Gone with the Wind Film Analysis

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Film Analysis HIST 320 A Classic Soap Opera The film Gone with the Wind portrays the life of a Southern belle whose life is greatly affected and changed by the Civil War and Reconstruction Period. Scarlett O’Hara, the childish daughter of a plantation owner in Georgia is the focus of the film. She loves a forbidden man, and although she marries two times, she continues to love him continuously. The war turns Scarlett from a well-off Southern belle to a starving pauper. Scarlett’s resourcefulness and unwillingness to give up saw her and those close to her through tough times. Scarlett and her fellow Confederates continue to despise the “Yankees” throughout the film and many of the supporting characters in the film hold on to their “Southern gentleman and lady” lifestyles. The film shows how war affects the lives of those on the home front. It also depicts the death of the “Old South” and the rebirth through Reconstruction. One theme that endures throughout the film is the “Old South” way of life. Through the horrible trials of war many of the characters stick to the ideals of the Antebellum South. The men act like gentlemen and the women, aside from Scarlett, act like well-mannered Southern women. Although they gossip, they are good wives who support their husbands through thick and thin. Scarlett is more progressive and similar to a modern woman. She does not need a man to be successful and she is not the typical wife. Scarlett is very outspoken in contrast to the typical compliant wife. All the women around her, aside from Melanie, despise her for her manners and mindset. The men in the movie, aside from Rhett, are typical Southern gentlemen. The scene in the beginning of the movie where the men all stand around and discuss their excitement for the war correlates to the romanticized ideals everyone had at the beginning of the war. These men thought they were
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