Margaret Rossiter Column: The ‘New Normal’ and memories of ‘Gone with the Wind’

In a recent discussion on an RTE radio programme on the subject of old films, ‘Gone with the Wind’ was mentioned as a classic. It was based on Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel of the same title, written in the late 1930s, telling the story of a family, named O’Hara, living in splendour on a huge estate called Tara in Georgia, before and during the American Civil War.

I brag about the fact that I read this very long novel when I had measles. This was an nasty infection which, before a vaccination against it was discovered, affected very small children. For some reason, I did not contract it as a child; instead it made me very ill as a teenager and while recovering I read the book which was then receiving much publicity because Hollywood was in search of the two actors who would play the two leading characters - the very beautiful Scarlett O’Hara and the handsome and apparently ruthless Rhett Butler. I remember that I loved the book and wept over some of its pages. The fact that the glamour and apparent wealthy ambience of Tara owed much to slavery and to slave labour, did not remotely mean anything to this teenager at that time.
When the film finally came to Clonmel, the southern footpath of O’Connell Street, from the Main Guard to the Oisín Cinema was crowded with queuing people. It was early wartime, grim grey, rationed, cold, with worrying news of death, bombing and destruction, particularly for the many citizens whose relatives were working in Britain. The cinema was an escape, a place of entertainment and comfort. And the Oisín was a very comfortable intimate place. It had a most attractive limestone frontage, which was removed (pre-planning legislation) when the cinema was eventually sold. The manager, Mr Symes, always stood in the foyer greeting patrons.
For a shilling and eight pence, people had access to the best seats in the balcony, and for six pence less an equally comfortable seat in the downstairs parterre. An old friend in speaking about film and cinema told me that he remembered, as a child, lying in bed at night and hearing people passing by on the street, talking about the film they had just seen, often whistling or singing the accompanying song or theme music.
As a film ‘Gone with the Wind’ had everything - joy, excitement, beautiful costumes, colour, conflict and war. It was, above all else, a story about the ending of the old order, wealth and privilege based on a denial of human rights. The vast acres of the cotton fields of Tara were planted and reaped by the slaves in the compound; the mansion maintained by people like (black) Nanny.

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Slavery and enslavement has been there for as long as the written word - Freemen/women and Slaves. It was in every society. It was how the world, and what we now called economies, functioned. Of course, it was unjust and very wrong but that was how it was. And the opening up of the continent of Africa facilitated slave-trading in a big way; the capturing of young healthy men and women and their transport in terrible conditions, to the newly conquered areas of the world facilitated the growth of trade and commerce, and consequent creation of great wealth.
There were, however, people who were disturbed by this exploitation and who campaigned against it, a campaign which reached momentum in the early 19th century. (It seems that one of the earliest concerns came from a woman at a Quaker meeting in Britain). While the American Civil War was essentially a contest between the industrial north and the agrarian south the freedom of slaves became incidental to it. And so came the Battle of Atlanta in “Gone with the Wind” and the devastation of Tara.
The novel was Margaret Mitchell’s only publication. She is quoted as saying she had put “all she knew” into the story. She may have based it on some facts and characters known to her. O’Hara is clearly an Irish name, Tara of significant Irish origin; all of which might suggest that Irish emigrants, or their descendants, may not have been above exploitation.
In this current age of “New Normal” - or an extension of the “Politically Correct,” would this novel ever reach publication? While it deals with the subject of slavery it does not condem it. It seems that nowadays anything that might be contentious cannot be analysed, especially in the media. Racism, for instance, is rightly condemned, but why cannot it not be discussed: why does it occur or why we are intolerant of some cultural difference: why, historically, has a white skin assumed such superiority? The New Normal sets a limit to the words we use, and even to how we think. Does this limitation not also limit solutions to many social problems?

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I have not read “Gone with the Wind” since my long-ago measles youth, but decades ago I saw the film again when it returned to the cinema, taking with me two of my teenaged children. They were so bored they went home at the interval break. Still engrossed, I stayed on to see the still beautiful Scarlett, having lost everything, return to Tara. The slaves were gone, her former palatial home was in ruins. The vast acres of cotton fields unplanted. And standing amid the devastation she made a passionate promise. As “God was her Judge,” she said, she would rebuild and restore. She would not think about it now, she would think about it tomorrow.
After all, she declared amidst the desolation “Tomorrow is another day.” Indeed it is.