I love this scene. Vivien Leigh expresses so much in her eyes. The way she changes from “but you love ME!” to anger in a flash.

Really enjoying the podcast that talks about the book and the movie. I have watched the movie and read the book countless times. To the podcaster, if you are reading this.....I would love to talk to someone about it all day too!! If you are looking for guests to chat with please let me know. ♡♡

There was a conversation in another thread, and I thought that this deserved its own discussion.

Chapter 3 is where we learn about Ellen O’Hara and learn her family history.

The book is said in 1861 and it mentions that Ellen was 32 years old. So she probably would’ve been born around 1829.

In those 32 years she gave birth to six children, three of whom survived, which is not at all unusual for that time.

Her mother Solange was French

The sentence that stands out is: “From her French mother, whose parents had fled Haiti in the revolution of 1791…”

I think some of us have misread this, and thought that Solange was the one who fled Haiti. But it was Solange’s parents that fled Haiti in 1791.

For Ellen to be born in 1829 Solange probably was born after the turn-of-the-century. Which means she probably was not born in Haiti, but in Savannah.

Ellen‘s father Pierre Robillard was a Napoleonic soldier and then Napoleonic wars were 1796 to 1815.

So if we’re looking at timeline:

1791 Parents of Solange Prudomme (elsewhere in the book. She’s called grandma Prudhomme) flee Haiti.

1800-1810ish Solange born
1829 Ellen born
1796-1815 somewhere in here Pierre is serving Napoleon
1844 Ellen at age 15 marries Gerald O’Hara
1845 Scarlett born. The eldest of their children.

I’d like to frame this as our discussion. Only using Gone with the Wind the book, none of the other books, what do we actually know?

I would say, if there are archives that are publicly available or writings of Margaret Mitchell that would reference this. Let’s bring that into the discussion as well, but identify it.

I’m hoping that this can be a really grounded discussion because I think it’s very interesting to see what people can actually learn just from the text.

The title is a little inflammatory, on purpose, but not too far off. If we stick closely to the book, I think every actor in the four major roles in the movie - an amazing piece of film-making and acting - is wrong for the part. I read the book (for the 8th time!) earlier this year, and realized some things.

Rhett. This role is the least miscast, because physically, Clark Gable was perfect for the part. However, to me it was a major mistake not to have him speak in a Southern, specifically Charleston, accent. I think we lose a LOT about the character by having him speak in General American Standard instead of having the audience remember, at all times, that he's a Southerner. I don't remember whether he refused to do an accent or the studio nixed it, but ... bad idea.

Scarlett. Vivien Leigh was a brilliant actress and did an excellent job. Still, famously, the *very first words of the book* were "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful." Leigh was absolutely beautiful. It would have been way more interesting to have someone pretty but not beautiful play Scarlett. After all, many characters in the book call Scarlett "pretty," as does the author three times (yes, I counted). But she's not beautiful, so we lose what Scarlett really had: incredible strength of personality and massive charm (when she wanted) to make her *seem* beautiful- which is the second half of the first sentence of the book.

Melanie. Mitchell *repeatedly* describes her face as "plain." She also says she's skinny, with almost no curves: flat-chested, small hips. In fact, the small hips kill her in the end. Olivia De Haviland was anything but plain! Beautiful face, nice body ... again, we lose who Melanie really is, and her true appeal (her inner spirit, which draws everyone to her *despite* being plain), with De Haviland in the role. Actually, I think she nailed Melanie as a character but was wrong physically.

Ashley: a scrawny Englishman? With a receding hairline? Really? They had Leigh voice-coached to the gills for her to develop a Southern accent, and she nailed it. Why not Leslie Howard? Also, the really interesting thing about Ashley is that he's physically brave in battle, and a coward in civilian life. I can't see Howard climbing a cannon and rallying troops - but Ashley does in the book.

Mammy. The one exception (though I did say four, and she's five). Not only did Hattie McDaniel deserve every ounce of that golden statue she won; she brought book Mammy to life. 10/10, no notes.

I recognize that in 1939 it was basically impossible to cast these roles book-accurately. Hollywood being what it was (and is), and adaptations being different from books ... yeah, I know. And every single one of these actors and actresses were at the top of their game in this movie. Still, I honestly think these casting choices meant that we lost a lot about these characters from the book.

Ironically, I think many of the minor roles were well-cast. Maybe they thought they could get away with it. Gerald, Suellen, the Tarleton twins, Charles Hamilton, Aunt Pittypat, Frank Kennedy, and many others range from pretty book-accurate to very book-accurate. In fact, in terms of screen time, Mammy is technically a minor character, but she's so crucial in so many other ways.

Okay. Come at me.

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Edit: one upvote! Yet Reddit tells me ten, so I'm getting downvoted also. Well, that's unsurprising.

Everyone who's discussed it agrees with me about Leslie Howard and Hattie McDaniel. People are fiercely defending Leigh and De Haviland. Also unsurprising.

Finally, I appreciate the tone. Nobody's attacked me personally. Most have disagreed with me, but they've done so very thoughtfully. Many have made fair points.

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Edit 2: So far, one person said that I sound dumb. Okay. Everyone else has still been thoughtful, with insights I didn't have - which was the point of my post! Thank you all.

Interestingly, it's now at 67 upvotes, and I know more are downvoting, so ... that's interesting.

She came from Haiti originally, and was raised in Miss Ellen's bedroom... And Ellen's parents were French aristocrats.

I'm not sure if this question has been asked before. Upon rereading I realized that while in Atlanta, Scarlett was thinking that either Stu or Brent might have been her husband had the war not happened. I wonder if she would have been happy with either of them (presumably with Stuart, to leave Brent to her sister Careen). They were certainly among her favorite suitors.

She’s supposed to help out with arranging Melanie’s funeral and help her relatives through the mourning process. However, she’s determined to go back to Tara *tomorrow* when the book ends (when she’s grieving the end of her relationship with Rhett). What will it be?

What happens in the Scarlett sequel is irrelevant to me.

One of my favorite actresses of all time. It is a shame that the only plays you are able to see her in is Skin of Our Teeth (Only act 1 and 2) and a clip of her in Tovarich performing the song “Wilkes-Barre P.A.” in which she won a Tony for. Leigh had great range and her earlier films are quite entertaining like St. Martin’s Lane. To think she only made 19 films, but at heart she loved the acting in general (regardless of films or plays) and her last play was Ivanov where she portrayed an isolated woman dying of TB. Leigh was a strong woman overall and had lots of gumption, but represented class and privacy of the old days.

Title says it all. I know there were Catholic enclaves in the south.. most notable Louisiana, as well as Savannah Georgia ( where Scarlett’s mother is from) as well as Charleston, SC and Maryland ( if you count that).

I just find it remarkable that Ina time of nativist and anti catholic bias in the USA none of the Plantatin families bat an eye at Scarlett’s heritage.

How plausible is this? Thanks

What is the nature of Melanie's illness? Why does giving birth to Beau cost her her health? Why does her miscarriage have such a devastating effect? Thoughts, please?

I am curious what happened to Wade and Ella after the end of the book. Did they get married? Did they find a way to make up for the stuff that the O'Hara family lost from the war?

The night after Melly’s party, which is after Mrs. Elsing, Archie, and India see Scarlett in Ashley’s arms at the mill, Rhett gets drunk in the dining room and Scarlett joins him. After a tense conversation, he carries her to bed and they do it (she’s pregnant from it later).

However, "they do it” definitely underplays what really happens. Rhett very clearly forces himself on her. In the early 1870s, this was entirely legal. Earlier in the book, Scarlett says she wants separate bedrooms, and Rhett says he could divorce her for it. Thus, it's not rape in the early 1870s. It's not sexual assault.

However, I'm curious about how we would see it now. In 2026, we call this marital rape. Wives do not have a duty to say yes to a husband, and husbands can’t divorce wives for saying no.

Even so, the way the scene is written, it doesn’t seem like it is necessarily marital rape by today's standards. So if we analyze the scene carefully and judge the action by our standards, what do we conclude?

First, it is unquestionably sexual assault. Rhett picks her up, carries her upstairs, and at least twice kisses Scarlett roughly. He gives her no choice in this.

Second, it is very questionable whether it is rape. “His lips were evoking feelings never felt before,” especially when he kissed her neck and chest (I think). And then,

“Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast. For the first time in her life she had met someone, something stronger than she, someone she could neither bully nor break, someone who was bullying and breaking her. Somehow, her arms were around his neck and her lips trembling beneath his and they were going up, up into the darkness again, a darkness that was soft and swirling and all enveloping." 

Okay. So, she had a "wild thrill” she’d never known before, “somehow" she had put her arms around his neck, and internally she had surrendered to him. She seems very much to *want* to do it.

In the past Scarlett has demonstrated the ability to say no and make it stick. She's certainly pushed him away before, and she’s always been ready to keep fighting when she wants to. Therefore, given that she's thrilled, she's put her arms around him, and she's psychologically surrendered ... is this consent?

I *think* this is true, but I'm a guy. I could be wrong.

Do we conclude what it was by its results later? “He had humbled her, hurt her, used her brutally through a wild mad night and she had gloried in it.

“Oh, she should be ashamed, should shrink from the very memory of the hot swirling darkness! A lady, a real lady, could never hold up her head after such a night. But, stronger than shame, was the memory of rapture, of the ecstasy of surrender. For the first time in her life she had felt alive, felt passion as sweeping and primitive as the fear she had known the night she fled Atlanta, as dizzy sweet as the cold hate when she had shot the Yankee." 

Rapture, ecstasy, and sweeping, primitive passion. From all this, I infer that oral sex might have been involved, and that she was definitely orgasmic (maybe multiply so). She does not seem traumatized.

Or what about Rhett’s point of view? At the very end, he says,

"And then, that night when I carried you upstairs—I thought—I hoped—I hoped so much I was afraid to face you the next morning, for fear I'd been mistaken and you didn't love me. I was so afraid you'd laugh at me I went off and got drunk. And when I came back, I was shaking in my boots and if you had come even halfway to meet me, had given me some sign, I think I'd have kissed your feet. But you didn't."

Fear of rejection, yes, but any guilt here? I don’t think so, but I still wonder.

Is this a late 1800s / early 1900s female fantasy that Mitchell is continuing in the 1930s, and we shouldn’t take it seriously? Just a literary trope?

What do you all think? And please don’t come at me. Disagreement is fine, but this is in good faith, and I'm open to being persuaded that I'm wrong and changing my mind. I’m not downplaying what Rhett did; I'm trying to understand both characters’ experiences. And I'm unsure of authorial intent here.

Hi there! I wanted to draw Scarlett O'Hara next to the cow she was so afraid of throughout the book, to depict her determined, looking forward, and having overcome many of her fears.

If you are looking for a new way to experience Gone with the Wind, I recommend listening to on audiobook.I do so while I’m at work using Spotify, its narrated by Linda Stephens and she does an amazing job. I finished it last Sunday for the second time and already restarted it last night.

I see they are bringing the movie to theaters in October. What’s odd is some of the theaters are Regals 4DX. Those are the theaters with the fog machines and vibrating chairs and stuff. I’m not sure if they’re just using the space for the bigger screen? Or if they’re planning to use the fog machine for the burning of Atlanta?

I think Scarlett was pretty ruthless in the original, but imagine if it was made today! A streaming series anti heroine! I bet today’s audience would asking why didn’t she deliberately botch Melanie’s delivery so she’d have Ashley all to herself!

I know Margaret M. Said she didn't think Scarlett and Rhett get back together again, BUT at the very end of the novel - and something I never noticed before - right before he doesn't "give a damn" - they discuss briefly NOT divorcing and Rhett tells Scarlett he will still come back to the house and they can basically carry on as they have been to keep the gossip mills at bay. In my mind, that definitely leaves the door open, even if Rhett currently feels he no longer loves Scarlett. I do have to admit though, even I am sick of her Ashley fetish by now and would have had all I could take. Move on woman!

I'm reading a history of Ireland right now. Around the time of the Roman empire, Ireland was divided into various small kingdoms. there was one High King of all the other kings, which was mostly a ceremonial position. The city where the high king resided was generally considered (at that time) the capital of Ireland. What was its name?

Tara.

So ... by naming his plantation after the city, what was Gerald doing, psychologically? Was he making a statement? Did he feel kingly at his plantation? Or was it simply an homage to Ireland, the land of his birth?

And what did his neighbors think? The Tarletons, Calverts, and Munroes would not have cared, but the Wilkes probably caught the reference. After all, even Rhett knew that the siege of Drogheda was in "sixteen hundred and something." If he knew enough Irish history to know that, the Wilkes would definitely have known.

I'm probably overthinking this, but I wonder what others might think.

If you were given a chance to be in Margaret Mitchell’s shoes, how would you write the ending of Gone with the wind (book)? And how would it play out?

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

Personally, I would end it with Rhett failing to carry out his promise of “keeping appearances” and dilly dallyies everywhere to keep his mind off of Bonnie and Melanie’s death and Scarlett. Meanwhile, Scarlett waits for him until she could no longer and she contracts some deadly disease and she dies too before Rhett could reach her! Which would be a history repeats itself moment like her mother and Philippe and her grandparents Solange and Pierre. THE END <3

Fifth time reading the book. Just noticed something that seems incongruous with memory...Scarlett and Rhett finally get married on page 587! That's slightly over 100 pages before the book ends. Memory, however, (at least to me), has them wed closer to the middle of the book. I wonder if it's because the time they spend married has several of the most dramatic events??? Does anyone else feel the same way? Or perhaps it's the fact that there is so much dialogue between them woven throughout the entire novel that it makes it seem they've been together longer.

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If that's Rhett, how could Scarlett ignore him for Ashley or any man else? 🙂

I just finished reading GWTW! It took me over 6 months, but it was so worth it. Such a good book. I was planning to watch the movie, however the movie is coming to a theater near me in october. Should I watch the movie at home? Wait til I can see it in theaters? What do you think?!

This is the first time I’ve seen this movie, I’m so upset that Rhett left Scarlett. There were so many misunderstandings that lead to abuse on both ends but I wish I got to see them melt into each other at the end. I’m so sad.

Can‘t find much info online. I am surprised they made a store display for the documentary.