Gone With the Wind
First published 1936 · English · 862 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
- Coming of age
- Adventure
Gone With the Wind is a long historical novel set in Georgia before, during and after the American Civil War. It follows Scarlett O'Hara, the headstrong daughter of a plantation owner, as war and defeat overturn the world she knows and force her to fight for survival, land and security. Her tangled feelings for others, including the charming Rhett Butler, run through the story. The book was a huge popular success and became a famous film. It is also controversial today, because it presents slavery and the Old South through a nostalgic, one-sided lens that many readers find troubling.
Quotes
A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.
I cannot understand why I did not desert. It was all the purest insanity. But it’s in one’s blood. Southerners can never resist a losing cause.
In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out. At least, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a Gotterdammerung.
There ain’t nothin’ that walks can lick us, any more than it could lick him, not Yankees nor Carpetbaggers nor hard times nor high taxes nor even downright starvation. But that weakness that’s in our hearts can lick us in the time it takes to bat your eye.