A comparative analysis of Mitchells Gone with the Wind and Faulkners A Rose for Emily

The novel Gone with the Wind published in 1936 is Margaret Mitchells only novel. An immediate
bestseller, it won the Pulitzer prize in 1937 and was made into a movie in 1939. The novel is set in
Clayton County, Georgia and is a Bildungsroman, that is, a coming of age novel about Scarlett O
Hara. The title of the novel has been taken from Ernest Dowsons poem Non sum qualis eram bonae
sub regno Cynarae Which translated means, I am not as I was in the reign of good Cinara. And this
title is again taken from Horaces Odes, book 4. Dowson's Cynara represented the lost love who had
become a constant obsession for the speaker. In the novel, the Cynara would be Ashley Wilkes to
whom Scarlett professed her love. According a survey in 2014, gone with the wind is the second
most read novel in the US, the first being the Bible.
The novel opens with Scarlett O Hara who is being visited by her neighbours, the Tarleton twins. The
scene opens with the three of them sitting on the porch of Scarletts plantation home. They belong to
the upper class white elite. The narrative voice informs that even though they were born to the ease
of plantation life they were neither slack nor soft. They had the vigour and alertness of country
people who had spent all their lives in the open and did not bore themselves with the dull things in
books. The more sedate and older sections of the south looked down upon this county in Georgia
because in this section of the south not having a classical education carried no shame, riding well,
raising good cotton, carrying ones liquor like a gentleman, shooting straight, dancing lightly on your
feet were the things that counted. The lower class of whites, often referred as Crackers, were placed
even lower than the blacks. Even if the lower class whites earned and fed their families through their
crops, they did not have respect and social standing if they didnt own a slave. This is seen in the
novel through the character of Tom Slattery. Being a poor white, he especially hated the rich folks
uppity niggers. The house negroes of the county considered themselves superior to white trash and
their unconcealed scorn stung him. He was in fact jealous of the secure position the slaves had in their
life. On big plantations of OHaras and Wilkses, the slaves were well fed, well clothed and looked
after in sickness and old age. The slaves were proud of the good names of their owners and proud to
belong to people of quality. Slattery being a cracker was despised by all, including the field
hands. But here, we must remember that Gone with the Wind offers a romanticised view of slavery
and has been panned by critics over this. I will come back to this point later.
Agriculture formed the backbone of the antebellum southern economy. Vast majority of farmers
worked on small tracts of land with their own labour. Only 1% of southerners owned large plantations
with more than 50 slaves. In spite of the plantation owners being such a small number, they used their
wealth and property to exert power and influence in the southern society. Crops like tobacco and
cotton were usually grown. Members of the southern propertied elite believed that their way of life
was superior to other cultures; they considered theirs to be a refined and gracious society. Ashley
Wilkes described the southern society as, glamour, a perfection and completeness and a
symmetry...like Grecian art. The northern Yankees were often held in disgrace. To the southern
elite, even the upper classes in the north were money grubbing, more concerned with rapid economic
growth than with a higher quality of life. The south considered itself to be free of such base,
materialistic impulses. They did little to acknowledge that the price of their freedom, from this
money mania, was paid for by the slaves who were made to work rigorously and ruthlessly to sustain
the elite in their aristocratic conveniences.
According to George Wilson, The culture of the southern elite was focused on a value system that
revolved around an elaborate code of chivalry. Personal honour, particularly for men was of the
utmost importance, while dishonour, including improper behaviour for women, was the ultimate

disgrace. No man could passively tolerate an insult without sacrificing his reputation. Here,
Faulkners dry September could be placed. The main basis of Mclendon taking Minnie Coopers case
was that a black man had allegedly attacked her. This attack was seen by him as an affront to the
white masculinity and by killing him in return he was trying to restore the white black balance.
Women filled a special role in upper class southern society. The code of honour dictated that men take
responsibility for protecting their wives, mothers and daughters from both physical dangers and the
harsh realities of life. In the minds of many southern patriarchs, females were naturally weak, delicate,
demure, distressed, dependent things in need of protection. This mindset led to certain unwritten rules
such as society considered it wrong for a woman to travel alone without male companionship. This is
why Scarlett is shocked, even though she blasted all the femininity and propriety expected by society
of a woman, when Rhett leaves her, Melanie, Prissy to return to Tara by themselves. An honourable
man would never leave a woman alone in the midst of a war. Society also considered it necessary to
shelter women from vulgarity. It was ungentle manly to curse in front of a woman or to speak of
anything distasteful and distressing in their presence. A related rule prohibited men from discussing
politics with women, since the subject was considered intellectually beyond their understanding.
Through Scarletts character, we see a contradiction to this code. While at the party at the Wilkes
plantation, the men talked constantly of war. The only reason she didnt want conversations of war
and secession at the party was because it terribly bored her and wanted male attention, not because
she didnt understand it.
It was understood among the southern elite that in exchange for protection, women owed men their
absolute obedience. Important decisions affecting their lives, such as marriage, were ultimately
subject to the fathers approval. They were expected to bear many children, especially male. The
women were supposed to be these demure, shy creatures, who had a brain the size of a pea before
marriage but once married they were expected to run the households, manage the darkies. Example
when Scarlett attempted to oversee the running of the sawmill she does so in an aggressively
masculine manner ignoring the strong disapproval of Frank Kennedy, her second husband. Her actions
were seen as disgraceful by both Frank and the Atlanta society. They were scandalised at her disregard
for her husbands wishes and find her involvement in the construction business to be unfeminine.
There is this wonderful passage where Frank reviews Scarletts behaviour:
In the brief period of their courtship, he thought he had never known a woman more attractively
feminine in her reactions to life, ignorant, timid, and helpless. Now her reactions were all masculine.
Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles, she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was
brisk and decisive and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shilly-shallying. She knew
what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and
circuitous routes peculiar to women.
This was startling to Scarlett as well, when she realized that she could handle business matters as
well or better than a man. It was a revolutionary thought to her as she had been reared in the
tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright.

Representation of Blacks in the novel

The first reference to a black character in the novel is to Mammy who was described as a stern
disciplinarian. The mammy image in the south was that of an asexual black woman, a surrogate
mother to the white children who was devoted to her last drop to the white family. In the novel,

mammy has been described as a second mother to Scarlett, a part of the family. Since Ellen,
Scarletts mother was almost always busy with the functioning of the plantation and taking care of the
slaves, Mammy became an intricate part of the O Hara family. The hierarchy among the slaves
working in a big plantation was the field hands who were the lower rung and then the slaves who
worked in the house, who considered their position as the best they could get. Young black children
were first trained in the different facets of the plantation life. Those who successfully learned the
skills required for a blacksmith, brick layers, carpenters were hired on the premises. There is also a
scene in the novel where a ten year old black boy is being trained to be a house help. Those who were
unable to learn any skill were given the jobs of field hands. This was only for the unskilled workers.
House helps looked down upon field hands and would never even think of helping them out in picking
cotton. In a later scene where Tara, the O Hara plantation is ravaged by General Shermans army,
Mammy and Pork refuse to help Scarlett pick cotton as they considered the job only fit for a field
darky.
Mammy was now extremely clever. She behaved like a family member, yet she knew she was only a
maid who tended all her life to Scarlett and her mother, when she was a child. When Ellen came
back late at night after helping Emmie Slattery give birth to a dead child, Mammy makes her
indignation known by grumbling under her breath. She knew it was beneath the dignity of quality
white folks to pay the slightest attention to a darky grumbling under her breath. She knew that to
uphold this dignity, they must ignore what she said, even if she stood in the next room and almost
shouted. By employing this method, she let her owners know where exactly she stood on all matters
and also protected her from reproof. Mammy was extremely proud to belong to quality white folks
and could never think of bringing shame to the family, even if it were the O Hara daughters. She
forced Scarlett to eat before going to the Wilkes party by saying If you dont care about how folks
talk about this family, I does.
Blacks were also given positions of trust and responsibility. Mrs. Tarleton had given the responsibility
of bringing a new stallion from the station to the plantation to two of her slaves. The stallion-big and
brute- was nervous and kicking up a storm. The horse had already bitten off the hand of another help.
The slaves who brought him kicking and fighting to the plantation were scared, hanging from the
rafters. Here, it might be suggested that the horse could only be calmed by the sweet, nurturing voice
a very white Mrs. Tarleton who was very good with animals instead of the darkies, who probably
caused the revulsion in the horse.
Jeems, the Tarleton twins body servant grew up along with the twins. Even though he was a
childhood playmate of white children, on growing up he was reduced to bringing around the horses
and hounds for the twins. This was still a better position in the hierarchy of the slaves in a big
plantation. He would follow the twins around on foot, while they would gallop on their horses. He, of
course, didnt have a horse of his own to follow the twins, as it would suggest that he had the same
social position as that of the twins. Jeems is much smarter and more perceptive than the boys, and
correctly guessed why Scarlett was upset during their meeting on the porch steps of the O Hara
plantation. By spying on the white folks, it was probably the only way he could have known some
normalcy he might have aspired for in his life, that is, the life he would have lived had he not been a
slave. His own social status was assured because the Tarleton owned a hundred negroes and like all
slaves of big planters he was contemptuous towards small farmers whose slaves were few. This pride,
which was shared by Mammy, is further proved when the twins chastised him for putting on airs in
front of the Wynder darkies because he would eat fried chicken and ham and the Wynder ones
only consumed rabbit and possum. Here, we see the pride the slaves who belonged to big plantations
had, as their position in the black community was much higher. Proving Slatterys earlier discomfiture

with slaves, they were in fact Well fed and well clothed and proud to belong to people of quality
whereas Slattery, a cracker, was dependent on the charity of his rich neighbours.
Gerald O Haras butler Pork was won in all night poker game. Blacks were seen as property to be
bought and sold, to be bet upon and exchanged like material goods. Gerald was soft-hearted and after
repeated pleas, he bought his wife Dilcey and his daughter Prissy, from the Wilkes estate for three
thousand dollars. This is the only time that price of the blacks is mentioned. This kindness shown by
Gerald was used by the writer to portray how the whites were large hearted and treated them
correctly. The money spent by Gerald though didnt cause a hole in his pocket but still led him to say
Never again will I let a darky on this place marry off. Pork and Dilceys marriage was a very
romanticised view offered by the author as most blacks were forced to breed with each other and
were usually separated after wards. Slave owners often dictated the sexual activity of the blacks.
In the two chapters pertaining to the party there is absolutely no mention of the black slaves. Even
though the impending war is discussed at the party, no one mentions the conditions of the blacks. The
narrative voice suggests that Slavery was taken as very normally for the southern elite; and not just by
them but also by the blacks themselves. The only time abolitionists are mentioned in book 1 is when
the Tarleton twins deem Jeems to be too much trouble at times. Even this was said reproachfully so
that their body servant would do their bidding. At the party, Mammy Jincy, a black woman owned by
some other white plantation family was the entertainment; she was the fortune teller. Even at the
hospital fundraising ball in Atlanta, Old Levi, Mrs. Merriwethers coachman is the lead singer of the
band. The narratorial description for him is black, with fat cheeks already shining with perspiration.
Most black characters in the novel have only been described with references to their physical features.
The only role played by the blacks in the party had been to provide the musical entertainment,
ironically for a war that was being fought for their independence. Another thing I noticed in the novel
was that most blacks didnt know that a war was being fought over them. Even the Unionists didnt
have a very clean conscience. They werent fighting the war only because they had a spark of
humanity in them but because they wanted to open trade routes in the south. There are also some who
suggest that the Yankees wanted a taste of the life the southerners led. In the novel after the war is
fought, during reconstruction, there is this wife of a Union serviceman who confides in Scarlett that
the darkies positively scare her. Even though they were given freedom, it took a long time for the
blacks to be seen as inclusive in society. There is this quote where even Scarlett emphasises
this-They didnt understand negroes or the relations between the negroes and their white masters. Yet
they had fought a war to free them. And having freed them, they didnt want to have anything to do
with them, except them to use them to terrorise the southeners. They didnt like them, didnt trust
them, didnt understand them and yet their constant cry was that southerners didnt know how to get
along with them.
The view that blacks were lazy, unintelligent, bestial primitives was commonly held. However, the
narrative breaks this stereotype through the character of Peter- Miss Pittypats coachman. Peter was an
older negro with an air of dignified authority. He is in charge of all the activities and decisions at
the Hamilton household. He was the one who decided that Charles would attend a university in the
north and Charles obeyed him in spite of the fact that his uncle wanted him to study in Georgia itself.
He was described by Charles as the smartest darky he ever knew. Even though he almost ran their
household and their lives, he was well loved and respected by everyone in the family, he was always
seen through the lens of his race and it diminished his worth.
When the confederacy is on the brink of losing and falling back, they employ strong Black Country
hands to dig rifle pits a mile before Atlanta. Taras Negros like Big Sam who is the foreman, Apostle,

Elijah are loaned by Gerald and Ellen to help the cause. The negros known by Scarlett immediately
ran across the road to meet her with no regard for the file they were walking in. They are followed by
a screaming and shouting colonel who chastises the blacks for their insubordination. The blacks have
been described as capering in delight on meeting with their mistress and displaying pride before
their comrades what a pretty young Miss they had. Their huge black paws covered the small white
hands of Scarlett on shaking hands with her. Big Sam had been defined as a giant of a man with a
lithe grace of a powerful animal.
Even though Ellen was considering giving him the position of the overseer at Tara which meant that
he was considered as capable and intelligent enough to perform an accounting job, he was still only
seen as an animal who scampered upon seeing its owner. Like Peter, Miss. Pittypats coachman, in
spite of being adept his worth is diminished on account of his race. Considered to be a good singer by
Captain Randall- another reason to include him for digging rifle pits could be because the songs he
would sing would help boost morale. Even though the blacks were helping them win a losing war and
the confederate army had also enlisted old white men in order to not get licked, they were not given
any respect. In another scene, Scarlett saw Ashleys body servant, Moses riding a mule along with
other black soldiers. When he tried to get down his mule to greet Scarlett (which is another thing
which is taught to the black slaves) he was threatened to be beaten up by his sergeant. Outside of the
big plantations, the condition and treatment of the blacks came to the forefront.
White masters considered black slaves to be biologically and intellectually inferior. They believed that
the blacks needed the guidance of the white masters to survive. They were according to a general
misconception unfit to take care of themselves individually. All these instances bring to mind Ellens
statement you must realize that they are like children and must be guarded from themselves like
children.
COMPARISON TO FAULKNERS A ROSE TO EMILY
A Rose to Emily was Faulkners first short story to be published in 1930 in a national magazine. A
short summary to a rose to Emily- The story opens with curious neighbours entering Emily
Greirsons house, an elderly spinster, after hearing of her demise. None of them has been in her house
for 10 years. She had not paid her taxes as she had been told a concocted story by Colonel Sartoris in
which the state remitted her taxes due to a loan given by her father to them. The story is situated in the
fictional city of Jefferson, a place where a lot of Faulkners stories are set. Her father died when she
was thirty, and Miss Emily, still unmarried, refused to accept he had been dead for three days. But
after her acceptance she became friendly with a Yankee, Homer Barron, a contractor who had come to
pave the sidewalks. Suddenly the rest of the town takes an interest in their relationship. They consider
Barron to be an unsuitable choice for Miss Emily as he belonged to a lower class than hers. The town
appeals to Emilys cousins to talk some sense in her, but the cousins quickly become infamous in the
town. During this time, Emily buys a bottle of arsenic. The town assumes it is for killing herself. But
Emily and Barrons relationship solidifies and there is talk of marriage between the two. Homer
leaves the area for a time, reputedly to give Emily a chance to get rid of her cousins, and returns three
days after the cousins have left; one person reports seeing Homer walk in the house at night, which is
the last contact the neighbourhood has with either of them for a long time. She becomes a recluse and
all her house work and shopping is done by her black servant. The community comes to view her as a
hereditary obligation on the town, who must be humoured and tolerated. The funeral is a large
affair; since Emily was such a reclusive person, her death sparks a great deal of curiosity about what
remains of her house. After she is buried, a group of townsfolk enter her house to see what remains of
her life there. The door to her upstairs bedroom is locked; some of the townsfolk kick in the door to
see what has been hidden for so long. Inside, among the possessions that Emily had bought for their
wedding, laid the horribly decomposed corpse of Homer Barron on the bed; on the pillow beside him
is the indentation of a head, and a single thread of Emily's now-gray hair.

Emily belonging to a rich pre civil war aristocratic family lived in a very patriarchal set up. With the
narratorial voice not mentioning her mother, Emily lived by the rules set by her dominating, strict
father. With the absence of her mother, it only commiserates the strength of her relationship with her
father and how he controlled her, from even beyond the grave. She is a typical southern belle trapped
in society bent on forcing her to remain in her role. When her house started smelling, the society
women showed their satisfaction by seeing it as a link between the gross, teeming world and the high
and mighty Griersons. The Griersons who held themselves a little too highly than what they really
were, for them no man had been good enough to marry Emily. Time flied, Emily aged, and yet she
did not marry. When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a
way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had
become humanized. By seeing her left alone to fend the drudgery of life, it vindicated the society. For
three days she refused to believe that her father had died, but when she finally broke down, it was
seen as her way of clinging to someone who had robbed her of everything in her life- a husband,
a family, and societal respect which she would have accorded had she married one of those young
men. One might think of her as weak or unwilling to take a stand against her father as we only have a
brief sketch of the father who has been portrayed as a domineering man, interfering in the happiness
of his daughter. Throughout the text we see Miss Emily through the lens of the narrator or the society;
we are never informed of what she thought. So when she was seen on sunday afternoons driving
with Homer Barren, the northerner foreman, a yankee who the people of Jefferson were predisposed
to hate, some women were glad that finally someone took an active interest in Emily. But the
society elders believed that she was shirking her "noblesse oblige" (the notion that wealthy people
shouldn't associate with a person of lower rank). They were under the opinion that even in utter grief;
a woman couldnt disentangle herself from her social rank.
The arsenic she bought from the pharmacist, conjectured by others as a means of suicide for Emily,
for they were under the impression that it would be the best thing. Seeing her going around with
Homer Barron, it was believed she was setting a bad example for the young and was a disgrace to the
town. All this was said by the women in Jefferson. Why I like to point this out is that Emily hadnt
achieved the normalcy required by society in her life. Being an unmarried woman, she was seen as a
threat by the other women in society as they had no idea what to make of her. On one hand, she
belonged to the aristocratic class while on the other hand, in spite of belonging to the rich, her life was
not enviable. The story ends with Emilys death and on checking her house, a badly decomposed body
of Homer Barren is found in a closed room, who in lying in the attitude of an embrace. The town
was aware of this closed room which had not been seen by anyone in over 40 years. Implying that the
townsfolk knew that homer had been murdered by Emily (an indicator being the smells wafting from
her house). On the pillow next to homer, they found an indentation of a head which meant that
Emily had lain beside his body and a long strand of iron gray hair was on it. This suggests at
necrophilia which means a sexual attraction towards dead bodies. In a broader sense, the term also
describes a powerful desire to control another, usually in the context of a romantic or deeply personal
relationship. Necrophiliacs tend to be so controlling in their relationships that they ultimately resort to
bonding with people who offer no resistance or willin other words, with dead bodies. Mr. Grierson
controlled Emily, and after his death, Emily temporarily controls him by refusing to give up his dead
body. She ultimately transfers this control to Homer, the object of her affection. Unable to find a
traditional way to express her desire to possess Homer, Emily takes his life to achieve total power
over him.
While Emily was a recluse, all her house word was done by a black man servant-Tobe. He was the
one only sign of life in the house after mr grierson died. He was the one who let in the neighbours
to pay their respect. He has been described as a deeply loyal and devoted servant to miss Emily and
wouldnt speak about her to others while performing his duties outside the house. It must have been
Tove who alerted the town to both Mr. Griersons and emilys death. Here I would like to bring in this
quote from gone with the wind where peter, miss pitypats servant says, no mam! They didnt set me
free! I wouldnt let such trash set me free. I still belong to miss pitty and when I die she is going to lay
me in the Hamilton burying ground. Tobe stayed with Emily all her life and left only when she died,

so that he wouldnt have to answer intrusive questions about her. He was loyal and discreet and
protected her privacy from the prying eyes of the town. In spite of being freed, many blacks would
stay with their white masters and refuse to move out. There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness
and love in them no strain could break or no money could buy. Another reason he stayed on with Miss
Emily was probably because as a black man in the south he had even more limited options. It could
also be as he considered her as an obligation and left as soon as his duty was done.