Stereotypes, Sexuality, and Intertextuality in Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone
Suzy Woltmann
Publication: Volume 2 Issue 2
Abstract
Towards the end of Alice Randall’s 2001 novel The Wind Done Gone (TWDG), the reader is confronted by an epistolary inclusion: the narrator’s mother, Mammy, writes from beyond the grave to negotiate a marriage proposal for her daughter. Mammy’s voice is clear. As Cynara, the narrator, tells us, “syllable and sound, the words were Mammy’s” (162). TWDG retells the history of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (GWTW), and the inclusion of Mammy’s voice and identity is not just a source of support for GWTW’s protagonist, Scarlett, but is jarring and even revolutionary. Randall gives voice to characters who lacked agency in GWTW and, in doing so, infuses them with complex personhood. TWDG’s heteroglossic approach signifies other literary works, especially its source text and slave narratives. The paper argues that TWDG intertextually parodies the portrayal of stereotypes and sexuality found in GWTW, and worries the line of African-American literary tradition through its use of the rhetorical tools of irony, signposting front cover portraiture, and confirmation documents found in slave narratives; by doing so, the adaptation illustrates the continued haunting presence of slavery in today’s cultural imagination and pushes against its ideological effects. This matters because, as Cheryl Wall, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Avery Gordon, and others show, African-American authors often rely on signifying past works as a sort of literary tradition that highlights racist discourse. The paper modifies the current theoretical discussion about postmodern adaptation, which posits that reworking something that already exists intervenes in the previous political moment as well as the contemporary one to bring a new set of knowledge. This applies to TWDG; however, the paper contends that reworking and parody have a specific function that intersects with African-American literary criticism. This is essential since in Mitchell’s iconographic text filled with nostalgia about the enslaved South, Cynara could not write her own text. There is no singular original she is referring back to, but rather a multitude of previous texts along with slavery’s haunting legacy. TWDG responds in an original way not only to the romanticized view of the Confederate South created in Mitchell’s immensely popular epic, but also to recurring race and gender issues in the years since its publication.
Keywords: Adaptation, Slavery, African-American Literature, Signification, Gone With The Wind
Suzy Woltmann (kwoltman@ucsd.edu) is a literature and writing instructor at the University of California, San Diego, USA. Her dissertation focuses specifically on radical rewritings, adaptations that drastically reframe their source texts to allow voice for the marginalized. Much of her work has been on exploring identity and marginality through the lens of literary adaptations. Her research interests include adaptations studies, gender and sexuality, and mythology.