I've started reading Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and for this first assignment, I read the first four chapters:

In the first four chapters, we are introduced to some of the characters (Scarlett O’Hara, Gerald O’Hara, Stuart and Brent Tarleton, Ellen O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes, and Mammy) and we learn that Ashley Wilkes is marrying Melanie, though Scarlett wants him to marry her. Scarlett is going to try to win him back and run away with him, which could lead to some interesting results and, consequently, future plotlines and problems. Some big themes are jealousy, pride, gender roles, relationships, racism, and the culture of the South in the 1860s.

Racism and the relationship between whites and slaves is a huge part of Gone With the Wind, because it is set in the South in the 1860’s, in a slave-holding community. The O’Haras are slave holders, and they have hundreds of slaves. It’s interesting to read, because you can see a bit of bias in Margaret Mitchell’s writing. She writes that the slaves don’t mind being slaves, and that they are fiercely loyal to their masters, and that they are perfectly happy. In this book, the slaves have social classes, where even the lowest-ranking field hand is higher than any white or black who is a member of a plantation that has fewer slaves than their plantation does. According to Jeems, the Tarleton twins’ slave, “[Jeems’s] own social status was assured because the Tarletons owned a hundred negroes and, like all slaves of large planters, he looked down on small farmers whose slaves were few.” The slaves apparently enjoy being in their masters’ services, and wouldn’t ever think of running away. However, you can see that the white people definitely hold themselves higher. There are slaves to do everything from carry your sewing box from room to room to swat the wild turkeys away from the porch to work the best cotton land in the world, which of course the white slave owners would never, ever think of doing—that’s for the lesser folk. They treat the slaves like inferiors, just like many of the actual whites did in the days of slavery. While the slaves seem to like being slaves, you can definitely see racism is a big thing in this book and will probably develop into something even bigger when the war starts. I wonder how the slaves will react to the war, and if they will be so keen to stay with their masters once the promise of freedom starts circulating.