Discuss Gone with the Wind
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The Slattery's
posted by JoeSTAFFMOD on September 29, 2019 at 12:28 PM
How can anyone sympathise with Scarlett and Gerald in that scene when they treat the Slatteries horribly? And for classist reasons too!
Reply by genplant29
on October 25, 2019 at 11:17 PM
Very true. Of course how we view the Slatterys through present-day eyes vs. how they would have been perceived either back during the 1800s or in the 1930s are two very different things. Now we, in large part, view Scarlett and her father as being total jerks towards the Slatterys, whereas people in past generations would have seen the Slatterys as unacceptable social pariahs of trashy character and low morals, outcasts of their own making, who "good folk" should have absolutely nothing to do with.
Reply by Joe
on October 26, 2019 at 5:49 AM
Yeah, tis true! However, it does make it extremely hard to sympathise with Gerald's death
Reply by genplant29
on October 26, 2019 at 8:37 PM
If I recall accurately (and may definitely be mistaken), it was from going to help tend the Slatterys' new (I think out of wedlock?) baby that Mrs. O'Hara's death was brought on (via exposure to contagion or whatever). Therefore the O'Haras already utterly despise the Slatterys due to that, as they feel like the Slatterys literally killed their matriarch.
I bought the GwtW DVD a month or so ago, and so far have watched it only once (and hadn't seen the movie otherwise in probably 5+ years, though numerous times way back in the '70s and '80s), so remain a bit rusty on certain details specifics, and intend to watch it again probably sometime during the next few months.
Reply by Joe
on October 27, 2019 at 4:53 AM
I think you are right
Reply by Asharah
on October 27, 2019 at 11:42 AM
The Slattery family was not looked upon with favor not only because they were poor, but because they were freeloaders. The father's talents were drinking moonshine and repeatedly getting his wife pregnant with one baby after another that they didn't want to work to take care of. Then he would go and beg from the neighbors. Supposedly, some of the landowners had offered to buy his land for far more than it was worth to be rid of them, but were turned down because they would rather hang around and mooch.
Reply by genplant29
on October 27, 2019 at 11:54 AM
Thanks for the great info, Asharah.
I really need to reread the novel (which I have a hardcover copy of on my bookshelf) one of these days. I read it a couple times decades back, but no longer am able to recall much beyond what's in the movie version.