Introduction & Overview of Gone with the Wind

This Study Guide consists of approximately 109 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Gone with the Wind.

Introduction & Overview of Gone with the Wind

This Study Guide consists of approximately 109 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Gone with the Wind.
This section contains 229 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Gone with the Wind Study Guide

Gone with the Wind Summary & Study Guide Description

Gone with the Wind Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

This detailed literature summary also contains Bibliography and a Free Quiz on Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Published In 1936, Gone with the Wind became an immediate best-seller, bringing first-time novelist Margaret Mitchell an overwhelming amount of critical and popular attention. Awarded the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, the novel was adapted as a film in 1939-an achievement that won ten Academy A wards. A historical romance set in northern Georgia during the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction years, Gone with the Wind traces the life of Scarlett O'Hara and her relationships with Rhett Butler, and Ashley and Melanie Wilkes. The novel addresses such themes as survival, romantic love, and the societal structuring of gender and class.

Early appraisals of the novel noted its memorable characters and historical accuracy as well as Mitchell's remarkable storytelling ability, though other reviews dismissed the novel as melodramatic and trite. Mitchell drew on her extensive knowledge of Civil War history in order to establish a believable setting for Gone with the Wind, but also spent considerable time fact-checking in the Atlanta Public Library. Biographers and critics have discovered striking similarities between real people in Mitchell's life and characters in the novel, though whether Mitchell intentionally modeled her characters after people she knew is unclear. What remains certain, however, is that her powerful, enduring story of love and survival set in the pre- and post-war South has made Gone with the Wind one of the most popular novels in American history.

Read more from the Study Guide

This section contains 229 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Gone with the Wind Study Guide
Copyrights
Gale
Gone with the Wind from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.