The Tragedy of Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind of Success

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The author of the great novel "Gone with the Wind" Margaret Mitchell lived not too long and very difficult life. The only literary work she created brought the writer world fame and wealth, but took away too much mental strength.

The film Gone With the Wind, based on the novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, was released in 1939 - just three years after the book was published. The premiere was attended by Hollywood stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, who played the main characters - Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. At a distance from the beauties of the cinema stood a modest slender woman in a hat. The raging crowd hardly noticed her. But it was Margaret Mitchell herself, the author of a book that, during the writer's lifetime, became a classic of American literature. In the rays of the glory of her work, she basked from 1936 to 1949 - until the very day of her death.

Athlete and flirt

Margaret Mitchell was almost the same age as the 20th century. She was born in the same Atlanta (Georgia), which became the scene of her immortal novel. The girl was born into a prosperous and wealthy family. Her father was a lawyer. The mother, although officially registered as a housewife, was affiliated with the movement of suffragettes - women who fought for their suffrage rights. In general, the author has largely written off the green-eyed Scarlett O'Hara. Mitchell was half Irish and Southerner to the core. But one should not think that the writer was a kind of old maid in pince-nez and with a feather in her hand. Not at all.

Gone with the Wind begins with the phrase, "Scarlett O Hara was not beautiful." But Margaret Mitchell was beautiful. Although, apparently, she did not consider herself particularly attractive, since she began an affair with such a phrase. But she was clearly being shy. Her dark hair, almond-shaped green eyes and slender figure attracted men like a magnet. But contemporaries remembered Margaret not as a windy beauty, but primarily as a wonderful storyteller and an amazing listener to other people's memories. Both of Mitchell's grandfathers participated in the North-South Civil War, and the future writer was ready to listen for hours to stories about their exploits at that time.

This is how one of her friends later recalled Mitchell:

Margaret combined a passion for coquetry and sports entertainment, outstanding ability to study and an interest in knowledge, a thirst for independence and … the desire to create a good, but quite patriarchal family. Mitchell was not a romantic. Contemporaries considered her practical and even stingy. About how methodically she - cent by cent - knocked out royalties from publishers, later there were legends …

While still in school, the daughter of a lawyer wrote simple plays in a romantic style for the student theater … After graduating from secondary education, Mitchell studied for a year at the prestigious Massachusetts College. There she was literally hypnotized by the ideas of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. It is possible that the American woman would have become one of his students and followers, if not for the tragic event: in 1919, during the Spanish flu pandemic, her mother died. And shortly before that, Henry, Margaret's fiancé, had died in Europe.

Desperate Reporter

Mitchell returned to Atlanta to take control of the house. The girl was too young and energetic to sink into despondency. She did not bustle about looking for a new party for herself - here the suffragist "part" of her nature made itself felt. Instead, she chose her own business as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal. Margaret's light and sharp pen quickly made her one of the publication's leading journalists. The patriarchal southern society found it difficult to "digest" a woman journalist. The editor of the publication at first directly told the ambitious girl: "How a lady from a good family can afford to write about the inhabitants of the city bottom and talk with different ragamuffins?" Mitchell was surprised by this question: she could never understand why women are worse than men. Perhaps that is why her heroine Scarlett was one of those people about whom they say in Russia in the words of the poet Nekrasov: "He will stop a galloping horse, enter a burning hut." The reports from the pen of the journalist came out clear, clear, leaving no questions for the reader …

Residents of Atlanta recalled: her return to her hometown made a splash among the male population. According to rumors, the educated and elegant beauty received from the gentlemen almost four dozen marriage proposals! But, as often happens in such situations, the chosen one was far from the best. Miss Mitchell could not resist the charm of Berrien "Reda" Upshaw - a tall, dashing handsome man. The groom's witness at the wedding was a modest, educated young man, John Marsh.

Margaret saw family life as a series of entertainment: parties, receptions, horseback riding. Both spouses loved equestrian sports from childhood. The writer also endowed Scarlett with this trait …

Red became the prototype of Rhett - their names are consonant. But, unfortunately, only in external manifestations. The husband turned out to be a man of a cruel, violent disposition. Just a little - he grabbed the pistol. The unhappy wife felt the weight of his fists on her. Margaret showed here too: she was not a bastard. Now there was a pistol in her purse too. Soon the couple divorced. All the city gossips watched the humiliating divorce procedure with bated breath. But Mitchell went through such an ordeal with her head held high. Margaret did not stay long for Mrs Upshaw. And then - and was not divorced for a year!

In 1925, she married the humble and devoted John Marsh. Finally, quiet happiness settled in her house!

Book for husband

The newly-minted Mrs. Marsh quit the magazine. Why? Some say: due to an injury sustained when falling from a horse. Others say: Margaret decided to devote time to her family. In any case, she once said: “A married woman should be, first of all, a wife. I am Mrs. John R. Marsh. Of course, Mrs. Marsh was grudging. She was not going to limit her life to the world of the kitchen. Margaret was clearly tired of reporting and decided to devote herself to literature.

She only introduced her husband to the first chapters of Gone with the Wind. It was he who from the first days became her best friend, critic and advisor. The novel was ready by the end of the 1920s, but Margaret was afraid to publish it. File folders were gathering dust in the closet of Marsha's new big house. Their housing became the center of the town's intellectual life - something like a literary salon. One of the editors of the Macmillan publishing house once looked into the light.

For a long time Margaret could not make up her mind. But she gave the manuscript to the editor. After reading, he immediately realized that he was holding a future bestseller in his hands. It took six months to finalize the novel. The final name of the heroine - Scarlett - was invented by the author right in the editorial office. The name Mitchell took from a poem by the poet Dawson.

The publisher was right: the book instantly became a bestseller. And the author in 1937 became a laureate of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. To date, the total circulation of her book in the United States alone has reached almost thirty million copies.

But neither fame nor money brought happiness to the writer. The peace of the house, which she and her husband had so protected, was disrupted. Margaret herself tried to control cash receipts to her own budget. But financial affairs only brought fatigue. There was no longer any strength for creativity.

And then the faithful John fell ill. Mitchell has become a caring nurse. And it turned out to be difficult, because her health began to deteriorate rapidly. By the late 1940s, the spouses' health began to improve. They even allowed themselves small "cultural" outings. But the returned happiness was short-lived. In August 1949, a car driven by a drunk driver hit Margaret, who was walking with her husband to the cinema. Five days later, the author of Gone With the Wind passed away.