Gender Roles

It's interesting to examine the gender roles in Scarlett and Frank Kennedy's marriage. Of course, they were raised with the knowledge that men were infinitely smarter than women, but as Frank says, "[Frank] was thunderstruck to discover that [Scarlett] could swiftly add a column a long column of figures in her head when [Frank] needed a pencil and paper for more than three figures."Scarlett is the one with a "good head for figures and business" in this marriage, and she has plenty of ideas of how to get the store to earn more money so they can buy the sawmill and consequently earn even more, while Frank just knows in the back of his head, "You know? I kind of want to buy a sawmill sometime." In Scarlett's and Frank's marriage, the common gender roles of the Old South have been reversed, which is extremely unusual. However, the South is moving right along into the New South way of thinking, so perhaps soon this will not be so strange anymore.

Homage to Sharon Stone, by Lynn Emanuel

In "Homage to Sharon Stone," Emanuel touches on many things: Sharon Stone, poetry writing, roleplaying, interior decorating, and gender roles, to name a few. While I could chose any one of those topics, today I'm going to focus on the gender roles. In the beginning, she talks about how her neighbors "hitch themselves to the roles" that they are expected to play, and they are unhappy about it. The term "hitching" implies that they don't have a choice in the matter, that they are shunted into the role. Later she explores the way that she, as an author, can be a man or a woman in her writing; when she is "I", the speaker, she is free from gender prejudices and constraints. However, she says, as a woman, the only way to get yourself out of your set "role" in society is to "gnaw your foot out of the trap." She says that nothing good comes without a consequence, but at the same time, every cloud has a silver lining. While every bite may become a wound, each wound becomes a door, an opportunity. Society is wicked, and closes you in and tries with all its might to lock you into your role. But if you gnaw your foot out of the trap, each red wound may became a red door, and every door something beautiful.

Poem

Yes, in the place where dreams are made,
In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
Where Liberty lovingly sings her song,
There's a broken, wicked land of wrong--
Under the hot, beating, sun,
During the days that stretch so long,
The white man snaps his whip, and there!
The cries of the enslaved you can hear,
They're forced to work for nothing--the whole race!
Because the tyrant has a paler face.

Amid the songs and joyful cries
Of Hallelujah! The great fires
of rage and fear ring out among
The old and wizened, the restless and young.
No more!" some say. "We won't have it!"
How dare you enslave the African race?"
The others say, "We won't quit!
We're better because we have a paler face."

Why must we go on through life this way
Where we are better than the slaves
And make them do whatever we've wanted
And deny them privileges we take for granted
Because of something they cannot change,
Because the tyrants have a paler face.

In the section of Gone With the Wind in chapters 26-30, we see a lot of stereotyping. One bit that really stood out to me was how everyone, even the slaves, said Yankees were savages who "attacked unprotected women, cut throats, burned women alive, and bayoneted children because they cried." According to the Southerners in this book, and possibly Southerners in the real Civil War, every yankee was a child-killing rapist when, in fact, this just wasn't true. Of course, there were a couple, I'm sure, but there were a couple in the Confederate Army, as well. This is an atrocious overgeneralization. It's interesting how they are so appalled that the Yankees burn and steal kill when the Confederates soldiers are doing the same thing. Of course, to the Southerners, to the Southerners, the Cause is the most just Cause in the history of Causes, and they should do anything they can to win over the evil Yankees. But to them, every Yankee, even if they're nice, even if they're not soldiers, is the epitome of evil. And nothing anyone says will change that.

"A Nation's Strength" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, gives us a unique viewpoint on what makes a nation strong. The speaker explains that gold isn't what makes you strong, as it only leads to ruin. Nor is it battle. You can just ask the "red dust of empires passed away," and they'll tell you how war destroyed them. Pride isn't the correct answer, either. Pride leads to destruction as much as wealth and war. No, it's the people, the good, hardworking people, who toil ceaselessly everyday, even "while others sleep;" people who don't care about wealth but honor, and not war but peace. Those are what make up a great nation's strength.

Scarlett v. Gerald

I believe that Scarlett is the stronger person between her and her father. While Scarlett took charge of Tara after Ellen's death and grieved but still kept her head, Gerald completely lost his mind. He was nothing without Ellen, while Scarlett could still manage, was able to move on. She not only has to shoulder the responsibility of taking charge of the plantation, but now she has to take care of Gerald, too, as evidenced on page 376--"[Scarlett] caught herself. This was the way she talked to [her two-year-old son]--she should not address her father like this. But he hung onto her every word." As this shows us, Gerald is reduced to acting like Wade, Scarlett's two-year-old, while Scarlett, who has never run anything so much as a lemonade stand in her entire life, is taking care of the plantation and everyone in it, not to mention the sick soldiers that come around needing medical attention. Right now, Scarlett is stronger than her father, who has alway been her rock, and it's heart-breaking for her.

The Reconstruction

During the Reconstruction, which is explained in chapters 31-34 of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, life in the south is hard. Mitchell doesn't go into great detail about the loss of the war and the exact feelings of the characters about it, but in the South in her book, there is barely concealed rage, humiliation, and tension. There's also a lot of confusion, as well. As Mitchell explains, "the scourge of the war had been followed by the worse scourge of the Reconstruction." It's so bad because during the war, there was always the light at the end of the tunnel: "We're going to win this war, and then it'll all be okay again. It'll all go back to normal after we win the war." Now, there's nothing about the realization that this is the new normal, this is how their life is going to be. Ex-Confederates were forced to take an oath of allegiance to the United States before they could vote (Eyewitness Books, "The Civil War," page 62), which was absolutely horrifying to them. Not only that, but Federal troops occupied the beautiful red hills and swamps of the South for 10 years after that, making this the most painful part of the war for the Confederates.

"How Much?" by Carl Sandburg

In "How Much?" by Carl Sandburg, there's a very interesting meaning. It talks about how the speaker might love someone more than a million bushels today, but tomorrow the speaker might not even love them more than a half a bushel. It talks about how there's no real way to measure love, like how there's no real way to measure the weather, and how love is extremely unpredictable. Since the wind can't measure the weather, you can't measure love. You just have to be able to ride the roller coaster it takes you on, one day or bushel at a time.

Gone With the Wind

In Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, two male characters, Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, represent two very different ways of life in the South. Ashley represents the Old South, with its quiet, respected ideals and very strict social etiquette. Ashley doesn't think the war is good, or even necessary at all. However, as a respected Old South gentlemen, he is "willing to die for [the Cause]." Rhett, on the other hand, is the personification of the New South, with its slightly risque social behavior and its loud, uproarious, always-excited and on-the-move atmosphere. However, he opposes the war too. And even though it shocks Scarlett that "anyone as absolutely perfect as Ashley could have any thought in common with such a reprobate as Rhett Butler," it doesn't surprise me. I think that the Old South and the New South aren't so very different yet. I think that the New South is clinging desperately to the threads of the Old, and until it can let go and become all its own, Ashley might seem like a reprobate, Rhett might seem like a gemtleman, and the entire Southern society will be in chaos.

"Chicago", by Carl Sandburg

Home plays a big part in Carl Sandburg's "Chicago." In the poem, the speaker acknowledges the problems with gangs and hunger in the city. He tells us that he knows all of those hardships exist in his beloved Chicago. But he also asks us if we have ever seen a city more alive, with more energy, prouder, cleverer. He tells us that Chicago has so much strength and power coursing through it, and those problems can be found anywhere. But there's only one Chicago, and it's nothing like you've ever seen before or will ever see again, because Chicago is always changing, "building, breaking, and rebuilding." Chicago is the speaker's home, and he sneers at those who sneer at his city. Chicago isn't a "little soft city", it's "a tall bold slugger." And to the speaker, nothing compares to his home of Chicago.

Georgia Dusk, by Jean Toomer

In Georgia Dusk, by Jean Toomer, amid the 'feasts of moon and men and barking hounds', there's a glimpse at the oppression there was in the south. It explains how after it's evening and the African-Americans can go home, after they've trudged through field after field they've been forced to clear of forest, you can start to see how great their ancestors in Africa were, how even though they are right now slaves or poor free men, they still have the pomp and dignity of their forefathers. You can see the greatness of the African kings, the high priests, the caravans, and the ju-ju men. You can see the wealth and beauty of their homeland through gaps in the trees as the men trudge home through the swamp. You can see all those things that are smothered every day while they are in the sawmill owned by a white man and reappears again after evening falls.