The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall

First published: 2001

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Parody

Time of work: 1870’s

Locale: Atlanta, Georgia

Principal Characters:

• Cynara, also known as Cinnamon or Cindy, a former slave on a cotton plantation near Atlanta, Georgia
• R. or Debt (Rhett Butler), Cynara’s lover and later husband
• Other (Scarlett O’Hara), Cynara’s half-sister and the first wife of R.
• Mammy, Cynara’s mother and Other’s nurse, who treats Other as her adored child
• Garlic, Planter’s valet, who asserts influence over Planter
• Planter (Mr. O’Hara), the owner of the cotton plantation, who loves Mammy and keeps her as his longtime mistress
• Lady, Planter’s wife and Other’s mother, who enters into a loveless marriage
• Congressman, Cynara’s love interest

The Novel

The Wind Done Gone, described by author Alice Randall as a parody of Margaret Mitchell’s famous novel Gone with the Wind (1936), presents the diary of Cynara, a former slave at the O’Hara cotton plantation. Randall’s novel does not lampoon the earlier novel; instead, it recasts selected episodes from its source text, presenting the events as perceived by Cynara, the biracial half sister of Mitchell’s protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara. Cynara, also known as Cinnamon or Cindy, refers to Scarlett as Other. She is the daughter of Other’s father, whom she refers to as Planter, and Mammy, Other’s nurse and virtual mother. The fictitious diary that constitutes the novel was supposedly found among the effects of Prissy Cynara Brown, an elderly woman who died in an assisted living center and who was a descendant of Prissy, one of the O’Haras’ household slaves. It recounts events leading up to and during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period.

The plot unfolds as a twenty-eight-year-old Cynara reflects on events of the past, experiences a personally important revelation, and learns about herself as well. Having been sold by her owner and father Planter to a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, Cynara eventually is bought by Beauty, the owner of a brothel. She works there as a maid and becomes the favorite and later the kept mistress of R. (Gone with the Wind’s Rhett Butler).

Cynara’s diary recalls the lives and deaths of the people associated with the once-thriving cotton plantation she calls Tata—the Tara of Gone with the Wind—where she spent her first thirteen years. It reveals the subtle control the slaves exert over their masters. Cynara explains that Garlic (Planter’s valet), the slave with the most power and status, advises the weak Planter on the development of the property. She exposes his fulfilled determination to ensure that no male heirs to the estate will survive, and she explains that he protected the property from the Union soldiers who would have used it as a camp by pretending that its inhabitants were infected with smallpox. Ultimately, Garlic inherits the estate from R., who had inherited it from Other. Garlic then restores it with money gained by inheriting and selling the small house owned by Cynara.

The Characters

Cynara is represented through her first-person narration as an intelligent, perceptive person. She assesses the actions and motives of both her family and their white counterparts, struggles to come to terms with her own feelings of rejection, and seeks to define her place in the world. Her entries explain her frustration. She accounts for her resentment of Other since childhood. Other enjoyed the benefits of the maternal relationship with Cynara’s own mother that Cynara only longed for. Cynara’s sense that her mother rejected her, her early separation from family, and her subsequent humiliation on the auction block contribute to her insecurity and anger. She expresses these feelings partly in her need to exert her superiority over Other. She is proud that she is R.’s preferred love and takes responsibility for his marriage to Other, revealing that she motivated R. to notice Other and then pursue marriage, thinking correctly that this marriage would eventually secure him to Cynara, knowing that she was the one able to provide the love and comfort for which he longed.

Established in Charleston in a house provided by R., Cynara is summoned to her mother’s deathbed. While this trip to say good-bye initially recalls to Cynara the anger and hurt of her mother’s apparent rejection, she discovers while there a letter to her from her mother professing her love. This letter resolves one of Cynara’s major issues. Her other concern is finding her place in the world. R. marries her and even offers her a chance to live in Europe, where she could live as a white person, rather than live with him on the estate he inherits from Other. At one time, Cynara would have welcomed this opportunity. Now, though, she falls in loves with a black congressman. She chooses to become his mistress, bearing for him and his wife the child his wife cannot have. In surrogate motherhood, Cynara exerts pride of self and finds fulfillment.

Critical Context

Margaret Mitchell’s estate sued to prevent the publication of The Wind Done Gone, claiming that it was so similar in content to Gone with the Wind as to constitute copryright infringement. Randall’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin, succeeded in having the estate’s restraining order lifted, leading to a settlement of the lawsuit. This legal battle drew much attention to the novel even before it was available to the general public. Once published, it received varied and mixed reviews. Some critics found it presented a refreshing alternate view to the romanticized and mythologized Tara of Gone with the Wind. Some analyzed it in the context of literature about slaves. Other critics found a lack of plausibility and verisimilitude. That criticism centered on anachronisms, especially references to life events and recognizable twentieth century observations about which Cynara could not have known. These inclusions suggest that it was Randall’s intent to create a contemporary representation of an imagined example of a slave coming to terms with her heritage and asserting her pride in self and culture.

Bibliography

Garber, Marjorie. Review of The Wind Done Gone, by Alice Randall. The New York Times, April 8, 2001, pp. 4, 15. Identifies Randall’s approach as literary ventriloquism, defined as a spin-off of a popular work, and asserts the important place literary characters assume for their readers as evidenced by their longing to know more about them.

Gone with the Wind.Mississippi Quarterly 59, nos. 1/2 (Winter, 2005): 243-269. Explores the depiction of race as an issue of class in Gone with the Wind and assesses the ways other historical fictions, including The Wind Done Gone, counter that presentation.

Haddox, Thomas F. “Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone and the Ludic in African American Historical Fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 1 (Spring, 2007): 210. Describes the lawsuit against The Wind Done Gone and shows that the unique position of Cynara does not present a fuller view of former slaves c. 1870 but rather a contemporary view of the self.

Rubenfeld, Jed. “A New Take on the Plantation.” The Washington Post, April 26, 2001, p. A27. Briefly summarizes The Wind Done Gone and argues for the denial of copyright protection for a work that explores life behind the romantic world of Gone with the Wind.

Schwarzbaun, Lisa “’Wind’ Storm.” Entertainment Weekly 596 (May 18, 2001): 26. Describes TheWind Done Gone as important for presenting the backstory to Gone with the Wind and reminding readers of the ongoing fight over issues of both the representation of race and artistic freedom.

Virginia Quarterly Review. Review of The Wind Done Gone, by Alice Randall. 78, no. 1 (Winter, 2002). Capsule review presenting a brief but typically negative assessment of the contribution of The Wind Done Gone to southern fiction and the accuracy of its descriptions of race and slavery during the last half of the nineteenth century.