Vyry and Scarlett: A Comparative Analysis of Jubilee and Gone with the Wind

Abstract

This article looks at two major novels written in the background of the American Civil War, one by a black American woman and the other by a white American woman. Gone with the Wind was published in 1936 whereas Jubilee was published in 1966, fifteen years after Margaret Mitchell’s novel. Margaret Mitchell was born in a politically and financially established family whereas Margaret Walker had the kind of family background that encouraged her to write, since she was an academic, whereas Mitchell hid the manuscript of Gone with the Wind for ten years and only submitted it for publication when driven to prove herself. Using Richard Delgado’s perspective of Critical Race Theory, this article looks at the two works to see if the race of the writer determines the presentation of female characters. In order to do so, the essay carries out a textual analysis, taking different sections of the text and putting it under the microscope to see if the response of the writer is colored by race or whether that is a misperception.