Gone with the Wind and Jubilee- Race Issues
Common Ties within the Races
Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction are general ideas that are subjects in many novels written in the past. Two influential and controversial novels that these themes are present in are Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Jubilee by Margaret Walker. These books take place in the same time period, but show different views that took place in these times. Gone With the Wind tells about the lives of white southerners and Jubilee talks of the African-American slaves. The novels individually address separate real life issues of land, family and community; which affected the every day lives of their characters. Gone With the Wind’s main character Scarlett O’Hara is a pretty southern belle whose first impression to the reader is as a spoiled girl who cares for nobody but herself. As the novel continues it’s shown that this isn’t exactly true, she has more passions in life. Gone With the Wind has a main theme of land possession and love for land as the book continues. As foreshadowed in Chapter 2, Gerald tells Scarlett that she doesn’t need love; land will be the only thing that ever means anything. He says, “But there, you’re young. ‘Twill come to you, this love of land. There’s no getting away from it…” (Mitchell 39). At first Scarlett doesn’t believe this to be true, but with the continuation of the novel it’s found to be the exact thing that Scarlett lives her life for. After she escaped from the war and returned to Tara where she laid on the Earth and rested her check against the ground, it was made known to her that her father’s words were true, and there was nothing better than the land of Tara; of home. After being at Tara for some time, the news arrives that the taxes of Tara have been raised and the O’Hara’s are no longer going to be able to afford the land. When Will came in and asked Scarlett how much money she had, the reader knew something was wrong. Then he exclaimed, “…They’re runnin’ the
Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction are general ideas that are subjects in many novels written in the past. Two influential and controversial novels that these themes are present in are Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Jubilee by Margaret Walker. These books take place in the same time period, but show different views that took place in these times. Gone With the Wind tells about the lives of white southerners and Jubilee talks of the African-American slaves. The novels individually address separate real life issues of land, family and community; which affected the every day lives of their characters. Gone With the Wind’s main character Scarlett O’Hara is a pretty southern belle whose first impression to the reader is as a spoiled girl who cares for nobody but herself. As the novel continues it’s shown that this isn’t exactly true, she has more passions in life. Gone With the Wind has a main theme of land possession and love for land as the book continues. As foreshadowed in Chapter 2, Gerald tells Scarlett that she doesn’t need love; land will be the only thing that ever means anything. He says, “But there, you’re young. ‘Twill come to you, this love of land. There’s no getting away from it…” (Mitchell 39). At first Scarlett doesn’t believe this to be true, but with the continuation of the novel it’s found to be the exact thing that Scarlett lives her life for. After she escaped from the war and returned to Tara where she laid on the Earth and rested her check against the ground, it was made known to her that her father’s words were true, and there was nothing better than the land of Tara; of home. After being at Tara for some time, the news arrives that the taxes of Tara have been raised and the O’Hara’s are no longer going to be able to afford the land. When Will came in and asked Scarlett how much money she had, the reader knew something was wrong. Then he exclaimed, “…They’re runnin’ the