A new blog to contain answers to prompts |
Prompt: On this day in 1937, Margaret Mitchell wins the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Gone with the Wind". Have you read the book? What did you think of the inherent racism of the novel and the sexual tension throughout most of the story and the suggestion of marital rape? Should it have won a Pulitzer Prize in your opinion? ------ I have seen the movie, since my mother took me with her to a rerun to watch it, but I haven't read the book. At the time, Clark Gable was admired by all. Unfortunately, then, I didn't even know that the movie came from a book. So, afterwards, I didn't want to read the novel. Movies do that to me. They ruin any good literature, although if my memory serves me right, it was a pretty good movie. I know my mother discussing it for days and weeks. Should the book have won the Pulitzer? I think it told the truth of its time. I understand that the novel itself was written from the perspective of a slave holder. It's said that the writer of the story, Margaret Mitchell, was a racist with this work and her other writings. I am not defending her but we have to consider that, in her time, most people were racists. I apply it to our time when we have grown up thinking that democracy is the best policy for governing a country, but what will the later generations think about that, say 100 years later? We'll have to live and see... Back to the story inside "Gone with the Wind, " come to think of it, why would any author choose a spoiled, selfish, and stupid girl as her main character in an epic novel, a girl who was frivolous to the nth degree especially in the beginning. Yes, she did get what she deserved--well somewhat--at the end. The movie was a success due to the excellent portrayal of her by Vivian Leigh, who won an Oscar for it. I remember a lot about the movie because, later on, it showed up on the TV screen several times. In those earliest days of the movie industry, it is said that the movie-makers were more loyal to the books they made the movies from. Yet, I bet, if I read the book itself, I would be fuming at Margaret Mitchell's third-person narrator. From the clips that are online, now, the ugly prejudiced way she relates the events of the day turned me off totally. Yet, as they say, the characterization was superb in the book as it was in the movie. So who am I to judge! Then, at the end, I have to repeat Rhett Buttler's words to Scarlett, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" |