Gone With The Wind Essay -- Summary Book Review Essays

Gone With the Wind The novel being summarized is titled Gone with the Wind, written by Margaret Mitchell. It was published in 1936, after it took her seven years to write, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Gone with the Wind was the only book Ms. Mitchell wrote and is an American Classic. Gone with the Wind was a story of men and women living in the south during the war between the states and of the south’s transformation after the war. The novel began in about 1861 at Tara and Twelve Oaks, two southern plantations in Georgia. We were given a glance of the hospitality and generosity of plantation life. When the men went off to war, the women moved to Atlanta. While in Atlanta, they worked as nurses as they awaited the return of their men. Sherman’s troops marched in and burned Atlanta, so the women were forced to leave. They returned to Tara, where we observed the destruction and desolation of the land. After the war, the story shifted back and forth between Atlanta and Tara. We experienc ed the struggles to save Tara, rebuild Atlanta, and the effects of the carpetbaggers. The story continued until about 1871 as the main characters began to regain the security and grace of the days before the war. There were four main characters in the story. They were Scarlett O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes, Melanie Hamilton-Wilkes, and Rhett Butler. Scarlett, Ashley, and Melanie were raised together, and Rhett Butler was an outsider who came from Charleston. Scarlett was the daughter of a wealt...