Open Prompt #1

1985. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.

More often than not, as humans, we experience many emotions at one time, often conflicting, caused by the multitude of people and circumstances in our lives. Great works of literature, according to one critic, should produce this same effect of "healthy confusion". In Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, a romance set during the Civil War, almost every emotion felt by readers are accompanied by opposite ones. Mitchell uses details and imagery to show characters and events that create the conflicting emotions of "pleasure and disquietude" in the reader.

Scarlett O'Hara, a young woman of the southern aristocracy, is the novel's protagonist. Throughout the novel, she alternately hates, gets along with, and eventually loves the charming Rhett Butler, a blockade runner who turns up now and then in Scarlett's life. Through her constant use of well-placed details, Mitchell shows readers that Scarlett's character is a head-strong young woman, willing to use any means necessary to get what she wants. For example, when Scarlett's plantation, Tara, is threatened by heavy property taxes, Scarlett dresses to the nines and goes to visit Rhett in jail. Despite the fact that she hates him, she smiles and batts her eyelashes, before finally asking Rhett for the money. The details given in this scene paint a clear picture of Scarlett's character. She makes a dress out of the green velvet curtains at Tara, peers at Rhett from underneath her delicate eyelashes, and, when he sees through her flirtations, storms away like a toddler having a tantrum. These details certainly create a "disquietude" and displeasure about Scarlett's character. This negative feeling toward her, however, is countered when we are given details of Scarlett at her best. Later in the novel, after Scarlett and Rhett have married, Mitchell's wonderful description of their daughter, Bonnie, through Scarlett's eyes, create the "pleasure" that was missing. Scarlett watches her baby girl and notices the curve of her soft cheek, the gentle curl of her hair, the bright blue of her eyes, and later, as a toddler, her curiosity and vivacity. The details Mitchell so carefully weaves into the novel create opposite emotions about Scarlett and her personality.

Imagery also plays a heavy role in creating the "healthy confusion" of emotions in the novel, especially when Mitchell describes the South during the Civil War. At one point in the novel, Scarlett leaves her family at Tara to stay with her aunt in Atlanta. At first, Atlanta has all the charms and romance of a Southern town in the 1860s. Mitchell paints glorious pictures of its people and places. For example, Scarlett goes to a dance with her sister-in-law, Melanie. Although Scarlett is in mourning for her first husband, Charles, she longs to dance. Mitchell describes the atmosphere clearly. She writes of the brilliantly colored skirts twisting and flowing around the dance floor; the sharply dressed Confederate soldiers in their gray uniforms; the banners on the walls of the brightly decorated hall. All of these descriptions create a feeling of immense pleasure as the room seems to come alive inside the mind of the reader. Later, though, as the Yankees attack Atlanta, the town turns grim. During one attack, Scarlett is forced to deliver Melanie's baby and cannot flee the invading army. The scene is described flawlessly. As Scarlett runs through the streets, looking for help, cannons explode in the distance, moving closer and closer to her house; dust rises up from the streets; brightly colored houses lay dark and deserted. Scarlett screams for aid but finds none and as she puts on a brave face for Melanie, the reader can feel her terror. This emotion is completely opposite to the one felt at the dance hall, both created by Mitchell's use of imagery.

A certain level of "healthy confusion" is necessary to any great work of literature, as one critic stated. A piece comes alive when readers can feel those opposing emotions. Through the use of well-thought out and carefully placed detail, as well as stunning imagery, Margaret Mitchell creates that sense of "pleasure and disquietude" about characters and events in her novel, Gone with the Wind.