Scarlett O'Hara as Confederate woman.(The Evolution of War and Its Representation in Literature and Film)(Critical essay)

Admittedly, when one is asked to think of a war movie Gone With the Wind does not immediately come to mind. (1) The movie's designation as a "woman's film" typically negates its membership within the masculine war movie genre. Moreover, the iconic image of Scarlett O'Hara as southern belle "fiddle-dee-deeing" on her beloved plantation, Tara, has captured the imagination of students of popular culture and authors of academic literature more than the image of Scarlett as war movie heroine. The Old South or "Lost Cause" imagery of the book and movie has received critical analysis, inspiring such creative titles as The Roots of Tara, Tara Revisited, and my personal favorite, Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore. (2) Literary scholars and historians of women's history continue to debate the representational significance of the Scarlett O'Hara character; she is often classified as a misrepresentation of antebellum southern women or the embodiment of white southern womanhood that has historically justified the oppression of African-Americans. On the other extreme, she has been honored with the title of feminist. Yet, Scarlett O'Hara as an accurate representation of Confederate women during the Civil War has earned less attention.

The movie offers two historically debatable perspectives of Confederate women during the Civil War: one perspective offered by Scarlett and the other represented by every other white female character. (3) The South has a long legacy of pride in the resiliency of Confederate women, women who sacrificed their husbands and sons, their homes, and their lives for the Southern cause. Female characters that are the embodiment of the self-sacrificing Confederate woman surround Scarlett throughout the movie. Melanie Wilkes, especially, symbolizes the elite southern woman that twentieth-century historians have authenticated and celebrated. In contrast to the honored women of the Confederacy, Scarlett stands alone in her indifference. Her very first line in the movie betrays her commitment to the southern cause, "Fiddle-dee-dee! War, War, Wart This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring! I get so bored I could scream!" (Howard 1). Once the war erupts, Scarlett appears even more vain and ungrateful amongst the Atlanta women who selflessly contribute all to the Confederacy. Even Belle Watling, the classic "whore-with-a-heart-of-gold" figure, shows a deeper sense of loyalty than Scarlett.

A closer look at southern history, however, suggests that more women shared Scarlett's perspective of war and the Confederacy than many southerners cared to admit. Even author Margaret Mitchell felt Melanie Wilkes was her story's true heroine (Taylor 78). Before the Civil War altered gender roles, white southern women had accepted their subordination (at least publicly) as natural. In a sort of "patriarchal bargain," women exchanged their self-abnegation for the care and protection of their men. With southern secession, they entered into a similar bargain with their new country. (4) Women agreed to obey new dictates of female behavior in exchange for the Confederacy's care and protection. Eventually, however, the Confederacy reneged on its promises and subordination felt more like abandonment when the government left women to fend for themselves. When the Confederacy failed to honor its obligation to southern women, the women failed to honor their obligations to it. Scarlett no longer stands alone when a historical perspective recognizes the presence of women who challenged or completely abandoned the ideal model of Confederate womanhood. Instead history reveals Confederate women who shared Scarlett's criticism of the war, her aversion to nursing, and the belief that the responsibilities of managing a plantation of slaves far outweighed the merits of the South's "peculiar institution" and a blind dedication to a lost way of life.

"You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night." Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara after escaping Atlanta and the Union army. (Howard 94)

Certainly the novel follows the sentimentalized Old South formula first made popular by late nineteenth-century southern writers and historians; legend contends that Margaret Mitchell was ten years old before she learnt that the South had actually lost the war (Lambert 22). Although Mitchell prided herself on the historical accuracy of her novel, she never claimed to be a professional historian. She wanted instead to be judged on the merits of her storytelling. And fans of her story, including a few professional historians, have willingly overlooked the historical misrepresentations present in the novel. They hesitate to criticize Margaret Mitchell for adopting what was a standard interpretation of southern history in the early twentieth-century (Castel 87). Despite any literary defense of the novel, however, Hollywood effectively affixed in our collective imaginations the presumable truth of Mitchell's story (Clinton 21; Diffley 366, 371-72). The epic movie visually transforms a regional history into a national southern past and embodies everything one may associate with the South-fact or fiction (Fox-Genovese 397). For three hours and forty minutes, the travails of Atlanta, Tara, and their citizens symbolize the plight of the entire South. Moreover, the history becomes a feminized history linked as it is to the struggle of women left behind during the war; Scarlett's story is intertwined with the South's story. (5) As Atlanta burns and Tara faces devastation, she is witness and commentator to the destruction of the Old South. Rhett Butler stresses this pivotal movement in the movie as they flee the flames of Atlanta and the approaching Yankee army. "Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night." Eventually, of course, the new rises from the ashes of the old and Scarlett's history remains aligned with Atlanta's as they both rebuild under Reconstruction and tie their destinies to a New South.

The movie's interpretation of southern history has deservedly received intense criticism. Scathing scrutiny of its perpetuation of the plantation myth, its paternalistic portrayal of the institution of slavery, and its depiction of post-antebellum race relations, has labeled the Hollywood epic "southern propaganda" and even "Confederate porn" (Clinton 203-04). The movie's set design even surprised Margaret Mitchell. After seeing pictures of the Tara and Twelve Oaks designs, she joked of founding a society named, "The Association of …