Talk:Gone with the Wind (novel)

Today I moved the section "Plot summary" (2010/2011) from the top into chronological order. -P64 2012-01-28.

It begins!

This article has long disappointed me. Having just finished the book, the biggest honour I could do it is fix this article up. My ultimate aim is make it featured article-worthy.

To do:

• Rewrite plot summary.
• Rewrite character descriptions.
• Add stuff. Cite everything.
• Reorganise to conform to WP:Novels structure standards.
• Tweak Infobox. (Ironically, I was the one who put it there initially. :P)

Spamguy 22:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting that Wikipedia has entries on TV soap opera characters that are much more fleshed out than these iconic ones. Personally, I don't see how Mammy should not be consider a major, not minor character. And virtually no information given.

Page numbers

Giving page numbers in reference to a particular passage in the novel has only a limited use. There are many different editions of the novel, with different page numberings. It would be more useful to list the chapter number, since those do not change from edition to edition. — Walloon 05:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Prisoners of war

I have removed a long section that violates Wikipedia rules against original research, and that fails to take a neutral point of view.

Some examples from the deleted text:

Ms. Mithcell's political agenda causes her to bend history beyond fiction into outright lies upon the historical record. . . . The bitter historical truth of the failure of Officer Prisoner exchanges in the Civil War is based upon totally different set of historical facts that Ms. Mitchell had to ignore in order sustain the mountian of historical lies that are the "history" in her novel. . . . Where Ms. Mitchell gets the idea that Major Wilkes is not exchanged due to his noble intention to not be exchanged to fight for the Union is simply false. And hides the truth that Major Wilkes, and the cause he fought for was not noble in any way whatsoever

From a history of the Rock Island (Illinois) Civil War Prison Barracks:

During the twenty months, the active period of the prison, 12,409 prisoners had been confined. Of these, 730 were transferred to other stations; 3,876 were exchanged; 1,960 died while confined. 41 made their escape good; 5,581 were released after taking the amnesty oath; and approximately four thousand enlisted in the Union forces.

So yes, thousands of prisoners were exchanged, and thousands were released only after signing an amnesty oath, and thousands were enlisted in the Union forces. Nothing that Margaret Mitchell wrote in regard to Ashley's detention at Rock Island contradicts historical fact. — Walloon 22:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Trivia: Ending changes - need sources

An interesting bit of trivia that I once saw on a documentary program was that in the first draft, Ms. Mitchell ended the book at the "I don't give a damn" line, but that her editor or publisher convinced her that she couldn't end the book on such a down note. At that point, she wrote the "tomorrow will be a better day" ending.

Alas, I don't have a citation for this (and it may be a myth in any event), so I'll put it here in the hopes that someone can confirm it.

Nsayer 20:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler Warning

Maybe a warning should be given as the whole plot is revealed...? Some people may acidentally read-on, and this may cause some disappointment.213.78.134.245 12:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it. The section heading says "Plot summary" and there's no need to rub it in. The book was written seventy years ago so it's not exactly the latest episode of Doctor Who. --Tony Sidaway 23:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

With so many editions of this book out there, it's physically impossible to know how many printings there have been.Alli0323 17:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

A question and a comment

There is no history of the publication of this major American novel. How many printings were made? How does it compare to other best sellers? How many languages was it translated into? I ask these question because I am sure the answers are not only important, but astonishing. The success of this novel was so amazing it was said no other work of fiction (other than the Bible) has outsold GWTW. Also, what impact did GWTW have on American culture? Where and when was it referenced by others? These subjects need to be addressed.Buddmar 01:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)buddmar

Size of plot section

04-Dec-2007: I have been trying to warn against vanity-tags being posted onto WP articles. In particular, the tag-box "Plot section too long" seems such an obvious opinionated rant-style vanity posture, grandstanding over a plot section. A plot is, by common sense, a large part of the subject. If someone is asked to describe a novel, they rarely say, "It's about 300 pages, about 2 pounds, about 7x9 inches, with Garamond font titles, high-quality paper, printed in New York after the new publishing center was built which is staffed by 50 part-time employees..." On the contrary, the plot is the main thing (longest part) about describing a novel. For wiki-history, file those "plot-section-too-long" vanity tag-boxes under "Opinionated wiki concepts that went too far" and continued to make Wikipedia look like a joke to the world. Note that keeping WP focused into a common-sense, mainstream view, will help reduce the world's perception that Wikipedia is leading the way in cosmic jokes. The trouble is caused by relatively small fringe-oid groups that force their peculiar opinions on everyone else. Some have even claimed to me that their viewpoint was a newly emerging Wikipedia standard: rarely true. There are many, many, competing, sub-groups in Wikipedia formulating guidelines or proposed policies in diverging directions.

For now, I am adding a statement (to the article) that the plot of GWTW contains many details which have triggered spin-off concepts, parodies, and cultural influences over the past decades. Thus, removing the need to complain about the plot-size issue. Thank you for your patience in letting me explain my opinions on this matter. -Wikid77 13:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Symbolism section added

04-Dec-2007: I have added a section titled "Symbolism" to encourage expansion into a large section to offset that "Plot section too big for rest of article" viewpoint. There is only one source reference, so far. Remember that symbolism is a topic that must be accompanied by source references, or else unsourced statements can be quickly removed/reverted. Personal opinions, according to policy, cannot be inserted about literary symbolism for a Wikipedia article: all symbolism must be traced to outside, verifiable sources, preferably using ref-tag footnotes (using the meta tags "<ref> </ref>"). -Wikid77 13:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Symbolism Section

I just deleted a section added by anonymous User:208.58.8.35. It was uncited, and gave the appearance of perhaps being in violation of WP:OR. Someone might want to check it in the edit log, and see if they have sources to confirm it. I would have copied it here, but it was a little long. LonelyBeacon (talk) 15:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Navbox

A user created a navbox and inserted it into multiple mainspace articles in the form of a template.. anyway I have taken the liberty and moved the navbox to a template {{Gone with the Wind}}. I don't have these pages watched and I'm not knowledgeable in this particular topic so could somebody go over the template and fix, tweak, or AfD as needed? Thanks --ImmortalGoddezz (t/c) 23:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Timing Error

According to the book, Ashley came home on furlough for the Christmas immediately prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. That would have been Christmas 1862. Yet Melanie did not deliver her child until September 1864, which was during the Battle of Atlanta. This would have meant she was pregnant for 21 months. Margaret Mitchell later acknowledged the error, and it was corrected in the movie. There, Ashley came home on furlough for the Christmas immediately following the Battle of Gettysburg.

John Paul Parks (talk) 07:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

False. Margaret Mitchell made no such acknowledgement, because there is no such error. In the novel, the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863) occurs in Chapter 14. Ashley's Christmas furlough (December 1863) occurs in Chapter 15:

The army, driven back into Virginia, went into winter quarters on the Rapidan—a tired, depleted army since the defeat at Gettysburg— and as the Christmas season approached, Ashley came home on furlough.

Melanie delivers her child (September 1864) in Chapter 22. — Walloon (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Origional title

"Tomorrow is another day" is the original title of the book - if someone wants to add that in somewhere —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.19.198 (talk) 06:30, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Tara

Tara is named after the Hill of Tara in Ireland, not terra as in this article. Katana Geldar 10:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Date of publication

Shouldn't the dates of the first few reprints, number of sales, etc. be right at the top of this? Isn't that basic information about a book, especially a book as popular as this? It would also be relevant in discussions about the movie.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Alanevil (talk • contribs) 01:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

GWTW not Mitchell's only novel

Lost Laysen was written by Margaret Mitchell when she was 16 years old. The manuscript was given to Henry Love Angel, whose son brought it to the public in 1995. The published edition includes correspondence from Mitchell and Angel, and photographs of the author. Since nearly all of Margaret Mitchell's personal papers were destroyed, Lost Laysen offers a rare glimpse of the author in her formative years. --66.159.233.66 (talk) 06:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

And we have an article: Lost Laysen. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

... and according to that article, Lost Laysen is a novella, not a novel. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the book that different from the movie?

Newly inserted into lede:

Scarlett is a character who is wrought with the fear of fitting into society, especially after the death of her first husband. This obsession contributes to her decision to marry another man for money when her prized land, Tara, is becoming difficult to afford.

In the movie,Scarlet is a spoiled flirt who thinks the world revolves around her, and will do anything to make Ashley want her - including marrying her first husband to make him jealous. She is not wrought with fear, she shows little if any fear in the movie. She is upset after her husband dies because it spoils her social life - she must wear black & is expected to refrain from going to dances and parties.--JimWae (talk) 05:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Plot summary

Where can I find a complete summary of the book? I found a complete summary of the movie but I'm not sure if it has differences from the book —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.96.139.138 (talk) 12:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The Summary section is woefully short. GWTW runs close to a thousand pages and almost the whole summary only covers the first 150 pages. Even the fall of Atlanta (the last part of the summary) was before page 400. The summary makes no mention of the part of the novel set in the Reconstruction period (1865-1877). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.245.30.159 (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The summary section, though painstakingly written, is not well written at all. Can someone go through and clean it to make it an overarching summary rather than bogged down with details? Also, the book is divided in the five parts, and this summary badly needs that division. That division was lost sometime in August 2010 (by Hezzi, I think) and this was an extremely poor decision IMHO. The parts need to go back on. Anyone want to take this on? -- 58.38.213.12 (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

At this point, we need to take into consideration content that adds real value to the page from the viewer's perspective. Since the summary was updated, the page view statistics indicate about 30 percent increase in page views, which can be interpreted to mean we are headed in the right direction with the page. A 1000 page epic novel cannot be summarized into 2 paragraphs and retain any real value for the reader. Does adding the part numbers add real content value for the viewer? I don't think it does.Prairiegrl (talk) 11:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Page Views Month 2010 2011 % increase jan 77223 83308 8 feb 64064 96916 51 mar 69257 89451 29 apr 59733 114555 92 may 59753 87160 46 june 39161 78964 102 Prairiegrl (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I have to agree that the summary should be in five parts, just as the book is. I also agree with Prariegrl that the extended summary is more useful. An addition of dividers, however, does not mean a cutting back to the woefully brief version, I think it would help with the organization, just as it did in the novel itself. Yes, I think it does add real value.
As for using page stats to interpret that your way is the "right" way, since you're updating the page 3-10 times a day, you're presumably viewing the page several times that number a day, I'm not sure that this doesn't hurt your case since you're probably adding a significant percentage to that page stat all by yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.148.137 (talk) 04:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Slavery

I object to this sentence: "Mitchell almost entirely skipped over the subject of the morality of slavery or whether the South was justified in pursuing war against the North, preferring to allow the reader to decide these issues based upon the actions or inaction of the novel's characters." It's in the "Plot" section. I would say she does NOT skip over slavery's morality given how she presents the slaves in the novel, the way that some were happy in their enslavement, like Mammy and Big Sam. So I think the sentence should be removed as itself being a POV violation. The same is true for the assertion that she skipped over the issue of whether the South was justified.QuizzicalBee (talk) 23:16, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This is something that bothers me as well. Actually, I think this article needs its own section detailing some of the criticisms this novel has received for the way it portrayed the historical era (along with responses to those criticisms). I'm not sure what sources to cite or what to include in it though. Kevinatilusa —Preceding undated comment added 19:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC).

Sourcing

Just a reminder--Wikipedia's rules, not mine--We must source statements. It's very time consuming to do it after a new statement has been posted. If you would be so kind, please try to source the new statement when you add it, being careful not to add your interpretation of what is in the book. (Not to say, I haven't done it myself.) Thanks all.Prairiegrl (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Catholicism

Does anyone know why Margaret Mitchell made Scarlett and her family Catholic? Catholics were quite a minority in the antebellum South outside of New Orleans. What's more, devout Catholics like the O'Hara family members would have been loathe to marry outside their religion, something that's not an issue in the novel. Mitchell herself wasn't Catholic, and as far as I can tell she had no particular interest in the religion. --PROSA (talk) 01:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)PROSA

Mitchell was raised a Catholic. She was married twice, but divorced her first husband. The first marriage was annulled by the Catholic church. In the novel, it was Ellen O'Hara who was a devout Catholic, and later, Carreen. Ellen's father was a Protestant. Scarlett's father, Gerald, wanted her to marry a boy from the neighboring plantation so they could join their property together or marry one of the Tarleton's, who were well-off. He was more interested in having Scarlett marry into money and property than her marrying a Catholic. Prairiegrl (talk) 19:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The Harris Poll involves 2,513 people.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,513 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive® between March 11 and 18, 2008. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080408005148/en/Bible-Americas-Favorite-Book-Wind

• Is a single poll involving 2,513 people in a nation of over 300 million valid? Dream Focus 14:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I think so, most of the major polling organizations in the U.S. use similar (or smaller) sample sizes. See here for example. Qrsdogg (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a question of elementary probability and statistics, and is covered in topics like population sampling, standard error, and confidence intervals. But a non-numerical approach which might help by way of analogy, is this: Suppose you took a teaspoon of water out of a small pond and tasted it, you would know right away whether it came from a fresh-water pond, or an estuary containing sea water, right? Now, how much water would you need to take out of the Pacific Ocean and taste (in a blind test in a lab) to be reasonably certain whether it was freshwater or seawater? Several boatloads? No--the same teaspoon of water would be enough, even though the Pacific ocean is zillions of times as big as the pond. Hth, Mathglot (talk) 07:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

* * *

Talk Page Cleanup

FYI I have gone through and deleted ten sections of this talk page that are irrelevant or out of date, so the remaining relevant issues on this page are easier to see. Just so you know, those sections were:

2 Separation (of book and movie). Suggestion already implemented.
7 Lynda Soper (old vandalism / mistake). Already fixed.
10 Fayetteville (old mistake). Already fixed.
12 Size of plot section (I moved it so that it's next to the summary edit point at #1)
18 Rhett Buttler (controversy of opinion / not canon). Already fixed.
19 Children born? (old mistake/question). Already fixed.
20 First paragraph, standard info. Suggestion already implemented.
21 IMDB. The imdb is for the movie, which has it's own page, and the imdb link is there.
23 Error in Text. (India was not in love with Charles.) Already fixed.
26 Was Belle Watling a protitute or only a madam? Semantics
28 Scarlett is a psychopath. (old vandalism) Already fixed. 58.38.213.12 (talk) 14:36, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably it was better to archive than to delete.

Today I moved the top section ("Summary") far down into chronological order and renamed it "Plot summary" which matches the article currently. --P64 (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Title

Can someone explain to me the rationale behind lower casing "with" in the title. It's wrong. It should be capped... "Gone With the Wind."Carsonmc (talk)

The publisher broke the rules for titles. Had they followed the rules, the w would be lower case because the word "with" is a preposition. The rule for a preposition in a title is:

Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions ("and", "or", "nor"), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word. (Note: NIVA prefers to capitalize prepositions of five characters or more ("after", "among", "between").)

So we use lower case w in the article so as to follow the correct rules for titles. We use a capital W in the title above the book image to note that the publisher uses a capital W.Prairiegrl (talk) 00:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

gone with the wind report

what would you do for a gone with the wind report? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.89.187 (talk) 01:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

POV-check-section: Criticisms for racial issues

The section titled Criticisms for racial issues presents only one side of the issue, concluding with:

Criticisms such as these have led historian James Loewen to describe Gone with the Wind as, "A profoundly racist novel."

The consensus of critical opinion cannot be as uniformly aligned against the novel as this section implies, and James Loewen can hardly be held up as an impartial observer when it comes to the South. Therefore I am adding {{POV-check-section}} to this section.--Jim10701 (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not saying that GWTW does not include much racism, because it does. What I am concerned about is this section's (echoing James Loewen's) assertion that it is "a profoundly racist novel," with the inescapable implication that it promotes or defends racism. Documenting racism - which is what GWTW does, in my opinion - is not the same as defending racism.

The "monkeys" segment from the novel, which is quoted in this section, for example, is found (on p. 645 in my 1973 Avon paperback copy) in the middle of a very, very long passage relating Scarlett's internal, unspoken, wildly rambling and nearly hysterical reaction to the frightening developments in the South during the very early days of Reconstruction, when white Southerners had no legal rights at all and lived in constant terror of what the victorious North might do to them. It is a brilliantly written and harrowing passage, but her musings are more like the relating of a nightmare than the exposition of a considered sociological treatise on the nature of black people.

To claim that Scarlett herself was a racist is understandable (but even that is debatable); but to characterize GWTW as "a profoundly racist novel" because it portrays a character's personal viewpoint under extreme circumstances with brutal accuracy seems extremely shortsighted, superficial and gratuitous, very far from the neutral point of view we aim for here at Wikipedia.

If the problem is that Margaret Mitchell did not explicitly condemn the racism she was documenting but simply reported it, then that is the point that should be made in this article. But even that criticism should be supported with more documentation than one pop-historian's inflammatory opinion that the novel is profoundly racist.--Jim10701 (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

We aren't intentionally trying to skew this section in one way or the other. We are well aware that we only have one opinion. The problem is we haven't done the research yet to document other points of view. I personally hate seeing tags placed in the article. A more accurate tag would probably be "this section under construction." But still I don't like to see tags.Prairiegrl (talk) 22:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The 'Criticisms for racial issues' section ends with the following statement: 'African Americans and Irish Americans are treated "in precisely the same way in Gone with the Wind".[118]'. This sentence might make sense in the context of the academic paper which is the source of the quote (I don't know, I haven't read the paper), but here, quoted in isolation, it is simply bizarre. The African American characters in GWTW are slaves, or recently freed slaves. The Irish American characters on the other hand include the central character Scarlett O'Hara and her slave-owning plantation family. I think there are also some 'poor white' Irish characters in the book, but even to compare these with enslaved African Americans is absurd. So either we need some more context about what this paper says about racism in GWTW, or the sentence should go. (And that is leaving aside the more subjective question of the implicit racism in how the characters are presented. The black characters do not exist except in relation to the 'important' white central players; at best they are loyal ciphers (Mammy) with no plot or interior life apart from their roles as servants. In other words, they are portrayed as less than fully human. Therefore I strongly disagree with Jim10701's comment above that GWTW simply "documents racism" in a neutral kind of way. In general I think the (very short) Criticisms for Racial Issues section gives GWTW a pretty easy ride.)TuttiFruttiCherryPie (talk) 17:43, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

References

Today I edited dozens of references by moving commas, adding spaces, italic-izing titles, and so on. The references will benefit from more such detail work, preferably after choosing a single style such as "Author (date)" at the beginning.

The references to latterday editions of GWTW need attention, tagged {clarification needed}. Did Patrick Conroy write one or two prefaces? What date? I specified "Patrick Conroy (2011)" in one of them, only a guess. The other does not give any date at all. First Pocket Book ed. was 1968, the year Patrick Conroy graduated from The Citadel (i infer from the article). --P64 (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Much Valuable information about cultural adaptations of this story has been edited out

Hi I am concerned that there has been a major hatchet job done to this article in removing legitimate references to cultural adaptations of the Gone With the Wind story in Asia, Europe, UK etc including musicals and ballets which are highly regarded. This is a distortion as it erased a considerable aspect of the ongoing cultural importance of this novel. This material was present in earlier renditions of the article and was well referenced

could someone with time on their hands seek to restore this valuable content???

There wasn't a hatchet job. It was summarized into a single paragraph and is all still there under Adaptations except for the UK show. The news article links for that show were dead and it was removed. All the others were wiki-linked.Prairiegrl (talk) 18:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

There is also much to be said about the novel's cultural impact amongst women readers in europe and UK during and after the second world war — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebe Jumeau (talk • contribs) 01:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Lede needs a rewrite

The lede needs a rewrite. The first sentence is okay, but the rest should be moved (way) down into an analysis or criticism section somewhere, where such fine points as whether it does or doesn't qualify as a romance novel can be argued. Meanwhile, the expensive real estate at the top of the page is wasted on relative trivia. Currently, we have:

Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. It is often placed in the literary sub-genre of the historical romance novel. However, it has been argued the novel is a "near miss" and does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre, making it simply a historical novel. The novel has also been described as an early classic of the erotic historical genre, therefore implying that it contains some degree of porn.

Moving these pin-dancing, analytical angels to some dusty corner of the article will free up the lede to contain some basic setting and plot info, a word about the film, and maybe the fact that it's Mitchell's only novel. As a comparison, see for example Tortilla Flat, which came out the preceding year. The lede there is nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. Mathglot (talk) 06:08, 25 July 2013 (UTC).

This information you requested is already in the lead. The article begins with the same intro as the gwtw film article, in terms of the genre it fits into.Prairiegrl (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, that comment about porn seems suspect to me. If that's truly a critical opinion supported by at least a few reputable critics, even if they're a minority, then by all means let it remain (after being moved lower down) but if so, then let's have a source reference attesting to it. But if it's vandalism or WP:OR then it should be removed entirely. Mathglot (talk) 06:23, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Not vandalism at all and it is sourced. The porn in the novel has yet to be discussed.Prairiegrl (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Sales & Publicity section needed

Gone With the Wind, besides its literary value, was a huge commercial success with book sales the likes of which had never been seen. Published in July, the millionth copy was sold before the end of the year, despite an unusually high cover price. Publicity also played an important role. For example, MacMillan placed an extremely unusual, full-page color ad in the Saturday Evening Post promoting it.

A section covering the economics and commercial aspects of the book seems warranted. Mathglot (talk) 06:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Most of this information has already been included in the article. Perhaps you need to read it more carefullyPrairiegrl (talk) 17:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Image removed from article

I removed this image, and comments, as the price is a pencilled price the type normally provided by a used book dealer. I dont think this counts as a reference to show the original price, which would have been printed on the dust jacket.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:05, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I put the picture back in the article. I don't think your opinion of when the price was placed in the book justifies removing it. Probably would have been better to reword the description slightly to reflect that fact than remove the picture entirely.Prairiegrl (talk) 13:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)