Gone With the Wind, an all-time best-seller by Margaret
Mitchell, is a legendary recollection of the last brilliance of the Old
South. The writer's debut novel was an instant success. And the
story has been bestowed an even further reaching popularity since
Vivian Leigh presented a vivid translation to the screen of Katie
Scarlett O'Hara, a southern belle raised in her father's white-pillared
plantation Tara. A climax of Hollywood, from Director Victor
Fleming for MGM, Gone with the Wind is more than a vicissitude,
it is also an old, lost culture revisited.
It is Old South, which today is no more than a dream
remembered. People were once there, living with the high strong
slaves' songs in the quarters, in security, peace and eternity. Here,
Scarlett spends her young maiden years. She is well disciplined by
her mother, but her blazing green eyes always betray her covert
capricious self; the one who enjoys parties and the surrounding
ofbeaus. She dreams to marry the noble Ashley Wilkes. The
impending war shatters the golden peace of the South, and leaves
many lives permanently changed. Plantations, treasures, and honor
are ruined. Scarlett is made a most peculiar widow by the war, and
then compelled into a second marriage in continuation of her
struggle for the salvation of Tara. And her third marriage to Rhett
Butler is also jeopardized because of her secret, stubborn ardency
for Ashley.
In the end of the movie, Scarlett is left only with her Tara, a
plantation which symbolizes the culture of the Old South, a place
where she could ever gather her strength.
Chapter 1 Scarlett's Jealousy
(Tara is the beautiful homeland of Scarlett, who is now talking with
the twins, Brent and Stew, at the door step.) BRENT: What do we
care if we were expelled from college, Scarlett. The war is going to
start anyday now so we would have left college anyhow.
STEW: Oh, isn't it exciting, Scarlett? You know those poor Yankees
actually want a war? BRENT: We'll show 'em.
SCARLETT: Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk is
spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could
scream. Besides, there isn't going to be any war.
BRENT: Not going to be any war? STEW: Ah, buddy, of course
there's going to be a war. SCARLETT: If either of you boys says
"war" just once again, I'll go in the house and slam the door. BRENT:
But Scarlett honey.. STEW: Don't you want us to have a war?
BRENT: Wait a minute, Scarlett... STEW: We'll talk about this...
BRENT: No please, we'll do anything you say... SCARLETT: Well-
but remember I warned you. BRENT: I've got an idea. We'll talk
about the barbecue the Wilkes are giving over at Twelve Oaks
tomorrow. STEW: That's a good idea. You're eating barbecue with
us, aren't you, Scarlett?
SCARLETT: Well, I hadn't thought about that yet, I'll...I'll think about
that tomorrow.
STEW: And we want all your waltzes, there's first Brent, then me,
then Brent, then me again, then Saul. Promise? SCARLETTT:I'just
love to. STEW: Yahoo!
SCARLETT: If only ..if only I didn't have every one of them taken
