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Full Version: How the generations in "Gone With The Wind" make sense
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GWTW is quoted in the chapter about generations - with Rhett and Scarlett being typical Nomads, while both their parents and their kids are more like Artists.

It sounds plausible if you read it, but makes less sense if you calculate the dates given in the story.
  • Scarlett was born 1844 or later - making her a Progressive (Artist).
  • Her mother was born around 1828 - Nomad, of all things.
  • Her father Gerald was born around 1800 - Transcendental, if the generations work the same way in Ireland. He immigrated to America in 1821, bis brothers even earlier - a rare thing for Irish Catholics at that time.
  • Rhett would be a Nomad - so far, so good.
  • Her other husbands were several years older, so they'd be Nomads as well.
  • Scarlett's kids were born after 1860 - so they'd be Missionaries. But except for the youngest, Bonnie, they rather fit the Artist archetype.


But now look at Margaret Mitchell's life:
  • She was born in 1900 - Lost (Nomad), if a cusper.
  • Her first husband died in WW1 - Lost.
  • Her third husband, who was much like Rhett, also was a Lost.
  • Her parents were Missionaries - her mother even was a feminist activist, a suffragette
  • She wrote the book from 1926 to 1935 - in this time, Silent children were born, so she'd have modeled the book's kids after those.
If you equal M. Mitchell = Scarlett, and do the same with other people in her life and the book, suddenly it makes more sense. She was a Nomad, so Scarlett also acted more like a Nomad than real Southern Belles born in 1844 would have done. Scarlett's kids act more like fearful Artists than spoiled "Prophets", because that was the kind of kids around when Mitchell wrote. And so on.
this is the most Nomad Gen-style scene I've ever seen. 
 


Another thing to take note of is that Rhett (reactive) is a doting, protective father, while Scarlett (adaptive) is far more negligent. This is also in line with Strauss and Howe theory, if an extreme example.