Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind

July 1, 2014

 

             Gone with the Wind is considered one of Hollywood’s best films. This movie is often in film critics top ten films. What the movie does is show an excellent equivalence of meaning between the source text and its novel counterpart. The novel’s theme of survival is seen through the eyes of the heroine of the movie, Scarlett O Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler. The film, like the novel, is about Scarlett O Hara, a spoiled Southern belle who uses her good looks and flirtatious ways to get her way.  Scarlett is in love with a man, Ashley Wilkes, who marries his cousin, gross, Melanie Hamilton. Scarlett marries men to get what she wants to get away from her sisters. Plus Scarlett loves money. The movie and novel takes place right before, during, and after the American Civil War. During the war the audience watches as Scarlett flirts with men and marries men in order to survive. One man sees Scarlett for who she really is, this man is Rhett Butler. Rhett Butler loves Scarlett and all her faults but ultimately, like Scarlett, finds the strength for his own survival. The author of the novel, Margaret Mitchell, was a grandchild of a woman who lived and survived the American Civil War. Mitchell’s grandmother taught her to use her brains for survival, something Mitchell imbued into the character of Scarlett in the novel and something at the screenwriter did with the movie script. The movie is universally loved because we all have to use our brain for survival.

            Scarlett O Hara famous speech, “As God as my witness speech” only proves the equivalence of meaning between novel and film adaptation. In the novel, Scarlett uses her wit, her intelligence, her southern belle charm to go try to secure funds from wealthy relatives. They turn her down. When this happens she marries Frank Kennedy, not for love, but for money. She did what she had to do for survival and to keep her family alive. Scarlett did what she said she would but it kept her alive and she survived the hardships and hell of war and despair. Scarlett was not the only survivor in the movie. The movie made Rhett Butler a survivor too. Rhett survived Scarlett and the war. Rhett used his intelligence and money to win Scarlett over and he survived Scarlett unloving attitude toward him. It took Melanie’s death for Scarlett to wise up to realize she loved Rhett. Rhett had to make a decision to fight or flight for survival and he fled. Rhett just “didn’t give a damn”.  Rhett put up his best fight and survived to live another day.  Scarlett’s last speech only solidifies Margret Mitchell’s and the screenwriter theme of survival. “Tomorrow is another day” Yes, life sucks at the moment but I will survive and I will fight for my place.