Any Southern Literature fans out there?

[WarpGirl]

And in a way each of the characters you've described could be an archetype, WG. The Melanie of the book, for example, represents the best of Southern society but she also ultimately succumbed to that denial-of-the-negative that could sometimes be so positive (she was repeatedly warned not to have another baby). Rhett and Scarlett are definitely "survivor" archetypes and there's a not-so-subtle theme throughout the book about how far a person should go to survive and care for themselves. Ashley's the archetype of the person who just plain can't handle change despite being superficially intelligent and capable. Take him out of his carefully constructed artificial world and he just collapses. (There are themes there about "the good old days" and artificiality of one's world, as well.)

Agreed! Aren't all characters defined by archetype though? Trip is an Archetype, so is T'Pol. I'd say the mark of good characterization is being able to clearly define who a character is and what they represent.

Gone With the Wind was published in 1936. The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway) was published 10 years earlier, just a year after The Great Gatsby. The latter two get taught far more often than the former, which is considered genre fiction (a romance novel). Hemingway and Fitzgerald were published as serious fiction and stood the test of time to be included in literary canon, and Gone With the Wind did not, though it's by no means out of print.

I'm sorry, but Gatsby is my favorite book of all time after The Bible, and it was not hailed as a great Classic, when it was first published. It wasn't considered Fitzgerald's crowning achievement, or anything close. It built it's reputation over decades. Granted, both Hemmingway and Fitzgerald were regarded as the voices of The Lost Generation between the end of WW1 and WW2, however they were hardly considered for the ages during their lives. At least, not for their fiction...

[Alelou]

WG, Hemingway and Fitzgerald were not published as romance fiction. Does that help you understand my point any?

[WarpGirl]

But Gone With the Wind is not a romance novel! The vapid predecessor Scarlet is. Anybody who reads the book knows that the plot is not the "love story." Gatsby on the other hand is entirely about the pursuit of "The American Dream" in order to be worthy of a woman! I'd call that more of a "romance novel" than GWtW.

I'd guess that in 1936 since Margret Mitchell didn't use a name like Mitchell Collins when she submitted her manuscript and wrote a novel entirely focused on a female protagonist, they marketed it as a "woman's book" if it had been written today, they could have treated it as an "exploration of the Southern White Mythos, before during and after the Civil War."

[Silverbullet]

The movie GWTW was full of stereotypes. Had to be to meet the moral standards of the movies censors.

I love Twain but he was more than Huck Finn.

He was "To a stranger sitting in the darkness". or to "the man who ruined some town" He was first and foremost a humorists but he also was a moralist. (I am looking for a word which I cannot bring up. forgive an old mind)

I read books that would have been jerked off the book shelves in my day: "1984" "God's Little Acre" "Tobacco Road" "tortilla flats" and other of that ilk.

SB

[lfvoy]

But Gone With the Wind is not a romance novel!

Quoted for truth. The movie was a romance, but that's because it cut out a lot of what the makers no doubt considered "boring." A good half of the book explores her very hard work to protect Tara after the Union Army comes through Georgia; that was compressed down to perhaps thirty minutes of the four-hour movie. Yet nearly every scene between Scarlett and Rhett in the book was also in the movie.

The book is a good thousand pages long but I can often read it in a couple of days because I get so engrossed in it. Everything from the description of how Scarlett's parents met -- and why they got married -- to Scarlett's genuine (yes, genuine, unlike the movie) remorse over the fallout of her thoughtlessness involving Ashley is just wonderful.

I love Twain but he was more than Huck Finn.

Good Lord no. I actually can't read his later work because it makes my teeth ache, and I don't mean from sugary sweetness. He's a good example of the not-always-so-hidden cynicism that you can find among Southerners when you look beneath the surface. Being beaten down and having someone else's moral standards shoved down your throat can do that to you...and there are indeed echoes of Reconstruction that are still in the legal code today. A good example of this is the "preclearance" aspect of the Voting Rights Act, which was needed at one point but has now become nothing more than something intended to humiliate Southern states (especially given that many African-Americans say racism is more rampant outside the South than in it).

[Alelou]

There IS plenty of racism up north, but I've yet to hear an African American say it's more prevalent outside the South (I do have a number of black students who are either from the South or have lived in the South). And it's certainly not my own impression when I'm back down in the sleepy part of Florida where my parents and grandmother live now. I remember the last time I traveled with my (dark-skinned Hispanic) stepdaughter being pretty horrified at how little had changed in terms of the looks we got. I also couldn't believe the racially charged language some of my more distant relatives were using without even the slightest embarrassment.

Suppose it could vary by location. Maybe Atlanta is a lot more progressive in the matter than some of the places I'm familiar with.

It's entirely possible GWTW is mislabeled. It was written by a woman, after all. I really can't judge until I read it.

I'm going to avoid commenting on voting rights. I think that would get us right into contemporary politics and that way lies trouble.

Twain was indeed bitter and cynical, especially as time went on, but I'd consider him a moralist himself, disgusted by pious hypocrisy in people who were ignoring far more fundamental moral issues.

[Silverbullet]

Twain was especially bitter by how the U.S.Entered the Phillipines to free the people from Spanish rule only to become rulers themselves just as harsh. The people of the Phillipines unwillingly exchanged one ruler for another. all the while the U.s. was claiming that it did not want an empire.

I guess I was somewhat of a radical when I was young as I enjoyed Twains darker moments.

SB

[WarpGirl]

I love to see how some writers like Twain, evolve. I happen to love Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn but it's so interesting to see the process of "growing up" in an author's work and how they've changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes (in the case of Jane Austen) for the worse. Then again sometimes you only get one book out of someone brilliant like Harper Lee, and you wonder what something written by her now might look like. But when you write a practically perfect novel, there really isn't anywhere to go but down.

[Alelou]

Jane Austen for the worse??

Arghhhh. Must. Back. Away.

Although if you were referring only to Mansfield Park, I'd agree with you.

[WarpGirl]

Actually I was thinking of Mansfield Park but I'm not too keen on Persuasion either. But MP was clearly a time in her life when she was bitter and cynical and supremely unhappy.

[Alelou]

In MP I think she committed the terrible mistake of listening to the critics, although I suppose it's also possible she simply looked at her own body of work and decided it was time to try something different, something in which beauty and charm didn't automatically equate with goodness. So she created a dreary little good girl and then just couldn't help having more fun with the beautiful and charming bad girl. The novel just doesn't work.

Personally I love Persuasion. It's my favorite after P&P. She didn't get to revise it as thoroughly as she usually would have, though -- she was ill and died not long after finishing it.

[WarpGirl]

I'm afraid I disagree, of course she's dead so nobody even the most dedicated literary scholar would know what was in her mind at the time, but in MP it was quite obvious that her sense of positive thinking and the wry wit (while tinged with a healthy dose of cynicism and sarcasm) was just completely gone. As disaproving as she could sometimes be with the hypocrits of the world in her other books, she maintained the theme that life and all of it's absurdities was good. She almost completely destroyed that in MP and Fanny was a good version of Lydia. She was a little fool. Maturity did her no good there.

As for Persuasion, it's my sister's favorite. I don't hate it, but I love Jane Austen when she is funny! And that book isn't nearly as witty as Emma or P&P. I don't think it was her last book though, I think that was Northanger Abbey. I haven't read it yet.

[Silverbullet]

According to an article in our Newspaper TV audiences are craving Southern stereotypes. Hill Billies, Swamp men, I guess a Turtle man and others like that. I have never viewed any of those shows which feature those things so I cannot comment.

anyone?

SB

[Alelou]

Based on the conversation thus far I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on Austen (so what else is new?), but here's a helpful timeline. Northanger Abbey was far from her last work, though it did get published with Persuasion (probably because they are both so short). It's at least partly a very funny parody of the popular gothic romances of its day, especially The Mysteries of Udolpho, which was a publishing phenomenon of Austen's time and considered quite the guilty pleasure. Fortunately there's more to NA than parody of a book nobody reads anymore, so you can just enjoy the charming love story. The last Masterpiece Theater version of that one was quite good. (Can't say that for their last take on Persuasion, which was AWFUL.)

http://www.janeausten.org/jane-austen-timeline.asp

[WarpGirl]

I'm just glad I'm not in any of your classes. I have a feeling I'd fail them all, or it would be a repeat of my saga with two professors from my own college days. Not something I'd ever want to go through again. Thanks for the link.