Difference between revisions of "329-2010--Week 6 Questions/Comments"
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Dr. McClurken told us that half the soldiers lost in the Civil War died of disease, not battle wounds. The movie accurately reflects this when Charles Hamilton, Scarlett's first husband, dies of pneumonia following an attack of measles. The movie slants this as further proof that Charles was a supreme wuss, but although Scarlett regarded it as a lucky break (unaware of how confining a widow's life would be), the truth is that not every Confederate died leading a battle charge. --- Deborah S. | Dr. McClurken told us that half the soldiers lost in the Civil War died of disease, not battle wounds. The movie accurately reflects this when Charles Hamilton, Scarlett's first husband, dies of pneumonia following an attack of measles. The movie slants this as further proof that Charles was a supreme wuss, but although Scarlett regarded it as a lucky break (unaware of how confining a widow's life would be), the truth is that not every Confederate died leading a battle charge. --- Deborah S. | ||
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| + | A) Scarlett is the most annoying twit known to man. B) I believe that the movie accurately shows how the war affected the South. During the Battle of Atlanta, the movie shows the town burning down in an inferno of flames. They also accurately show that the supply lines were destroyed, courtesy of the "lovely" Shurman. Although the movie definitely shows the destruction done by the Union soldiers in Atlanta, it also depicts how much destruction was done by the south's own retreating Confederate soldiers and citizens. In the movie they blow up their own ammunition so that Union soldiers wouldn't get it, as well as attack Rhett and Scarlett as they were trying to escape the city. The destruction to the countryside that Shurman's Union soldiers unnecessarily did is also evident in the movie when Scarlett returns to Ashley's plantation Twelve Oaks to find it utterly decimated and sacked. --Erin L. | ||
== Things the movie got wrong == | == Things the movie got wrong == | ||
| − | Prissy would probably have had intimate knowledge about birthin' babies because she would probably have had at least one herself. As we read in "The Trials of a Slave Girl," and heard in today's lecture, young female slaves were easy sexual pickings for white masters. As sexual prey, Prissy would have had two strikes against her: she was a house servant, and she was easily intimidated. Mammy's seemingly childless state is suspicious, too. Granted, her character was patently the neutered Aunt Jemima; however, it is unlikely that she would have had no offspring unless she was barren. It is true that slave women often lost their children in sales to new masters, or families were broken up when white estates were divided upon a master's death. Frederick Douglass in his first autobiography writes about his abandoned grandmother, who has no | + | Prissy would probably have had intimate knowledge about birthin' babies because she would probably have had at least one herself. As we read in "The Trials of a Slave Girl," and heard in today's lecture, young female slaves were easy sexual pickings for white masters. As sexual prey, Prissy would have had two strikes against her: she was a house servant, and she was easily intimidated. Mammy's seemingly childless state is suspicious, too. Granted, her character was patently the neutered Aunt Jemima; however, it is unlikely that she would have had no offspring unless she was barren. It is true that slave women often lost their children in sales to new masters, or families were broken up when white estates were divided upon a master's death. Frederick Douglass in his first autobiography writes about his abandoned grandmother, who has no descendants around her to comfort her old age. ---- Deborah S. |
== The movie as a primary source about the time/people who made it == | == The movie as a primary source about the time/people who made it == | ||
