Once a month, I flip giddily through all of the teen and fashion magazines to look at the latest fashions. One after another, the outfit I most desire to wear is absent. Yet, I continue to wish and hope that a massive hoop shirt paired with giant puffy sleeves and a slenderizing corset will fill the pages. If these would only become socially acceptable, I would sport them every day. The reason being: Scarlett O’ Hara and the other ladies of the south wore them in Gone with the Wind. I could see myself sauntering through the halls, twirling and twisting my beautiful hoop shirt and, most likely, hitting the other people in the hall.
Gone with the Wind. This masterpiece by Margaret Mitchell has become my single obsession since the eighth grade.
When we were assigned to read a classic novel in middle school, I was ambitious. Rather than read a tiny novel of a mere 150 pages, I grabbed a 1,024-page epic. I originally chose it to impress my fellow classmates- I was certain that I would appear far more intelligent if my book was bigger than theirs. But when I started reading it, I fell in love. We had a month to read our books- but I became so captivated by the Civil War and Reconstruction time period, the characters, and the writing style that I whipped through it in less than a week.
My first copy has become tattered from me carrying it around- the cover and first five pages are missing…as well as the last five. I have read this novel three times, and each time I find a new cherished moment.
The notorious lines, romance, and Scarlett O’ Hara have made Gone with the Wind one of the most successful novels in history.
I would like to think that I have a little of the southern bell character of Scarlett in me. Throwing men around like horseshoes, having a 16-inch waist, and wearing old curtains for a day out on the town. I would mosey through the town and have all of the men gawking at my beauty and charm, and best of all, have servants to wait on me hand and foot.
However memorable, Scarlett is not a nice character. She is neither charitable, kind, nor selfless- she only thinks of her survival- no matter whom she has to marry, steal from, or lie to. Her goal in the novel is to attain the man she thinks she loves- no matter who gets hurt, even her own sister…but that is what makes her so intriguing.
It feels like the characters jump right off the pages, and are real people acting out their life in front of me. I feel the charm and sex appeal exuding from Rhett Butler and want that smoldering, complicated romance to happen with me. I laugh when the servants in dialect screech “I ain’ kno’ nothin’ bout’ birthin’ no babies”. And on particularly stressful days, I wish that I was rich and could lounge around my plantation home with the biggest worry on my mind being who I would sit with at the barbeque, or if my dance card will be filled at the ball.
Since I have read Gone with the Wind, I have become fascinated with the Civil War time period, and want to live there…even though there was no running water or air conditioning, and I would probably be married to a cousin by now.
Due to this book, I will be looking for a dark, tall and handsome man from Charleston to marry, and will probably name my first born, preferably a girl, Scarlett.
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