Magazine 2012
The Wind Done Gone: Postcolonial and
Postmodern Revisionist History
Ms. Vidya Premkumar
Mithibai College of Arts, Chauhan Institute of Science &
Amrutben Jivanlal College of Commerce and Economics
Abstract
The Wind Done Gone (2001) is a literary parody which re-examines and reinterprets the 1936 Margaret Mitchellb s
iconic novel Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind is the story of a pampered Southern woman, Scarlett
Ob Hara during the American Civil War and the consequent Reconstruction. Wind Done Gone retells the same
story from the viewpoint of the marginalised black characters represented through Cynara, a mulatto slave on
Scarlettb s plantation.
The paper examines the elements of postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism in the novel. In many
societies, women like the colonized subjects have been relegated to the position of b Otherb . Both Feminism and
Postcolonialism seek to reinstate the marginalised in the face of the dominant. The novel deconstructs a
centralised logocentric master narrative of Europoean culture. It rewrites history of antebellum South from the
perspective of the Other. There will be an examination of the strategies to subvert the actual material and
discursive effects of the process. Even its publication history reveals the neo-colonial attitudes that still persist
in America. The case revealed the deep seated white supremacy in mainstream literature which would not let
any marginalised voices question its canonical works.
The paper will also examine the term b parodyb in context of the text. One of the outcomes of the 2002 settlement
of the case was that the cover of the book had to bear a seal identifying it as b The Unauthorized Parodyb . Parody
is one of the strategies used in postmodern and postcolonial writings to dismantle the central/margin binarism
in imperial discourses; but here, parody is used in the broad legal sense: a work that comments on or criticizes
a prior work. However the book is not a comedy, as the literary term b parodyb suggests.
The Wind Done Gone: Postcolonial and Postmodern Revisionist History
The blurb of the novel The Wind Done Gone states that b Alice Randall began her love-hate relationship with
Gone with the Wind when she first read the novel at the age of twelve... the question became more insistent:
where were the mulatto children of Tara?b (Randall) From that quest was born the novel, The Wind Done Gone,
an attempt at questioning and rewriting this classic from the perspective of the marginalised black characters of
the novel. The work explodes the romanticised, whitewashed mythology of the antebellum South that Gone
with the Wind perpetuated and is therefore billed as a work of revisionist history that challenges familiar notions
about life on plantation. It reworks the egregious, one-dimensional stereotypes of the black characters that
people the world of Gone with the Wind.
The setting of GWW is in the southern state of Georgia in United States of America during the American Civil
War and the Reconstruction Era that followed the war. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of the rebellion
of the Confederate States of America which were in dispute with the rest of America over the statesb right
involving African slaves that were the source of manual labour on cotton plantations throughout the South.
Scarlett Ob Hara is the protagonist of the novel and represents the archetype of southern belle and upheld
everything that was Southern in nature. In Gone with the Wind, Mitchell is blind to racial oppression and the
inseparability of race and gender that defines the southern belle character of Scarlett.
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One of the criticisms levelled against Gone with the Wind is the portrayal of African Americans in the 19 century
South. For instance, former field hands are described (during the Reconstruction era) as behaving b as creatures
of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among
treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild b either from perverse pleasure in
destruction or simply because of their ignorance. Mitchell has also downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux
Klan.
There are elements of postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism in the novel, The Wind Done Gone as it
retells the same story from the viewpoint of the marginalised black characters represented through Cynara, a
mulatto slave on Scarlettb s plantation. In the society where the women like the colonized subjects have been
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relegated to the position of Other, WDG makes a black woman the protagonist of a novel. Both Feminism and
Postcolonialism seek to reinstate the marginalised in the face of the dominant. In that vein, the novel deconstructs
a centralised logocentric master narrative of Europoean culture. It rewrites history of antebellum South from the
perspective of the Other. There are strategies employed to subvert the actual material and that has discursive
effects.
The subversion begins right at the source of inspiration for the title of the original novel.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
(
Randall: vii)
This line is from Ernest Dowsonb s poem b Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynaraeb , which translated
mean b I am not as I was under the reign of the good Cynarab . The poem explores regret of loss of passion in an
old relationship. It has been the source of inspiration for the title of Gone with the Wind. She took the phrase
from the poem to reflect on the regret of loss of the way of life that was Southern before the Civil War. Randall
borrows the very name of her character from the poem. The protagonistb s name is Cynara, but in the novel itb s
not for Cynara that R. loses passion rather it is for Scarlett. The title also undergoes subversion as it is in African
American Vernacular English that when rendered in standard English would be b The Wind Has Goneb .
bell hooks, an African American feminist, in her work Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black takes on
the perspective of an oppressed black female as the center. She feels that the world looks out through a lens
of white supremacy and the white people hold the centre too often. So, she tries to steer away from the white
women in the centre and get them to look in as the b otherb by putting the black women at the heart of the
matter.
The same strategy of subversion is adopted by Randall when she puts the half-breed mulatto slave girl,
Cynara, in the centre of the story and makes Scarlett from Wind Done Gone, the b otherb in the novel. Like bell
hooks she too wants to call attention to b differences and othernessb . This is also a fall back on the main
argument of Spivakb s essay, b Can the Subaltern Speak?b which states that when subaltern tries to acquire a
voice, they must move into the dominant discourse to be understood. Inevitably, they remove themselves from
the subaltern position, which means that they also are no longer speaking from that position. Since there is no
way to get out of this cycle, Spivak concludes that the subaltern is a silent position. So Scarlettb s position in
this text is that of the b Otherb or the b subalternb . Therefore, the name accorded to Scarlett is very apt.
The other characters in the novel like Mammy, Garlic, Miss Priss, Planter and Lady who are parallels created to
Mammy, Pork, Miss Priss, Gerald Ob Hara and Ellen Ob Hara from Gone with the Wind also display similar
subversions and draws attention to the b differences and othernessb . The black characters are strong and
intelligent and generally the thinking force behind the running of the cotton farm and the estate and they
safeguard it for themselves and not for the white masters. The white characters are mostly stereotyped as weak
and foolish who are being manipulated without their knowledge by the black slaves. Garlic reveals this as he
talks about his experiences with Mammy on the occasion of her funeral:
b There was no architect here. There was me and what I remembered of all the great houses on great plantations
I had seenb & I built this place with my hands and I saw it in my mind before my hands built it. Mammy and me,
we saved it from the Yankees not for them but for us. She knew. She knew this house stood proud when we
couldnb t. Every column was a monument to the slaves and the whips our bodies had received. Every slave
being beat looked at the column and knew his beating would be remembered. I stole for this place and I got
shot doing it. We, Mammy and me, kept this place together because it was ours.b (Randall, 52)
The magnificence of the Ob harab s house Tara is reduced to b Tatab or b Cotton Farmb and Twelve Oaks from Gone
with the Wind is subverted in this book as b Twelve Slaves Strong as Treesb where the 12 pillars out fin the front
represents the strong backs of slaves and the vertical fluting on the column signifies whipping scars on the
menb s backs.
The novel divulges postmodern elements. b Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the
universe in which individual works are not isolated creations, much of the focus in the study of postmodern
literature is on intertextuality: the relationship between one text and another or one text within the interwoven
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fabric of literary history b & Intertextuality in postmodern literature can be a reference or parallel to another
literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of a style.b (wikipedia) The intertextuality in The
Wind Done Gone is very evident in its treatment of the text of Gone with the Wind and with cross references to
other iconic works like Uncle Tomb s Cabin in the context of its postcolonial reading: b This is my book. If I die
tomorrow, nobodyb ll remember me except maybe somebody who find this book. I read Uncle Tomb s Cabin. I
didnb t see me in it. Uncle Tom sounded just like Jesus to me, in costume. I donb t want to go in disguise.b
(
Randall, 7)
Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche is also a technique used which b pastesb together, multiple
elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be seen as a
representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or information-drenched aspects of postmodern society. It can be a
combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity. This
characteristic also brings out another characteristic of postmodern literature i.e., b the questioning of distinctions
between high and low culture through the use of pastiche, the combination of subjects and genres not previously
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deemed fit for literature.b (wikipedia). So the oral slave narratives which were later published in the early 20
century and not deemed high literature finds its voice in the novel form in The Wind Done Gone. This mixing of
genre provides authenticity to the narrative voice of Cynara and all the other slaves who had narrated their
harrowing experiences. The b Notes on the Textb published in the beginning of the novel authenticates the novel
as a true registering of a slave womanb s story: b This document was discovered in the early 1990s. It was among
the effects of an elderly coloured lady who had been in an assisted-living center just outside Atlanta.b (Randall,
v)
b
Poioumenonb (Fowler, 372), a term coined by Alastair Fowler to refer to a specific type of metafiction in which
the story is about the process of creation. In many cases, the book will be about the process of creating the
book or includes a central metaphor for this process. The Wind Done Gone is about the creation of this novel
but which within the fiction is a real work: b I donb t want to write no novel. I am just afraid of forgetting. I donb t talk
to anybody save Beauty and a few folks, so nobody remembers what I am thinking. If I forget my real name,
wonb t be anybody to tell it to meb & Ib m going to write down everythingb (Randall, 7) Writing is an act of
remembrance of the past and thus avoiding collective historical amnesia. This novel would become a memory
for the black community of its history of slavery, told in the voice of a black slave thus authenticating their own
experience and narration of it.
Linda Hutcheon coined the term b historiographic metafictionb (wikipedia) to refer to works that fictionalize
actual historical events or figures. The entire Civil War and the following Reconstruction has been fictionalised
in the novel. The history of that event has been revised and retold from the perspective of the Blacks who were
the silenced participants and the point of argument in the entire episode of Civil War in the history of America.
The fragmentation, temporal distortion and non-linear narrative found in the The Wind Done Gone are also
central features of postmodern literature.
The major project of Post Modernism which overlaps with Postcolonialism is the deconstruction of centralized,
logocentric master narratives of dominant culture and dismantling the central/margin binarism of dominant
discourse. For this it uses the subversive strategy of parody. The cover of the book The Wind Done Gone
bears a seal identifying it as b The Unauthorized Parodyb . It is the after effects of the controversial legal battle
know famously as the Suntrust case. The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Alice Randall and her publishing
company, Houghton Miffin, on the grounds that The Wind Done Gone was too similar to Gone with the Wind,
thus infringing copyright. One of the conditions of the 2002 settlement was that the book would be published
but with that seal printed on each copy of the novel. Parody is one of the strategies used in postmodern and
postcolonial writings; but here, parody is used in the broad legal sense: a work that comments on or criticizes
a prior work. However the book is not a comedy, as the literary term b parodyb suggests. It is a serious revisionist
history. The case revealed the deep seated white supremacy in mainstream literature which would not let any
marginalised voices question its canonical works.
The novelb s fictive source and its therapeutic ethos has been at times criticised and described as an example
of Teresa L. Ebertb s term b ludicb postmodernism b a mode of thinking whose privileging of difference and
performativity offers psychological satisfactions at the expense of a truer and more transformative history.
But in alluding to events in Mitchellsb novel Alice Randall ingeniously and ironically transforms them into an
emotionally complex story of a strong resourceful black woman who breaks away from the damaging world of
the Old South to emerge on her own. It is a literary achievement of significant political force and a much
needed retelling of the history of antebellum South.
Bliography
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Fowler, Alastair. The History of English Literature, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1989)
hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, Between the Lines, Toronto. (1989)
Randall, Alice. The Wind Done Gone, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, (2001)
Spivak, Gayatri. b Can the subaltern speak?.b Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988)
Webliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature
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