Heaven Help the Yankees if They Capture You’

Women Reading Gone With the Wind in Occupied Germany

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9851914
AutoresEmily Oliver (0000-0003-0087-3285, University of Warwick, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen71
Número2
Páginas193-214
Fecha de publicación2018-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGerman Life and Letters (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0016-8777 • E-ISSN: 1468-0483
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/glal.12191
OpenAlexW2805501769
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas7

First published in German in 1937, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was one of the most popular books in Germany throughout the Second World War and well into the occupation period. This article investigates why Mitchell's tale of the American Civil War and the South's humiliating defeat and subsequent occupation by hostile powers captured the popular imagination in occupied Germany. Drawing on the portrayal of women in the post‐war German press, the article illuminates how Scarlett O'Hara's transgression of traditional gender roles offered female readers potential for identification with the central character. Through reading Gone with the Wind in relation to debates about women's behaviour, relationships, and bodies during the occupation period, it argues that the novel participated in the victim discourse arising within Germany immediately after the Second World War

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Character (mathematics · German · Heaven · Literature · Period (music · Political science · Reading (process · Relation (database · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · European history and politics · Gender Studies · German History and Society · German legal, social, and political studies · History · Law