Contents

1Introduction.     4

2. What is the book “Gone with the Wind”?   4

3. .About the author Margaret Mitchell.    4-5

4. Civil War as the background of the book.        5

5. ...Historical roles of the State of Tennessee and the battles there.      5-7

6. .Battles in Tennessee mentioned in the book and how they influence to the plot of the whole book; the battles in the mind of the characters of the novel; the credibility of the description of these battles from the author Margaret Mitchell.    7-20

7Notes  47824

8..Reference. 

 Introduction

The Civil War is one of the central events in America's collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war.( Waugh, Gallagher,2009) 

Today I am an exchange student in Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where some of the bloodiest and critical battles of in the American civil war took place, such as Battle of Stones River. Living here with the daily contact to the history inspires me to find out how Tennessee and battles here are related to the book “Gone with the Wind”.

What is the book “Gone with the Wind”

Gone with the Wind is an American novel written by Margaret Mitchell, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson, first published in 1936. The story is set during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, and most part of the story took place in the state of Georgia. Scarlett O'Hara, a daughter of an Irish descendent cotton plantation owner is the leading role of the book. Actually the book can also be taken as the story of her. Scarlett O'Hara began as a rich and carefree southern girl to a widow with a boy. She witnessed the brutality and the horror of the civil war, in which the whole south was damaged. O’Hara family suffered a huge loss as well. To rebuild the family’s economy, Scarlett married Frank Kennedy, a rich businessman. Frank Kennedy was shot dead in a revenge for Scarlett. Her third marriage was with a major supporting role, Captain Rhett Butler. But the third marriage did not work out well, either.

About the author Margaret Mitchell.

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American author and journalist. Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. During her life time , she only published one historical novel, Gone with the Wind, with this novel Mitchell won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936(The New York Times 23)and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937.

Civil War as the background of the book.

Revised by me from Wikipedia: the American Civil War, widely known in the United States as simply the Civil War as well as other sectional names, was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy. Among the 34 states as of January 1861, seven Southern slave states inpidually declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, known as the "Confederacy" or the "South". They grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by a foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories.1 After four years of combat, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then it began the Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves. 《飘》对田纳西州战争的研究:http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_50062.html