books – Page 16 – The View From Sari's World

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. So begins one of the best selling novels of all time, Gone With the Wind. Released in 1936, it sold millions of copies at the height of the Great Depression and earned Margret Mitchell the 1937 Pulitzer. Love it or hate it, GWTW is an American classic.

I read it first in middle school. My grandmother allowed me to read what ever book I wanted from her large personal library. GWTW was the least daunting of my grandmother’s books. Her collection consisted of classic Greek, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and Hemingway etc. You get the picture. GWTW seemed like a fairytale compared to the other choices. I would go to read it two more times. As silly as it may seem, I reread it, hoping for better outcome, or at least some better understanding of Scarlett’s fate. Mitchell leaves us with one hell of a cliff hanger!

From the first sentence I was hooked. Scarlett O’Hare was the most complex character I had ever read about. She went from being a spoiled Southern Belle to a strong yet vulnerable mature woman. Even as we are now decades past the Feminist Movement, women today try to emulate Scarlett’s manner and wish they had the opportunity to dress like her. Just the other day a friend and I talked about Scarlett’s famous green curtain “dress”. For many of us, she is a role model, not that we want three husbands and forced household help, but rather we want to know that if faced with hardships we too will preserver. Mitchell always said she did not think Scarlett and Rhett reconciled, but thought that Scarlett would “become a better person”.

Some like to point out the “racist” tone of the book. They see the relationship between Scarlett and Mammy as unrealistic and one that only a white person would think to be true. I argue that these people are missing Mitchell’s subtle message about African- Americans. The characters that are shown as having the most humanity, (compassion and wisdom) are all African- American. Rather than using stereotypical depictions that were in vogue in the 1930’s, Mitchell choose to have Mammy be Scarlett’s conscious and Sam to be her hero. And for those of you who have only seen the movie: spoiler alert; Scarlett’s second husband Frank, is killed because he attends a Klan rally. Mitchell writes about it in an unsympathetic voice.

So who was this woman whose only book still sparks historical themed debates while maintaining a timeless heroine?

Born in Atlanta in 1900, Margaret Mitchell was a debutante from Atlanta’s upper crust. She challenged the stifling social restrictions placed on women at the time. Mitchell was one of Georgia’s first female newspaper reporters and used the money she made from Gone With the Wind to fund many causes, including the education of the South’s first African-American medical doctors.

Mitchell had a charismatic personality and a great sense of humor. Her biographers describe her as sexy and smart with a rebellious streak that allowed her to achieve her personal goals. She was one of the first authors to have almost total control of her work. In order to publish GWTW, her publisher, Macmillan, agreed to let her have a say in all phases of the book’s publication. Though Mitchell agreed to change the name from Pansy to Scarlett, she voiced a strong opinion on everything else from the book cover to the amount of money she would receive for publishing it. Sounds a lot like something Scarlett would do.

Emmy^®-winning executive producer/writer Pamela Roberts says of Mitchell: “She was captivating and complex. She took chances every day of her life, and she changed the world with her one book, Gone With the Wind. Only Margaret Mitchell could have created Scarlett O’Hara” So, instead of looking up to Scarlett, perhaps we should look to Mitchell as a role model.

If you are interested in learning more about Mitchell and her book, I suggest you pick up Ellen Brown & John Wiley’s book Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood.

It’s Women’s History month. This week, let’s explore Mary Shelley and her influence on literature.

When we think of authors who write stories about science gone wrong, we usually think of men like Michael Crichton. From Jurassic Park to Prey, his body of work is filled with warning of what can happen when science gets in the wrong hands. It may surprise you that while the genre of bad science is dominated by men, we have Mary Shelley to thank for starting it all.

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and the first child of the philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin. Though Mary Godwin received little formal education, her father tutored her in a broad range of subjects. He often took the children on educational outings, and they had access to his library Godwin admitted he was not educating the children according to Mary Wollstonecraft’s philosophy as outlined in works such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), but Mary Godwin nonetheless received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time. She had a governess, a daily tutor, and read many of her father’s children’s books on Roman and Greek history in manuscript. Her father described her at fifteen as “singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible.

Mary and her father probably attended medical lectures that were all the rage in early 18^th century Europe. Electric shock treatments on dead animals was a huge draw, as scientists thought they could harness its power to bring the dead back to life. Many feared this idea of “playing God”. In fact the Romantics, which Mary would come to belong to, had great distain for the industrial age.

Mary’s liberal upbringing had a profound effect on her psych. She was smart and inquisitive but pushed the boundaries of what was considered proper behavior for 18^th century women. She fell in love with a very married Percy Shelley and ran off with him when she was only 17 and he was 22. They married only after Percy’s first wife committed suicide. Their life together was anything but idyllic .Two of Mary and Percy’s children would die in infancy, he cheated on her and they were often destitute and always staying with friends to make ends meet.

In the summer of 1816 the Shelleys visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Bad weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron’s other guests sometimes read ghost stories and spoke about new scientific developments. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to write a ghost story. Mary’s story became the novel Frankenstein. Published in 1818 under the title, Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, it was the first true science fiction novel. As a tale of science gone wrong, the novel was not well received by literary critics. The fact that the author was the daughter of a prominent and controversial author as well as a “fallen woman” living in a scandalous relationship raised critical hackles as well. Despite the criticism, Mary Shelley’s novel was an immediate success with numerous reprintings, foreign translations, and theatrical productions.

Mary never did come right out and talk about her reasons or influence for Frankenstein. She once wrote about John Milton’s influence; the fall of man was a topic she explored in Frankenstein and The Last Man. Surely the idea of bringing a man back to life must of come from at least talking and reading about the use of electricity. This was the topic of conversation for high society and the Romantics.

Whatever the influence, we have Mary Shelley to thank for the invention of the “mad scientist”, and for being the first to explore the horrors of science gone bad.

Tag: books

Women’s History Month- Margaret Mitchell

Women’s History Month – Mary Shelley

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