It's certainly a Doorstopper, isn't it?
Scarlett, while self-centered and vain, does have some admirable traits. She's always the one who adapts, the one who copes. She keeps Tara, she keeps the family together. She's a really strong character. Not particularly nice, but mainly admirable for being The Determinator, and she does have some moments where she appreciates others or her conscience pricks her. (Mostly neglects her children, though, that's true.)
I've always felt that Melanie was set up to be this unrealistic angelic figure, and it kind of fails, if you look at some of her thoughts/actions in the book. Not that she's a bad character, but she's not completely ideal, either.
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.Maybe it was just that I was reading it at like 13 on summer vacation. I also have a very short — hey look, a quarter!
Melanie, I think, is more what antebellum Southern society thought a proper Southern belle should be like. So she comes off as more virtuous than Scarlett, but less able to adapt to the rapidly changing times. Despite her many flaws, Scarlett is the one who moves forward, who succeeds in adapting to her new circumstances and getting back on her feet.
Agreed. Both Ashley and Melanie are portrayed as admirable, but unequipped to function outside the rarefied environment that vanished from under them, and isn't coming back. They're like walking ghosts by the end, honourable revenants from somewhere else. As a young man named Cole would later put it, "they don't know they're dead."
I always smirk at one point where Scarlett and Melanie meet an old friend- Cathleen, I think- who is now poor. Melanie is immediately like "oh, let's take her in". Mundane thoughts such as "extra mouth to feed" or "I myself live on Scarlett's philanthropy" don't even cross her mind. Scarlett is really indignant about it in her head.
Melanie is very good with Scarlett's children, though. Probably part of her being a nice person in general. She does have a not-nice moment when she says about that soldier Scarlett shot "I'm glad you killed him". And heaven defend anyone who attacks Scarlett herself. I always thought she was rather harsh with India about that Scarlett-Ashley business.
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.It's been a long time since I read the book or saw the movie, but I interpreted Melanie as being a lot more pragmatic than Scarlett was willing to give her credit for. She knows that Scarlett has a thing for Ashley, but that Ashley ultimately loves her (Melanie), so she's willing to turn a blind eye to Scarlett hanging around her husband, and does some fairly ruthless things (like the birthday party invitation) to keep everybody's reputation clean.
She doesn't have Scarlett's survival skills, but I think she's one of the few people who recognizes the value of those survival skills; Ashley always seemed to be kind of bewildered by Scarlett's periods of success and Rhett both loves Scarlett and kind of resents her for being too much like him (apart from being aggravated by her more irrational behavior and her treatment of her children).
Since she keeps up that nice-Southern-lady facade at all times, it is something you kind of have to read between the lines, using that deathbed confession as a decoder ring. And it could just be Epileptic Trees on my part.
I agree completely with Odadune.
However, I always saw it as Melanie having a practical, adaptable side, but she ignores it in certain crucial moments. Scarlett has a tender, vulnerable side, but she ignores it in certain crucial moments. Note that I don't say that Scarlett has a kind or loving side, she doesn't. If she had the means, she'd be a complete monster, it's only circumstance that prevents her from being able to be a true complete monster.
I interpreted it as Melanie acting as a Morality Pet to Scarlett, curbing some of her more self-destructive and cruel tendencies and Scarlett acting as the Practicality Pet to Melanie, getting her to make the necessary sacrifices to survive.
In the end, it's still a poorly written book about nasty, unlikeable characters doing cruel things to each other and having terrible things happen to them. Didn't like the story, didn't like the characters, hated Scarlett, despised the setting, don't see why people think it is a masterpiece.
Seriously, murdering a Northern soldier is a good thing? Slavery is a good thing?
This book has an undeserved reputation as a masterpiece; what it is poorly-written historical revisionism glorifying a racist, classist, slavery-based way of life. It has supplanted actual history in many people's minds.
edited 17th Sep '12 6:21:51 PM by ATC
If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books![]()
The two aren't contradictory. A book can be literarily significant—even great—and also promote sociopolitical ideas that are noxious (or that simply rub half the audience the wrong way). A book can be both well written and uncongenial to a reader's worldview (or to current political notions).
Mitchell's certainly no Homer, but The Iliad is notably a work about "nasty, unlikeable characters doing cruel things to each other and having terrible things happen to them"; it glorifies "a racist, classist, slavery-based way of life, and "has supplanted actual history in many people's minds." No one likes Achilles. Liking him was never the point.
About the Scarlett/Ashley thing, I interpreted Melanie as being honestly clueless. :-/ Maybe I'm naive.
The book does present slavery and racism (and marital rape) as if they're acceptable, but... back then, they more or less were. It's not a case of softening things, it's a case of Values Dissonance. The novel is full of horrible people, but that doesn't in itself decrease its literary value. And I don't think it's fair to expect a novelist to write accurate history. That's a historian's job.
edited 18th Sep '12 10:34:50 AM by AnEditor
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.

Besides, a lot of people LIKE loooong books. If they're good.