TinaII2None said:

MegC said:

Btw, did I mention that I live in Atlanta (well, right outside Atlanta–like, less than an hour away).  Maybe I can track down some of the places mentioned in the novel and take pictures or something (although I think MM’s house burned down several years ago).

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You know I saw Georgia in your by-line and was wondering where in the state you might be.

I think you’re right about MM’s house.  Can’t remember where I heard about that though….

I read somewhere — Lord knows where the way I read LOL — that the Hollywood version of Tara was not MM’s version. As far as the house I mean. I don’t think she saw Tara as being that “stately.”

You're righ about Tara and Margaret Mitchell's description in the book is very accurate. I think in the movie “The Making of Gone with the Wind,” he said that the architecture in the movie would have made a Clayton County farmer rub his eyes. Doric, Ionice, and Corinthian columns are more of Lousianian styles (Oak Alley – or it's proper name, “Bon Sejour [Pleasant sojourn]) than that of Georgia and South Carolina. They were generally clapboard houses with add ons and such. Some were even made of logs with clap boards covering them up. The way to really tell wealth in those days was how many windows were in the house. Glass was very expensive so it was a way of showing success. Sorry, but will keep reading. but I think now I'll read from back to first to make sure these questions and observations by already well versed people on this subject. Sorry for the third notification, WilesWales

MegC said:

So….here’s where we are:

Frank Kennedy and commisary troup have been through and Frank asked Suellen for her hand in marriage.

Scarlett has started having her nightmare.

The War ended.

Cathleen Calvert rode over to Tara to tell them she was marrying Hilton.  I don’t know that I ever really grasped before WHY Cathleen was marrying Hilton, so I was a little surprised when I put two and two together.  The second Mrs. Calvert was leaving with her children to go north and Cade was dying and Cathleen wanted Cade to die in peace.  I think it just shows that things have gotten to the point where you have to do what has to be done.  

There’s a description of Tara after the Yankees leave for a second time that talks about how desolate it was as Scarlett tried to figure out how she was going to feed everybody through the winter, and the description of the buzzards circling over Tara.  Let me just tell you, I have never lived in a place with more vultures!  I mean, we had both black-headed and turkey vultures in Tennesse, but I swear never in the numbers that I see around here!  I have driven down the road and literally seen ten vultures all huddled together on the side of the road picking at something.  And they circle over my subdivision all day so I can completely imagine hoards of vultures circling over Tara.

Let’s see…

The soldiers returning from the war have started stopping at Tara.  Uncle Peter has come to bring Ashley’s letter, Will Benteen has come to stay for awhile, and Ashley has returned.  And the Yankees are about to raise the taxes on Tara.

Here is a thought I had while reading tonight, I ran across this sentence:  “Scarlett knew that Ellen would have fainted at the thought of a daughter of hers marrying such a man, but now Scarlett by necessity forced too far away from Ellen’s teachings to let that worry her.”  And I thought, I will agree that things have changed.  That the stringent class restrictions that had existed prior to the war had been loosened, that the dividing line between master and slave had blurred significantly, but I feel like there are many things that Scarlett uses the war as an excuse for her discarding–emotions and ideas she previously found little use for except to maintain a certain image she has now entirely discarded:  sympathy and empathy, sentimentality.  Those ideals that keep us human–that even Grandma Fontaine seemed to understand.  Frankly, Melanie and Carreen and Cathleen many others (including the slaves) have managed, I think, to hold on to their classiness, but Scarlett has just abandonned all scruples and is sort of descending into amorality.  I don’t really begrudge anything that she has done up to this point, but she’s so bitter about everything–not wanting to feed the returning soldiers or refusing to feel sympathy for the Tarletons after she discovers that they purchased two headstones to memorialize their boys.  Or being pissed at Carreen because she still mourns the death of Brent Tarleton and won’t just move on.  There’s not much about Scarlett that is endearing, but this is one aspect of her character that has always gotten under my craw.

Well, she did say in her famous soliloquy (sp?), as God was her witness, “No no ANY OF MY FOLKS…if I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.” This may be why she is so bitter, and she has also worn the same dress for a year, she was the eldest Soutern Belle of a rich planter with “…there must have been a hundred of them…”, taking care of Melanie, risking rape and torture, without knowing during the all day childbirth of Melanie's baby, vultures flying over dead bodies, her mother's death upon return home, her father's madness, etc., I think I'd be a little grouchy, too (especially the food part). WilesWales

Sorry for taking so long to answer! So glad you liked my comments. I jumped in before l had read most of the pages. In truth, I saw GWTW when I was 12, and once I saw Vivian Leigh, she reminded me so very much of my mother who had died two years before that. I became obsessed with the book, the movie, the making of movie, the “Making of GWTW, the story of Margaret Mitchell, her biography, visiting her apt. in Atlanta, through my travels at work, Southern genealogy (SAR, direct descendant of one of the SC Signers of the Ordinance of Secession, etc.), that I think I have a pretty good handle on this topic. Not to brag or show off either.

The Berkley and Shirley Plantations in Charles City (near Richmond, VA) showed me very early Southern Architecture, going to Oak Alley and Houmas House between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and SC, GA, FL, and NC architecture gives me a pretty good idea of South architecture by region in the south. I don't know, but I think, maybe possibly. But have never been to Kentucky to see the “Federal style,” and will look up George Rogers Clark after I finnish this. Thank you!

There never was a Tara or Twelve Oaks in the movie, and when Scarlett walked into the door of Twelve Oaks in the beginning of GWTW, she was walking into a stage door that was blank, Jack Cosgrove painted in glass the Twelve Oaks in the movie as he did Tara. The night Ms. Ellen comes home in the movie, is done by a little mini train sized facade that looks very real in the beginning as well, and if you really look closely at the carriages going into Twelve Oaks at the day of the BBQ, you will see that they fade rather than go completely in. It's like the house in Atlanta where Scarlett owned half, and Melanie half, in the book said that it was far enough away from the center of Atlanta, and Scarlett in the movie always having to be as she said to Rhett, “drive me to Aunt Pitty's,” that it was not an old house at the time, and that Atlanta was really a new town still being built. In the book, most of the crowd were there from other states, and were horrified by ones who might be descendants of the founder of the colony of Ga, Oglethorpe, as GA was originally a haven for prisoners from Europe.

Well, enough of that, but Scarlett and Rhett do remind me of Anne and Henry in their ups and downs and so on, but at least Scarlett lived and hopefully matured and became a better person. I'll save this paragraph for discussion if you or anyone would like to discuss it, as I've always been interested in what people think happened af the end, and please don't mention “Scarlett,” as I've never read more than 600 pages of dribble in my life. I wondered if the author in a lot, and I mean a lot of cases ever read the real book.

I remember the “Big Valley” and yes, it does look like the simple columns of Tara at the same time being the height of Twelve Oaks, and it is not as grand as Twelve Oaks, but even as seen in the movie, Tara did have an extra part on it, but it has the fullness of Twelve Oaks. I know it's all fiction, but the Big Valley seemed to far west to me now have had a house like that, but that's Hollywood. Nothing, though, can ever take the place of Barbara Stanwick! Wow! What an actress!

Hope to hear from you soon, and I hope this college paper hasn't been too long! Thank you very much! Wiles Wales

I apologize, bu this is the article that led me to “Waveland.” It also mentions the official sites for White Hall and I believe My Old Kentucky home. Love this, and it may not be far off the subject because Gerald O'Hara did like his Kentucky bourbon… 

http://www.examiner.com/kentuc…..stmas-tour

WilesWales