The Wind Done Gone
by Alice Randall
Houghton Mifflin, 210 pp, $25
Alice Randall's "The Wind Done Gone," an acerbic underview of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind," has at its core one clear fact: Nobody knows the family secrets like the help. Making yourself indispensible to the lord (or lady) of the manor means becoming like one of the family.
At the expense of their own familial relationships and personal aspirations, enslaved blacks in pre-Civil War America did just that. As they watched loved ones sold off or savaged, they had to turn a smiling face to the ones responsible for their misery. As a means of survival, American blacks wriggled their way into the roles of enabler and indulgent servant. After a time, the masters became enslaved to the confidences and comforts provided by these, their "best" slaves. Such a position could ensure safety and longevity.
Another strength of the oppressed is sharp intelligence and knowledge of the oppressor's psyche. Scheherazade wove tales of Arabian Nights, stopping at a cliffhanger for 1,000 nights and winning the right to live from Sultan Schahriah of Arabia on the 1001st. Tituba, an Amerindian slave accused of being a witch for doing as she was asked, confessed to avoid her own trial, but launched Salem, Mass., into a frenzy now known as the Salem Witch Trials with her own prevarications.
On the other hand, becoming the love object of the oppressor can yield favors thought impossible to attain: Anna Heegaard, the Danish West Indian woman who entranced Governor-General Peter Von Scholten, is such an example. The governor required that she be treated with respect as she served as his hostess at Government House, much to the chagrin of plantation owners of that time.
Anna and Peter's relationship reportedly spanned over 20 years. Von Scholten was seeing to the education of island children as early as 1839 via Moravian missionaries. By the time emancipation came in 1848, many people of the territory were literate and had learned enough to support their new-found liberty.
Alice Randall's debut novel revolves around the maverick spirit of the mulatto Prissy Cynara Brown. Cynara's journal chronicles her life as the illegitimate daughter of the master of the house while watching her mother (Mammy) expend affection and care on the master's children, most notably "Other." Other parallels Scarlett O'Hara, while "R." shadows Rhett Butler. This intentionally lopsided treatment of "Gone With the Wind" seeks to give voice to those American blacks who thrived even in subservient roles — the other side of the Reconstruction era.
Another doppelganger, "Garlic" (Pork), claims to have engineered his being won in a card game by "Planter" (Gerald O'Hara) by dosing Planter's opponents with potent alcoholic beverages while mixing his target's drinks lightly. The goal: to end up at "Tata" (Tara) and create a stable and relatively luxurious environment in which to raise his family.
In "GWTW," this episode is expressed quite differently, with O'Hara winning the hapless Negro by his own wit. Garlic also boasts credit for selecting Mammy (Cynara's mother) and for helping to create the plantation Tata ("He needed me. And I needed him, 'cause I had a vision of a place I wanted to live … Every column fluted was a monument to the slaves and the whips our bodies had received … We, Mammy and me, kept this place together because it was ours").
R. and Other are introduced to each other by Cynara, and R. eventually marries Other. This does not curtail R. and Cynara's relationship, which had begun before he was introduced to Other. He leaves Other shortly after the death of their daughter, "Precious" (Bonnie), after giving the "I don't give a (tinker's) damn" speech, and sets up permanent house with Cynara.
At the beginning of the novel, R. and Cynara's encounters are steamy and ripe with sensuality. As the natural cooling of the physical aspect of their arrangement sets in, it becomes clear that Cynara has begun to re-evaluate her place in the world. She even muses, "There always seems to be one of us who don't want to be free."
Some time after Other dies, R. asks Cynara to marry — but to move to London with him and "pass" for white with her relatively light skin. This appears to be the point where Cynara reflexively gathers herself: "I cannot go to London and forget my color. I don't want to. Not anymore." From this point on, Cynara sees that, for all his affection, R. is not capable of giving her the kind of love and acceptance that she has denied herself for many years. While she acknowledges his love, she wants his respect.
R. keeps Cynara in a nice style, even as he woos and marries Other. At first, Cynara's focus lies in proving herself worthy of his love, and pleasing him is tantamount to pleasing herself. As the novel progresses, Negro men catch Cynara's eye, and she is shocked to find herself lusting after them. The objects of her desire have something that the Southern Negro had not had in the past: personal and financial success. Up until that time, her power has been in her ability to please R.; now, she slowly finds herself wanting to be pleased.
When R. refers to the object of her first crush as "boy" and Cynara winces, we see that she may be outgrowing her inferior status to R. She marries "her Debt" (R.), while building an intense connection with a dashing black congressman. To speak more of her dealings with her paramour would be giving away Cynara's greatest achievement (in her eyes), and so I shall not.
"The Wind Done Gone" presents the struggle to be free within, rather than without. In Cynara's relationship with R. (later Debt Chauffeur as her view of him changes), we see a parallel to the post-Civil War mentality of many black people in America. From an anxious realization that they had nowhere safe to go and no skills other than those learned on the plantation, many slaves chose to stay close to their former masters.
Cynara hints at the Ku Klux Klan's beastly efforts to restore "balance," almost as a reminder to herself of the risks involved in gaining too much, too soon. She and her intimates of color may not have attained greatness of national or worldwide magnitude in "TWDG," but their fictional struggle depicts the real-life stages of moving from slavery to liberty.
"The Wind Done Gone" is available at Dockside Bookshop in Havensight Mall on St. Thomas. To check out other Dockside favorites, click here.
