The Wind Done Gone
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| The Wind Done Gone | |
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| Author | Alice Randall |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Parody novel |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Publication date | 1 May 2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 210 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-618-11309-7 (first edition, hardback) |
The Wind Done Gone (2001) is the first novel written by Alice Randall. It is a historical parallel novel that reinterprets the famous American novel Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell.
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[edit] Plot summary
The plot of Gone with the Wind revolves around a pampered Southern woman named Scarlett O'Hara, who lives through the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The Wind Done Gone is the same story, but told from the viewpoint of Scarlett's half-sister Cynara, a mulatto slave on Scarlett's plantation; the title is an African American Vernacular English sentence that might be rendered "The Wind Has Gone" in English. Cynara's name comes from the Ernest Dowson poem Non sum qualís eram bonae sub regno Cynarae ("I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind") where the title of the original novel comes from.
The book consciously avoids using the names of Mitchell's characters or locations. Cynara refers to her sister as "Other", rather than Scarlett, and to Other's husband as "R" instead of Rhett Butler. Other is in love with "Dreamy Gentleman" (Ashley Wilkes), although he is married to "Mealymouth" (Melanie Wilkes). The magnificence of the O'Haras' house, Tara, is reduced to "Tata" or "Cotton Farm", and Twelve Oaks is renamed for its builders, "Twelve Slaves Strong as Trees".
[edit] Legal controversy
The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Randall and her publishing company, Houghton Mifflin, on the grounds that The Wind Done Gone was too similar to Gone with the Wind, thus infringing its copyright. The case attracted numerous comments from leading scholars, authors, and activists, regarding what Mitchell's attitudes would have been, and how much The Wind Done Gone copies from its predecessor. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated an injunction against publishing the book in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin (2001), the case was settled in 2002 when Houghton Mifflin agreed to make an unspecified donation to Morehouse College, a historically African American college in Atlanta, Georgia in exchange for Mitchell's estate dropping the litigation.
The cover of the book bears a seal identifying it as "The Unauthorized Parody." It is parody in the broad legal sense: a work that comments or criticizes a prior work. This characterization was important in the Suntrust case. However, the book is not a comedy, as the term "parody" would imply in its common usage.
[edit] References
- Randall, Alice (June 2001). The Wind Done Gone. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-10450-X; ISBN 0-618-21906-4 (paperback); ISBN 0-618-19424-X (CD).
[edit] External links
- "'Gone With the Wind' parody draws challenges, supporters", CNN, 2001-04-13.
- The Associated Press. "Settlement reached over 'Wind Done Gone'", Freedom Forum, 2002-05-10.
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