Gone With The Wind posted by Allison Dew

Gone with the Wind is a civil war novel full of love stories, overcoming adversity, and testing old morals. It portrays numerous characters that face the new “southern character” during the war between the free north and the enslaved south, otherwise known as the Civil War. Margret Mitchell depicts the struggles that many Southerners had post-civil war. Through the persistent theme of overcoming adversities, Mitchell instills the fear that white-southerners had with the drastic changes that followed the end of the Civil War. The characters are symbols of old meets new values. They test each other’s morals and values through their relationships in the novel.


Through out the novel Gone with the Wind, Mitchell portrays the women as strong and independent for their time. During the Civil War era, women were not seen as equal in intelligence and vigor as men. However, many of the women, especially Scarlett, are depicted as cunning and witty. Scarlett takes over the mill, and shows that she can persevere and run the mill successfully.

With the underlying themes in Gone with the Wind, and the symbolism of characters, I think that this Civil War novel is definitely worth reading. Margret Mitchell’s depiction of life during and after the Civil War really lets the reader into the lives of these people who are battling their instilled morals and makes them question their beliefs. With the ideas of love and new changes, Gone with the Wind gets put on the top of my reading list.