?
2 people like this
4 responses
@celticeagle (168256)
• Boise, Idaho
15 Jan 13
THis movie and book did help me to understand that the Civil War was worse than I had ever imagined it to be. It also makes me want to see the south that much more. Atlanta and some other major southern cities. I did agree with the political views of the main characters. From there perspective that is. I would still love the characters even if I disagreed. Have you read the sequel? I haven't.
1 person likes this
@spicymary (558)
• Romania
15 Jan 13
I read Scarlett, but I didn't read Rhett Butler's People. I enjoyed Scarlett even if it's far less good than Gone with the Wind. I think the author didn't quite understood the characters, at least not like I did. But two volumes with the same characters that I loved were enough entertaining.
I also become interested in the Civil War after reading the book. And I kept some close feeling with their lands. The story is really good presentation of what war can do to people's lives, how they deal to it. So revealing.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (168256)
• Boise, Idaho
15 Jan 13
I haven't read either of those but have seen Gone With the Wind many times. The Civil War is an interesting subject. They certainly showed some of the harsh realities of it in the movie.
@suspenseful (40192)
• Canada
15 Jan 13
I have read the book and seen the movie. I think it was about the times and so we cannot put ourselves in that period of history. To me, it shows the danger of enslavement based on one's race that is more dangerous then that based on being a prisoner of war or that being in debt. It is easy for someone who was a slave for the last two to gain his freedom then one who one can look at and say, that because he is a Hebrew in the times of the evil Pharoah who knew not Joseph, or a Negro in the pre civil war, he is a natural slave. I think the South was better then it is now and had they not been hampered by the race slavery at that time, they would have outlawed it long ago and the civil war may not have started.
1 person likes this
@marguicha (223776)
• Chile
20 Mar 13
Gone with the wind taught me a lot about the Civil War in the US and motivated me to learn more about it. Of course you cannot see the problems they had with our eyes. THe world has changed a lot since then.
