"Gone with the Wind" Essay

The silhouette of Scarlett O’Hara against the setting sun symbolizes the uncertainty and disruption the Civil War brings to her life and the Southern society she once knew.

In the movie Gone with the Wind, we are taken along with the character Scarlett O’Hara and her life during the Civil War. Scarlett is a Southern belle who is worried about who she is marrying in society and where she will end up. She expresses how much she hates the meaning of war and what it has to bring, and later in the movie, you can see why. The Civil War disrupts everything she has planned out in her mind, and she is confused and lost about where to go. She is worried about how the war is affecting her life instead of the world around her. Throughout the movie, we are shown through Scarlett how a war can disrupt one's goals and force someone into situations they never wanted to be in or expected to be in.

At the start of the movie, Scarlett lives a comfortable, rich life at the plantation Tara that her father

 Scarlett O’Hara reflects the beauty, wealth,
  and carefree lifestyle of Southern society
before the Civil War disrupts her world.

owns in Georgia. Most of the time Scarlett spends her time trying to get attention from men in order to find her match, she especially tries to get attention from a man named Ashley Wilkes who she was falling in love with. When the war starts, Scarlett does not realize that something much greater than her is starting and understands how much it is about to change her life. The war is not something she wants to be involved in, so she is severely upset when it interrupts the life she is enjoying.

Around the start of the war, it is revealed that  Ashley is engaged to another woman, and this upsets Scarlett and sets her to be more involved in her life than in the world that is involved in the war. The men leave to fight, and families become separated, which confuses Southern society and the normal routines they used to have. Scarlett does begin to see an effect on the people around her because of this change. She gets frustrated about the change that is happening and that there is nothing she can do about it and that it is happening so fast. We see that she is forced to deal with the real world and not the world she wants to live in, which is men and marriage.

One of the biggest reasons Scarlett hates the war is because it brings on so many problems she is not comfortable facing. When a problem arises for scarlet she tries her hardest to push it to the side and this is shown as the war starts to affect her relationships with people as well as her future. You can infer as

    

The Confederate flag overlooks the devastating
aftermath of the Civil War, with rows of wounded
  and fallen soldiers illustrating the destruction
of war and the collapse of the Southern way of life.

The movie shows that she does not like the thought of death or losing people close to her; as most do, she tries to focus on what she wants, which can make her seem avoidant and selfish. This can show how difficult it is for her to see the world changing into war and no longer following the rules that she grew up following as well.

Not only does the war bring along emotions that she is not comfortable facing, but it also brings along emotions she can't easily control. Throughout the movie, we see Scarlett get severely frustrated at different times when things do not go her way. This is also shown when people have to make decisions about her future that he does not agree with. Now that the war has started, she can't focus on the romance and has to focus on the uncertainty and change that is happening around her. A lot of that uncertainty and change comes from what is going to happen to her family and the men in her life, or who she's going to marry. This creates a tension between the person she wants to be and the person she needs to be in order to survive in this certain time.

The movie uses Scarlett as a reflection for bigger changes in the South at this time. The war threatened plantations and lifestyles that people had grown up with for years and were not used to seeing change. Her reaction shows how people can become overwhelmed when their world starts to change and fall apart. The war is not simply a political event but something that reaches people's homes, relationships, and future plans.

The first half of Gone with the Wind shows Scarlett as one who severely struggles with the war because it disrupts life as she knows it. Her values and control of her life are stripped away from her, and she becomes frustrated and upset by this. Her frustration and confusion help show how the war has a personal impact. Using the character of Scarlett, the writer shows how the historical event of the Civil War interrupted ordinary lives and had people confront unwanted changes in their lives. Scarlett’s story is a story about what people went through during the time of the Civil War and how everything one person once knew can go in an instant.