Birth of a Nation/Gone With Essay

Gone With the Wind offers a somewhat conservative view of Georgia and the South. The South is depicted as something almost royal; slavery is never thought twice about -- it's simply the way things are. Many may contend that Gone With the Wind rivals Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in its depiction of the Reconstruction -- a period when southern whites were victimized by the now freed slaves, who were at one time themselves exploited by carpetbaggers (The New Georgia Encyclopedia 2010). Gone With the Wind must also be seen as more of a melodrama than a piece of historical fiction. The movie doesn't intend to be a historical film, but rather, it aims to tell the story of Scarlett O'Hara and what she will do for Tara -- land. Her father tells her that land is the most important thing one can have in life and because of this Scarlett will find until the end. Another inaccuracy pertaining to Gone With the Wind is the fact that it doesn't even accurately depict what happens in the novel (for example, Scarlett doesn't just have children with Rhett in the novel, she has one child per each husband). One has to remember that much of what they are seeing in the film Gone With the Wind is done with issues such as pace, dramatic effect, and plot as the primary concerns.

For example, the beginning of the mass flight of civilians from Atlanta had to be postdated two months so that Scarlett would be in the city during the siege, deliver Melanie's baby, escape with the aid of Rhett, and arrive at Tara to find her mother dead and her father a broken man. On the other hand the advent of Carpetbag rule had to be moved up nearly two years as a means of providing a motive for Scarlett to return to Atlanta for the purpose of saving Tara, thereby bringing her back into contact with Rhett, who has been out the story since the fall of Atlanta (Castel 86).

Castel (87) blames Margaret Mitchell for the inaccuracies in the novel and the film, believing that she made mistakes of plain old careless and ignorance.He believes that she was too afflicted with biases that made it difficult for her to see things in any other than her one way. He actually notes that her work -- and the film -- fare quite well when compared with actual historians' works. Where the film fails is excusable to a certain degree on the grounds of having to make a good film (or good novel).

Works Cited

Castel, A.E. Winning and Losing in the Civil War: Essays and Stories. University of South Carolina Press, 2010.

Loewen, J.W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook

Got Wrong. Touchstone, 2007.

McPherson, J.M. Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War. Oxford

University Press, 1997.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia. Gone With the Wind (Film), 2010. Retrieved on September 12, 2010, from the Website:

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2472

Totaro, D. "Art vs. Propaganda: Birth of a Nation: Viewed Today." Offscreen, 2004.

Retrieved on September 12, 2010, from the Website:

http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/birthofnation.html.....