Monday, September 02, 2024

Teaser Tuesday

Here's how to play.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) 

There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might adopt. Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving. And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness. 

So much attention has been paid -- rightly so -- to the racial stereotypes perpetuated and celebrated in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. But a big part of why the story endures and has captured my heart is the depiction of the women.

Like Scarlett. It's amazing to me that in 1936, when Gloria Steinem was just two years old, Margaret Mitchell created a heroine who is impetuous, vain and willful, as well as strong, imaginative, straightforward and ferociously in charge of her own fate.