what type of pathogen is african sleeping sickness

African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, is an insect-borne parasitic disease of humans and other animals.[1] It is caused by protozoa of the species Trypanosoma brucei.[1] There are two types that infect humans, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (TbG) and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (TbR).[1] TbG causes over 98% of reported cases.[1] Both are usually transmitted by the bite of an infected tsetse fly and are most common in rural areas.[1]

African trypanosomiasis

Initially, in the first stage of the disease, there are fevers, headaches, itchiness and joint pains.[1] This begins one to three weeks after the bite.[2] Weeks to months later the second stage begins with confusion, poor coordination, numbness, and trouble sleeping.[2] Diagnosis is via finding the parasite in a blood smear or in the fluid of a lymph node.[2] A lumbar puncture is often needed to tell the difference between first and second stage disease.[2]

Prevention of severe disease involves screening the population at risk with blood tests for TbG.[1] Treatment is easier when the disease is detected early and before neurological symptoms occur.[1] Treatment of the first stage is with the medications pentamidine or suramin.[1] Treatment of the second stage involves eflornithine or a combination of nifurtimox and eflornithine for TbG.[2] While melarsoprol works for both stages, it is typically only used for TbR, due to serious side effects.[1] Without treatment it typically results in death.[1]

The disease occurs regularly in some regions of sub-Saharan Africa with the population at risk being about 70 million in 36 countries.[5] An estimated 11,000 people are currently infected with 2,800 new infections in 2015.[3][1] In 2015 it caused around 3,500 deaths, down from 34,000 in 1990.[4][6] More than 80% of these cases are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1] Three major outbreaks have occurred in recent history: one from 1896 to 1906 primarily in Uganda and the Congo Basin and two in 1920 and 1970 in several African countries.[1] It is classified as a neglected tropical disease.[7] Other animals, such as cows, may carry the disease and become infected in which case it is known as animal trypanosomiasis.[1]

African trypanosomiasis symptoms occur in two stages. The first stage, known as the hemolymphatic phase, is characterized by fever, headaches, joint pains, and itching. Fever is intermittent, with attacks lasting from a day to a week, separated by intervals of a few days to a month or longer. Invasion of the circulatory and lymphatic systems by the parasites is associated with severe swelling of lymph nodes, often to tremendous sizes. Winterbottom's sign, the tell-tale swollen lymph nodes along the back of the neck, may appear.[8] Occasionally, a chancre (red sore) will develop at the location of the tsetse fly bite. If left untreated, the disease overcomes the host's defenses and can cause more extensive damage, broadening symptoms to include anemia, endocrine, cardiac, and kidney dysfunctions.

The second phase of the disease, the neurological phase, begins when the parasite invades the central nervous system by passing through the blood–brain barrier. Disruption of the sleep cycle is a leading symptom of this stage and is the one that gave the disease the name'sleeping sickness.' Infected individuals experience a disorganized and fragmented 24-hour rhythm of the sleep-wake cycle, resulting in daytime sleep episodes and nighttime periods of wakefulness.[8]

Other neurological symptoms include confusion, tremor, general muscle weakness, hemiparesis, and paralysis of a limb. Parkinson-like movements might arise due to non-specific movement disorders and speech disorders. Individuals may also exhibit psychiatric symptoms such as irritability, psychotic reactions, aggressive behaviour, or apathy which can sometimes dominate the clinical diagnosis.[9] Without treatment, the disease is invariably fatal, with progressive mental deterioration leading to coma, systemic organ failure, and death. An untreated infection with T. b. rhodesiense will cause death within months[10] whereas an untreated infection with T. b. gambiense will cause death after several years.[11] Damage caused in the neurological phase is irreversible.[12]

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense accounts for the majority of African trypanosomiasis cases, with humans as the main reservoir needed for the transmission, while Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense is mainly zoonotic, with the occasional human infection.[13] African Trypanosomiasis is dependent on the interaction of the parasite (trypanosome) with the tsetse flies (vector), as well as the host (human for Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, and animals for Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense).[14] The risk of contracting African Trypanosomiasis is dependent on coming in contact with an infected tsetse fly.[14]

There are two subspecies of the parasite that are responsible for starting the disease in humans. Trypanosoma brucei gambiense causes the diseases in west and central Africa, whereas Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense has a limited geographical range and is responsible for causing the disease in east and southern Africa. In addition, a third subspecies of the parasite known as Trypanosoma brucei brucei is responsible for affecting animals but not humans.[9]

Humans are the main reservoir for T. b. gambiense but this species can also be found in pigs and other animals. Wild game animals and cattle are the main reservoir of T. b. rhodesiense. These parasites primarily infect individuals in sub-Saharan Africa because that is where the vector (tsetse fly) is located. The two human forms of the disease also vary greatly in intensity. T. b. gambiense causes a chronic condition that can remain in a passive phase for months or years before symptoms emerge and the infection can last about 3 years before death occurs.[9]

T. b. rhodesiense is the acute form of the disease, and death can occur within months since the symptoms emerge within weeks and it is more virulent and faster developing than T. b. gambiense. Furthermore, trypanosomes are surrounded by a coat that is composed of variant surface glycoproteins (VSG). These proteins act to protect the parasite from any lytic factors that are present in human plasma. The host's immune system recognizes the glycoproteins present on the coat of the parasite leading to the production of different antibodies (IgM and IgG).[9]

These antibodies will then act to destroy the parasites that circulate around the blood. However, from the several parasites present in the plasma, a small number of them will experience changes in their surface coats resulting in the formation of new VSGs. Thus, the antibodies produced by the immune system will no longer recognize the parasite leading to proliferation until new antibodies are created to combat the novel VSGs. Eventually the immune system will no longer be able to fight off the parasite due to the constant changes in VSGs and infection will arise.[9]

The tsetse fly (genus Glossina) is a large, brown, biting fly that serves as both a host and vector for the trypanosome parasites. While taking blood from a mammalian host, an infected tsetse fly injects metacyclic trypomastigotes into skin tissue. From the bite, parasites first enter the lymphatic system and then pass into the bloodstream. Inside the mammalian host, they transform into bloodstream trypomastigotes, and are carried to other sites throughout the body, reach other body fluids (e.g., lymph, spinal fluid), and continue to replicate by binary fission.

The entire life cycle of African trypanosomes is represented by extracellular stages. A tsetse fly becomes infected with bloodstream trypomastigotes when taking a blood meal on an infected mammalian host. In the fly's midgut, the parasites transform into procyclic trypomastigotes, multiply by binary fission, leave the midgut, and transform into epimastigotes. The epimastigotes reach the fly's salivary glands and continue multiplication by binary fission.

The entire life cycle of the fly takes about three weeks. In addition to the bite of the tsetse fly, the disease can be transmitted by:

Horse-flies (Tabanidae) and stable flies (Muscidae) possibly play a role in transmission of nagana (the animal form of sleeping sickness) and the human disease form.[17]

Tryptophol is a chemical compound that induces sleep in humans. It is produced by the trypanosomal parasite in sleeping sickness.[18]

The gold standard for diagnosis is identification of trypanosomes in a patient sample by microscopic examination. Patient samples that can be used for diagnosis include chancre fluid, lymph node aspirates, blood, bone marrow, and, during the neurological stage, cerebrospinal fluid. Detection of trypanosome-specific antibodies can be used for diagnosis, but the sensitivity and specificity of these methods are too variable to be used alone for clinical diagnosis. Further, seroconversion occurs after the onset of clinical symptoms during a T. b. rhodesiense infection, so is of limited diagnostic use.[citation needed]

Trypanosomes can be detected from patient samples using two different preparations. A wet preparation can be used to look for the motile trypanosomes. Alternatively, a fixed (dried) smear can be stained using Giemsa's or Field's technique and examined under a microscope. Often, the parasite is in relatively low abundance in the sample, so techniques to concentrate the parasites can be used prior to microscopic examination. For blood samples, these include centrifugation followed by examination of the buffy coat; mini anion-exchange/centrifugation; and the quantitative buffy coat (QBC) technique. For other samples, such as spinal fluid, concentration techniques include centrifugation followed by examination of the sediment.[citation needed]

Three serological tests are also available for detection of the parasite: the micro-CATT, wb-CATT, and wb-LATEX. The first uses dried blood, while the other two use whole blood samples. A 2002 study found the wb-CATT to be the most efficient for diagnosis, while the wb-LATEX is a better exam for situations where greater sensitivity is required.[19]

Currently there are few medically related prevention options for African Trypanosomiasis (i.e. no vaccine exists for immunity). Although the risk of infection from a tsetse fly bite is minor (estimated at less than 0.1%), the use of insect repellants, wearing long-sleeved clothing, avoiding tsetse-dense areas, implementing bush clearance methods and wild game culling are the best options to avoid infection available for local residents of affected areas.[20]

At the 25th ISCTRC (International Scientific Council for Trypanosomiasis Research and Control) in Mombasa, Kenya, in October 1999, the idea of an African-wide initiative to control tsetse and trypanosomiasis populations was discussed. During the 36th summit of the Organization for African Unity in Lome, Togo, in July 2000, a resolution was passed to form the Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC). The campaign works to eradicate the tsetse vector population levels and subsequently the protozoan disease, by use of insecticide-impregnated targets, fly traps, insecticide-treated cattle, ultra-low dose aerial/ground spraying (SAT) of tsetse resting sites and the sterile insect technique (SIT).[21] The use of SIT in Zanzibar proved effective in eliminating the entire population of tsetse flies but was expensive and is relatively impractical to use in many of the endemic countries afflicted with African trypanosomiasis.[20]

Regular active surveillance, involving detection and prompt treatment of new infections, and tsetse fly control is the backbone of the strategy used to control sleeping sickness. Systematic screening of at-risk communities is the best approach, because case-by-case screening is not practical in endemic regions. Systematic screening may be in the form of mobile clinics or fixed screening centres where teams travel daily to areas of high infection rates. Such screening efforts are important because early symptoms are not evident or serious enough to warrant patients with gambiense disease to seek medical attention, particularly in very remote areas. Also, diagnosis of the disease is difficult and health workers may not associate such general symptoms with trypanosomiasis. Systematic screening allows early-stage disease to be detected and treated before the disease progresses, and removes the potential human reservoir.[22] A single case of sexual transmission of West African sleeping sickness has been reported.[16]

The current treatment for first-stage disease is intravenous or intramuscular pentamidine for T. b. gambiense or intravenous suramin for T. b. rhodesiense.[1]

For T. b. gambiense a regimen involving the combination of nifurtimox and eflornithine, nifurtimox-eflornithine combination treatment (NECT), or eflornithine alone appear to be more effective and result in fewer side effects.[23] These treatments may replace melarsoprol when available[23] with the combination being first line.[2] NECT has the benefit of requiring less injections of eflornithine.[23]

Intravenous melarsoprol was previously the standard treatment for second-stage (neurological phase) disease and is effective for both types.[2] Melarsoprol is the only treatment for second stage T. b. rhodesiense; however, it causes death in 5% of people who take it.[2] Resistance to melarsoprol can occur.[2]

As of 2010 it caused around 9,000 deaths, down from 34,000 in 1990.[6] As of 2000, the disability-adjusted life-years (9 to 10 years) lost due to sleeping sickness are 2.0 million.[25] From 2010-2014, there was an estimated 55 million people at risk for gambiense African Trypanosomiasis and over 6 million people at risk for rhodesiense African Trypanosomiasis.[26] In 2014, the World Health Organization reported 3,797 cases of Human African Trypanosomiasis when the predicted number of cases were to be 5,000. The number of total reported cases in 2014 is an 86% reduction to the total number of cases reported in 2000.[26]

The disease has been recorded as occurring in 37 countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa. It occurs regularly in southeast Uganda and western Kenya, and killed more than 48,000 Africans in 2008.[12] The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most affected country in the world, accounting for 75% of the Trypanosoma brucei gambiense cases.[13] The population at risk being about 69 million with one third of this number being at a'very high' to'moderate' risk and the remaining two thirds at a 'low' to'very low' risk.[5] The number of people being affected by the disease has declined. At this rate, sleeping sickness elimination is a possibility. The World Health Organization plans to eradicate sleeping sickness by the year 2020.[27]

If untreated, T. b. gambiense almost always results in death, with only a few individuals shown in a long-term 15 year follow-up to have survived after refusing treatment. T. b. rhodesiense, being a more acute and severe form of the disease, is consistently fatal if not treated.[2] Disease progression greatly varies depending on disease form. For individuals which are infected by T. b. gambiense, which accounts for 98% of all of the reported cases, a person can be infected for months or even years without signs or symptoms until the advanced disease stage, where it is too late to be treated successfully. For individuals affected by T. b. rhodesiense, which accounts for 2% of all reported cases, symptoms appear within weeks or months of the infection. Disease progression is rapid and invades the central nervous system, causing death within a short amount of time.[30]

The condition has been present in Africa for thousands of years.[31] Because of a lack of travel between indigenous people, sleeping sickness in humans had been limited to isolated pockets. This changed after Arab slave traders entered central Africa from the east, following the Congo River, bringing parasites along. Gambian sleeping sickness travelled up the Congo River, and then further east.[32]

An Arab writer of the 14th century left the following description in the case of a sultan of the Malli [sic] Kingdom: "His end was to be overtaken by the sleeping sickness (illat an-nawm) which is a disease that frequently befalls the inhabitants of these countries especially their chieftains. Sleep overtakes one of them in such a manner that it is hardly possible to awake him."[32]

The British naval surgeon John Atkins described the disease on his return from West Africa in 1734:

"The Sleepy Distemper (common among the Negroes) gives no other previous Notice, than a want of Appetite 2 or 3 days before; their sleeps are sound, and Sense and Feeling very little; for pulling, drubbing or whipping will scarce stir up Sense and Power enough to move; and the Moment you cease beating the smart is forgot, and down they fall again into a state of Insensibility, drivling constantly from the Mouth as in deep salivation; breathe slowly, but not unequally nor snort. Young people are more subject to it than the old; and the Judgement generally pronounced is Death, the Prognostik seldom failing. If now and then one of them recovers, he certainly loses the little Reason he had, and turns Ideot..."[32]

In 1901, a devastating epidemic erupted in Uganda, killing more than 250,000 people,[33] including about two-thirds of the population in the affected lakeshore areas. According to The Cambridge History of Africa, "It has been estimated that up to half the people died of sleeping-sickness and smallpox in the lands on either bank of the lower river Congo."[34]

The causative agent and vector were identified in 1903 by David Bruce, and the subspecies of the protozoa were differentiated in 1910. Bruce had earlier shown that T. brucei was the cause of a similar disease in horses and cattle that was transmitted by the tse-tse fly (Glossina morsitans).[32]

The first effective treatment, atoxyl, an arsenic-based drug developed by Paul Ehrlich and Kiyoshi Shiga, was introduced in 1910, but blindness was a serious side effect.

Suramin was first synthesized by Oskar Dressel and Richard Kothe in 1916 for Bayer. It was introduced in 1920 to treat the first stage of the disease. By 1922, Suramin was generally combined with tryparsamide (another pentavalent organoarsenic drug), the first drug to enter the nervous system and be useful in the treatment of the second stage of the gambiense form. Tryparsamide was announced in the Journal of Experimental Medicine in 1919 and tested in the Belgian Congo by Louise Pearce of the Rockefeller Institute in 1920. It was used during the grand epidemic in West and Central Africa on millions of people and was the mainstay of therapy until the 1960s.[35] American medical missionary Arthur Lewis Piper was active in using tryparsamide to treat sleeping sickness in the Belgian Congo in 1925.[36]

Pentamidine, a highly effective drug for the first stage of the disease, has been used since 1937.[37] During the 1950s, it was widely used as a prophylactic agent in western Africa, leading to a sharp decline in infection rates. At the time, eradication of the disease was thought to be at hand.[citation needed]

The organoarsenical melarsoprol (Arsobal) developed in the 1940s is effective for patients with second-stage sleeping sickness. However, 3–10% of those injected have reactive encephalopathy (convulsions, progressive coma, or psychotic reactions), and 10–70% of such cases result in death; it can cause brain damage in those who survive the encephalopathy. However, due to its effectiveness, melarsoprol is still used today. Resistance to melarsoprol is increasing, and combination therapy with nifurtimox is currently under research.[citation needed]

Eflornithine (difluoromethylornithine or DFMO), the most modern treatment, was developed in the 1970s by Albert Sjoerdsma and underwent clinical trials in the 1980s. The drug was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1990.[38] Aventis, the company responsible for its manufacture, halted production in 1999. In 2001, Aventis, in association with Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organization, signed a long-term agreement to manufacture and donate the drug.[citation needed]

In addition to sleeping sickness, previous names have included negro lethargy, maladie du sommeil (Fr), Schlafkrankheit (Gr), African lethargy,[39] and Congo trypanosomiasis.[39][40]

The genome of the parasite has been sequenced and several proteins have been identified as potential targets for drug treatment. Analysis of the genome also revealed the reason why generating a vaccine for this disease has been so difficult. T. brucei has over 800 genes that make proteins the parasite "mixes and matches" to evade immune system detection.[41]

Using a genetically modified form of a bacterium that occurs naturally in the gut of the vectors is being studied as a method of controlling the disease.[42]

Recent findings indicate that the parasite is unable to survive in the bloodstream without its flagellum. This insight gives researchers a new angle with which to attack the parasite.[43]

Trypanosomiasis vaccines are undergoing research.

Additionally, the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative has contributed to the African sleeping sickness research effort by developing a compound called fexinidazole.  This project was originally started in April 2007 and is currently in a pivotal study in clinical phase II/III. The goal is to have the drug succeed and be proven effective against stage one and stage two HAT caused by T. b. gambiense, as well as HAT caused by T. b. rhodesiense.[44]

For current funding statistics, human African trypanosomiasis is grouped with kinetoplastid infections. Kinetoplastids refer to a group of flagellate protozoa.[45] Kinetoplastid infections include African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, and Leishmaniasis. All together, these three diseases accounted for 4.4 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and an additional 70,075 recorded deaths yearly.[45] For kinetoplastid infections, the total global research and development funding was approximately $136.3 million in 2012. Each of the three diseases, African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, and Leishmaniasis each received approximately a third of the funding, which was about $36.8 million US dollars, $38.7 million US dollars, and $31.7 million US dollars, respectively.[45]

For sleeping sickness, funding was split into basic research, drug discovery, vaccines, and diagnostics. The greatest amount of funding was directed towards basic research of the disease; approximately $21.6 million US dollars were directed towards that effort. As for therapeutic development, approximately $10.9 billion were invested.[45]

The top funder for kinetoplastid infection research and development are public sources. About 62% of the funding comes from high-income countries while 9% comes from low- and middle-income countries. High-income countries public funding is largest contributors to the neglected disease research effort. However, in recent years, funding from high-income countries has been steadily decreasing; in 2007, high-income countries provided 67.5% of the total funding whereas, in 2012, high-income countries public funds only provided 60% of the total funding for kinetoplastid infections. This downwards trend leaves a gap for other funders, such as philanthropic foundations and private pharmaceutical companies to fill.[45]

Much of the progress that has been made in African sleeping sickness and neglected disease research as a whole is a result of the other non-public funders. One of these major sources of funding has come from foundations, which have increasingly become more committed to neglected disease drug discovery in the 21st century. In 2012, philanthropic sources provided 15.9% of the total funding.[45] The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been a leader in providing funding for neglected disease drug development. They have provided $444.1 million US dollars towards neglected disease research in 2012. To date, they have donated over $1.02 billion US dollars towards the neglected disease discovery efforts.[46]

For kinetoplastid infections specifically, they have donated an average of $28.15 million US dollars annually between the years 2007 to 2011.[45] They have labeled human African trypanosomiasis a high-opportunity target meaning it is a disease that presents the greatest opportunity for control, elimination, and eradication, through the development of new drugs, vaccines, public-health programs, and diagnostics. They are the second highest funding source for neglected diseases, immediately behind the US National Institutes of Health.[45] At a time where public funding is decreasing and government grants for scientific research are harder to obtain, the philanthropic world has stepped in to push the research forward.

Another important component of increased interest and funding has come from industry. In 2012, they contributed 13.1% total to the kinetoplastid research and development effort, and have additionally played an important role by contributing to public-private partnerships (PPP) as well as product-development partnerships (PDP).[45] A public-private partnership is an arrangement between one or more public entities and one or more private entities that exists to achieve a specific health outcome or to produce a health product. The partnership can exist in numerous ways; they may share and exchange funds, property, equipment, human resources, and intellectual property. These public-private partnerships and product-development partnerships have been established to address challenges in pharmaceutical industry, especially related to neglected disease research. These partnerships can help increase the scale of the effort towards therapeutic development by using different knowledge, skills, and expertise from different sources. These types of partnerships have been shown to be more effective than industry or public groups working independently.[47]

Trypanosoma of both the rhodesiense and gambiense types can affect other animals such as cattle and wild animals.[1] In animals it is known as animal trypanosomiasis.


when was the book gone with the wind written

Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea". This historical novel features a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson.[2]

Gone with the Wind (novel)

Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.

Written from the perspective of the slaveholder, Gone with the Wind is Southern plantation fiction. Its portrayal of slavery and African Americans has been considered controversial, especially by succeeding generations, as well as its use of a racial epithet and ethnic slurs common to the period. However, the novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.

Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It was adapted into a 1939 American film. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.[3]

Mitchell used color symbolism, especially the colors red and green, which frequently are associated with Scarlett O'Hara. Mitchell identified the primary theme as survival. She left the ending speculative for the reader, however. She was often asked what became of her lovers, Rhett and Scarlett. She replied, "For all I know, Rhett may have found someone else who was less difficult."[4] Two sequels authorized by Mitchell's estate were published more than a half century later. A parody was also produced.

Born in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, Margaret Mitchell was a Southerner and writer throughout her life. She grew up hearing stories about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction from her tyrannical Irish-American grandmother, who had endured its suffering. Her forceful and intellectual mother was a suffragist who fought for the rights of women to vote.[5]

As a young woman, Mitchell found love with an army lieutenant. He was killed in World War I, and she would carry his memory for the remainder of her life. After studying at Smith College for a year, during which time her mother died from the Spanish flu, Mitchell returned to Atlanta. She married, but her husband was an abusive bootlegger. Mitchell took a job writing feature articles for the Atlanta Journal at a time when Atlanta debutantes of her class did not work. After divorcing her first husband, she married again, this time to a man who shared her interest in writing and literature. He had also been best man at her first wedding.[citation needed]

Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from a slow-healing auto-crash injury.[4] In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor looking for new fiction, read her manuscript and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references and rewriting the opening chapter several times.[6] Mitchell and her husband John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first and then wrote the events that led up to them.[7] Gone with the Wind was published in June 1936.[citation needed][8]

The author tentatively titled the novel Tomorrow is Another Day, from its last line.[9] Other proposed titles included Bugles Sang True, Not in Our Stars, and Tote the Weary Load.[6] The title Mitchell finally chose is from the first line of the third stanza of the poem "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae" by Ernest Dowson:

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind...[10]

Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders to herself if her home on a plantation called "Tara" is still standing, or if it had "gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia."[11] In a general sense, the title is a metaphor for the demise of a way of life in the South prior to the Civil War. When taken in the context of Dowson's poem about "Cynara," the phrase "gone with the wind" alludes to erotic loss.[12] The poem expresses the regrets of someone who has lost his passionate feelings for his "old passion," Cynara.[13] Dowson's Cynara, a name that comes from the Greek word for artichoke, represents a lost love.[14]

Gone with the Wind takes place in the southern United States in the state of Georgia during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). The novel unfolds against the backdrop of rebellion wherein seven southern states initially, including Georgia, have declared their secession from the United States (the "Union") and formed the Confederate States of America (the "Confederacy"), after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The Union refuses to accept secession and no compromise is found as war approaches.

The novel opens April 15, 1861,[15] at "Tara," a plantation owned by Gerald O'Hara, an Irish immigrant who has become a successful planter, and his wife, Ellen Robillard O'Hara, from a coastal aristocratic family of French descent. Their 16-year-old daughter, Scarlett, is not beautiful, but men seldom realized it once they were caught up in her charm. All the talk is of the coming Civil War.[16]

There are brief but vivid descriptions of the South as it began and grew, with backgrounds of the main characters: the stylish and highbrow French, the gentlemanly English, the forced-to-flee and looked-down-upon Irish. Scarlett learns that one of her many beaux, Ashley Wilkes, will soon be engaged to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. She is heart-stricken. The next day at the Wilkeses' barbecue at Twelve Oaks, Scarlett tells Ashley she loves him, and he admits he cares for her.[17] However, he knows he would not be happy if married to her because of their personality differences. She loses her temper with him, and he silently takes it.

Rhett Butler, who has a reputation as a rogue, had been alone in the library when Ashley and Scarlett entered and felt it wiser to stay unseen during the argument. Rhett applauds Scarlett for the "unladylike" spirit she displayed with Ashley. Infuriated and humiliated, she tells Rhett, "You aren't fit to wipe his boots!"[17]

After rejoining the other party guests, she learns that war has been declared and the men are going to enlist. Seeking revenge, Scarlett accepts a marriage proposal from Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton. They marry two weeks later. Charles dies of pneumonia following the measles two months after the war begins. As a young widow, Scarlett gives birth to her first child, Wade Hampton Hamilton, named after his father's general.[18] She is bound by custom to wear black and avoid conversation with young men. Scarlett feels restricted by these conventions and bitterly misses her life as a young, unmarried woman.

Aunt Pittypat is living with Melanie in Atlanta and invites Scarlett to stay with them. In Atlanta, Scarlett's spirits revive, and she is busy with hospital work and sewing circles for the Confederate Army. Scarlett encounters Rhett Butler again at a benefit dance, where he is dressed like a dandy.[19] Although Rhett believes the war is a lost cause, he is blockade running for profit. The men must bid for a dance with a lady, and Rhett bids "one hundred fifty dollars-in gold"[19] for a dance with Scarlett. They waltz to the tune of "When This Cruel War is Over," and Scarlett sings the words.[19][20][21]

Others at the dance are shocked that Rhett would bid for a widow and that she would accept the dance while still wearing black (or widow's weeds). Melanie defends her, arguing she is supporting the cause for which Melanie's husband, Ashley, is fighting.

At Christmas (1863), Ashley is granted a furlough from the army. Melanie becomes pregnant with their first child.

The war is going badly for the Confederacy. By September 1864, Atlanta is besieged from three sides.[22] The city becomes desperate and hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers pour in. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett to assist, as all the doctors are attending the soldiers. Prissy, a young slave, cries out in despair and fear, "De Yankees is comin!"[23] In the chaos, Scarlett, left to fend for herself, cries for the comfort and safety of her mother and Tara. The tattered Confederate States Army sets flame to Atlanta and abandons it to the Union Army.

Melanie gives birth to a boy, Beau, with Scarlett's assistance. Scarlett then finds Rhett and begs him to take herself, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at the idea but steals an emaciated horse and a small wagon, and they follow the retreating army out of Atlanta.

Part way to Tara, Rhett has a change of heart and abandons Scarlett to enlist in the army (he later recounts that when they learned he had attended West Point, they put him in the artillery, which may have saved his life). Scarlett then makes her way to Tara, where she is welcomed on the steps by her father, Gerald. Things have drastically changed: Scarlett's mother is dead, her father has lost his mind with grief, her sisters are sick with typhoid fever, the field slaves have left after Emancipation, the Yankees have burned all the cotton, and there is no food in the house. Scarlett avows that she and her family will survive and never be hungry again.

The long tiring struggle for survival begins that has Scarlett working in the fields. There are hungry people to feed and little food. There is the ever-present threat of the Yankees who steal and burn. At one point, a Yankee soldier trespasses on Tara, and it is implied that he would steal from the house and possibly rape Scarlett and Melanie. Scarlett kills him with Charles's pistol, and sees that Melanie had also prepared to fight him with a sword.

A long post-war succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Eventually, Ashley returns from the war, with his idealistic view of the world shattered.

Life at Tara slowly begins to recover, but then new taxes are levied on the plantation. Scarlett knows only one man with enough money to help her: Rhett Butler. She looks for him in Atlanta only to learn that he is in jail. Rhett refuses to give money to Scarlett, and leaving the jailhouse in fury, she runs into Frank Kennedy, who runs a store in Atlanta and is betrothed to Scarlett's sister, Suellen. Realizing Frank also has money, Scarlett hatches a plot and tells Frank that Suellen will not marry him. Frank succumbs to Scarlett's charms and marries her two weeks later, knowing he has done "something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life."[24] Always wanting her to be happy and radiant, Frank gives Scarlett the money to pay the taxes.

While Frank has a cold and is pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett goes over the accounts at Frank's store and finds that many owe him money. Scarlett is now terrified about the taxes and decides money, a lot of it, is needed. She takes control of the store, and her business practices leave many Atlantans resentful of her. With a loan from Rhett she buys a sawmill and runs it herself, all scandalous conduct. To Frank's relief, Scarlett learns she is pregnant, which curtails her "unladylike" activities for a while. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage the mill, all the while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley takes the job. Melanie becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to Ella Lorena: "Ella for her grandmother Ellen, and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls."[25]

Georgia is under martial law, and life has taken on a new and more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy. Her trips alone to and from the mill take her past a shantytown where criminal elements live. While on her way home one evening, she is accosted by two men who try to rob her, but she escapes with the help of Big Sam, the former Negro foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge his wife, Frank and the Ku Klux Klan raid the shantytown whereupon Frank is shot dead. Scarlett is a widow again.

To keep the raiders from being arrested, Rhett puts on a charade. He walks into the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside question Rhett, and he says he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett, and his Scallawag reputation among them improves a notch, but the men's wives, except Melanie, are livid at owing their husbands' lives to Belle Watling.

Frank Kennedy lies in a casket in the quiet stillness of the parlor in Aunt Pittypat's home. Scarlett is remorseful. She is swigging brandy from Aunt Pitty's swoon bottle when Rhett comes to call. She tells him tearfully, "I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell." He says, "Maybe there isn't a hell."[26] Before she can cry any further, he asks her to marry him, saying, "I always intended having you, one way or another."[26] She says she doesn't love him and doesn't want to be married again. However, he kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment she agrees to marry him. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement, which becomes the talk of the town.

Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Upon returning to Atlanta, they stay in the bridal suite at the National Hotel while their new home on Peachtree Street is being built. Scarlett chooses a modern Swiss chalet style home like the one she saw in Harper's Weekly, with red wallpaper, thick red carpet, and black walnut furniture. Rhett describes it as an "architectural horror".[27] Shortly after they move in to their new home, the sardonic jabs between them turn into full-blown quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her. Then "with real hate in her eyes",[27] she tells Rhett she will have a baby, which she does not want.

Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his half-sister, Eugenie Victoria, named after two queens, is born. She has blue eyes like Gerald O'Hara, and Melanie nicknames her, "Bonnie Blue," in reference to the Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy.

When Scarlett is feeling well again, she makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley, who is alone in the office. In their conversation, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of her intimate relations with Rhett, which excites her. She returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, they sleep separately, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett (with the light on all night because she is afraid of the dark). Rhett turns his attention toward Bonnie, dotes on her, spoils her, and worries about her reputation when she is older.

Melanie is giving a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to keep Ashley there until party time, a rare opportunity for her to see him alone. When she sees him, she feels "sixteen again, a little breathless and excited."[28] Ashley tells her how pretty she looks, and they reminisce about the days when they were young and talk about their lives now. Suddenly Scarlett's eyes fill with tears, and Ashley holds her head against his chest. Ashley sees his sister, India Wilkes, standing in the doorway. Before the party has even begun, a rumor of an affair between Ashley and Scarlett spreads, and Rhett and Melanie hear it. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of her sister-in-law, and India Wilkes is banished from the Wilkeses' home for it, causing a rift in the family.

Rhett, more drunk than Scarlett has ever seen him, returns home from the party long after Scarlett. His eyes are bloodshot, and his mood is dark and violent. He enjoins Scarlett to drink with him. Not wanting him to know she is fearful of him, she throws back a drink and gets up from her chair to go back to her bedroom. He stops her and pins her shoulders to the wall. She tells him he is jealous of Ashley, and Rhett accuses her of "crying for the moon"[29] over Ashley. He tells her they could have been happy together saying, "for I loved you and I know you."[29] He then takes her in his arms and carries her up the stairs to her bedroom, where it is strongly implied that he rapes herâ€”or, possibly, that they have consensual sex following the argument.

The next morning, Rhett leaves for Charleston and New Orleans with Bonnie. Scarlett finds herself missing him, but she is still unsure if Rhett loves her, having said it while drunk. She learns she is pregnant with her fourth child.

When Rhett returns, Scarlett waits for him at the top of the stairs. She wonders if Rhett will kiss her, but to her irritation, he does not. He says she looks pale. She says it's because she is pregnant. He sarcastically asks if the father is Ashley. She calls Rhett a cad and tells him no woman would want his baby. He says, "Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage."[30] She lunges at him, but he dodges, and she tumbles backwards down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost her child and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful, believing he has killed her. Sobbing and drunk, he buries his head in Melanie's lap and confesses he has been a jealous cad.

Scarlett, who is thin and pale, goes to Tara, taking Wade and Ella with her, to regain her strength and vitality from "the green cotton fields of home."[31] When she returns healthy to Atlanta, she sells the mills to Ashley. She finds Rhett's attitude has noticeably changed. He is sober, kinder, politeâ€”and seemingly disinterested. Though she misses the old Rhett at times, Scarlett is content to leave well enough alone.

Bonnie is four years old in 1873. Spirited and willful, she has her father wrapped around her finger and giving in to her every demand. Even Scarlett is jealous of the attention Bonnie gets. Rhett rides his horse around town with Bonnie in front of him, but Mammy insists it is not fitting for a girl to ride a horse with her dress flying up. Rhett heeds her words and buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, whom she names "Mr. Butler," and teaches her to ride sidesaddle. Then Rhett pays a boy named Wash twenty-five cents to teach Mr. Butler to jump over wood bars. When Mr. Butler is able to get his fat legs over a one-foot bar, Rhett puts Bonnie on the pony, and soon Mr. Butler is leaping bars and Aunt Melly's rose bushes.

Wearing her blue velvet riding habit with a red feather in her black hat, Bonnie pleads with her father to raise the bar to one and a half feet. He gives in, warning her not to come crying if she falls. Bonnie yells to her mother, "Watch me take this one!"[32] The pony gallops towards the wood bar, but trips over it. Bonnie breaks her neck in the fall, and dies.

In the dark days and months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though deeply bereaved also, seems to hold up under the strain. With the untimely death of Melanie Wilkes a short time later, Rhett decides he only wants the calm dignity of the genial South he once knew in his youth and leaves Atlanta to find it. Meanwhile, Scarlett dreams of love that has eluded her for so long. However, she still has Tara and knows she can win Rhett back, because "tomorrow is another day."[33]

Margaret Mitchell arranged Gone with the Wind chronologically, basing it on the life and experiences of the main character, Scarlett O'Hara, as she grew from adolescence into adulthood. During the time span of the novel, from 1861 to 1873, Scarlett ages from sixteen to twenty-eight years. This is a type of Bildungsroman,[34] a novel concerned with the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming-of-age story). Scarlett's development is affected by the events of her time.[34] Mitchell used a smooth linear narrative structure. The novel is known for its exceptional "readability".[35] The plot is rich with vivid characters.

Gone with the Wind is often placed in the literary subgenre of the historical romance novel.[36] Pamela Regis has argued that is more appropriately classified as a historical novel, as it does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre.[37] The novel has also been described as an early classic of the erotic historical genre, because it is thought to contain some degree of pornography.[38]

It was and is her life to serve, and she has done it well.

Slavery in Gone with the Wind is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things.[40] Southern plantation fiction (also known as Anti-Tom literature, in reference to reactions to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in Gone With the Wind, is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy.[41]

The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black house servant class. The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork, Prissy, and Uncle Peter.[42] House servants are the highest "caste" of slaves in Mitchell's caste system.[43] They choose to stay with their masters after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and subsequent Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 sets them free. Of the servants who stayed at Tara, Scarlett thinks, "There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy."[44]

The field slaves make up the lower class in Mitchell's caste system.[43][45] The field slaves from the Tara plantation and the foreman, Big Sam, are taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches[22] and never return to the plantation. Mitchell wrote that other field slaves were "loyal" and "refused to avail themselves of the new freedom",[43] but the novel has no field slaves who stay on the plantation to work after they have been emancipated.

American William Wells Brown escaped from slavery and published his memoir, or slave narrative, in 1847. He wrote of the disparity in conditions between the house servant and the field hand:

During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servantâ€”a situation preferable to a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing bell, but about an half hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave.[46]

Although the novel is more than 1,000 pages long, the character of Mammy never considers what her life might be like away from Tara.[47] She recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases, saying, "Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go," but Mammy remains duty-bound to "Miss Ellen's chile."[26] (No other name for Mammy is noted in the novel.)

Eighteen years before the publication of Gone with the Wind, an article titled, "The Old Black Mammy," written in the Confederate Veteran in 1918, discussed the romanticized view of the mammy character that had persisted in Southern literature:

...for her faithfulness and devotion, she has been immortalized in the literature of the South; so the memory of her will never pass, but live on in the tales that are told of those "dear dead days beyond recall".[48][49]

Micki McElya, in her book Clinging to Mammy, suggests the myth of the faithful slave, in the figure of Mammy, lingered because white Americans wished to live in a world in which African Americans were not angry over the injustice of slavery.[50]

The best-selling anti-slavery novel from the 19th century is Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin is mentioned briefly in Gone with the Wind as being accepted by the Yankees as "revelation second only to the Bible".[44] The enduring interest of both Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone with the Wind has resulted in lingering stereotypes of 19th-century African-American slaves.[51] Gone with the Wind has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white alike.[52]

The southern belle is an archetype for a young woman of the antebellum American South upper class. The southern belle was believed to be physically attractive but, more importantly, personally charming with sophisticated social skills. She is subject to the correct code of female behavior.[54] The novel's heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, charming though not beautiful, is a classic southern belle.

For young Scarlett, the ideal southern belle is represented by her mother, Ellen O'Hara. In "A Study in Scarlett", published in The New Yorker, Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote:

The Southern belle was bred to conform to a subspecies of the nineteenth-century "lady"... For Scarlett, the ideal is embodied in her adored mother, the saintly Ellen, whose back is never seen to rest against the back of any chair on which she sits, whose broken spirit everywhere is mistaken for righteous calm...[55]

However, Scarlett is not always willing to conform. Kathryn Lee Seidel, in her book, The Southern Belle in the American Novel, wrote:

...part of her does try to rebel against the restraints of a code of behavior that relentlessly attempts to mold her into a form to which she is not naturally suited.[56]

The figure of a pampered southern belle, Scarlett lives through an extreme reversal of fortune and wealth, and survives to rebuild Tara and her self-esteem.[57] Her bad belle traits (Scarlett's deceitfulness, shrewdness, manipulation, and superficiality), in contrast to Melanie's good belle traits (trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty), enable her to survive in the post-war South and pursue her main interest, which is to make enough money to survive and prosper.[58] Although Scarlett was "born" around 1845, she is portrayed to appeal to modern-day readers for her passionate and independent spirit, determination and obstinate refusal to feel defeated.[59]

Marriage was supposed to be the goal of all southern belles, as women's status was largely determined by that of their husbands. All social and educational pursuits were directed towards it. Despite the Civil War and loss of a generation of eligible men, young ladies were still expected to marry.[60] By law and Southern social convention, household heads were adult, white propertied males, and all white women and all African Americans were thought to require protection and guidance because they lacked the capacity for reason and self-control.[61]

The Atlanta Historical Society has produced a number of Gone with the Wind exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled, "Disputed Territories: Gone with the Wind and Southern Myths". The exhibit asked, "Was Scarlett a Lady?", finding that historically most women of the period were not involved in business activities as Scarlett was during Reconstruction, when she ran a sawmill. White women performed traditional jobs such as teaching and sewing, and generally disliked work outside the home.[62]

During the Civil War, Southern women played a major role as volunteer nurses working in makeshift hospitals. Many were middle- and upper class women who had never worked for wages or seen the inside of a hospital. One such nurse was Ada W. Bacot, a young widow who had lost two children. Bacot came from a wealthy South Carolina plantation family that owned 87 slaves.[63]

In the fall of 1862, Confederate laws were changed to permit women to be employed in hospitals as members of the Confederate Medical Department.[64] Twenty-seven-year-old nurse Kate Cumming from Mobile, Alabama, described the primitive hospital conditions in her journal:

They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all.[65]

The Civil War came to an end on April 26, 1865 when Confederate General Johnston surrendered his armies in the Carolinas Campaign to Union General Sherman. Several battles are mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind.

The Atlanta Campaign (Mayâ€“September 1864) took place in northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta.

Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from Dalton (May 7–13)[22] to Resaca (May 13–15) to Kennesaw Mountain (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the Chattahoochee River where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to Peachtree Creek (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.

The Savannah Campaign was conducted in Georgia during November and December 1864.

Although Abraham Lincoln is mentioned in the novel fourteen times, no reference is made to his assassination on April 14, 1865.

Wearing still on his pale, sweet face—
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave—

Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood. A planter by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died at the conclusion of the American Civil War.[70] Ashley's name signifies paleness. His "pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death."[71]

He contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other Confederate carpetbaggers there.[70] Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been "in a state of suspended animation" since the surrender.[72] He feels he is not "shouldering a man's burden" at Tara and believes he is "much less than a manâ€”much less, indeed, than a woman".[72]

A "young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight",[73] Ashley is like a young girl himself.[74] With his "poet's eye",[75] Ashley has a "feminine sensitivity".[76] Scarlett is angered by the "slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was "born queer".[77] (Mitchell's use of the word "queer" is for its sexual connotation because queer, in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.)[78] Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness, and sexual impotency.[79] He rides, plays poker, and drinks like "proper men", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims.[77][80] The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of Medusa on his cravat pin.[77][78]

Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands—the "calf-like"[17] Charles Hamilton, and the "old-maid in britches",[17] Frank Kennedy—are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction.[81] Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy,[82] is effeminate or "gay-coded."[83] Charles, Frank and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South.[71] Its power and influence has been diminished.

The word "scallawag" is defined as a loafer, a vagabond, or a rogue.[84] Scallawag had a special meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who accepted and supported Republican reforms.[85] Mitchell defines scallawags as "Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably."[86] Rhett Butler is accused of being a "damned Scallawag."[87] In addition to scallawags, Mitchell portrays other types of scoundrels in the novel: Yankees, carpetbaggers, Republicans, prostitutes, and overseers. In the early years of the Civil War, Rhett is called a "scoundrel" for his "selfish gains" profiteering as a blockade-runner.[88]

As a scallawag, Rhett is despised. He is the "dark, mysterious, and slightly malevolent hero loose in the world".[89] Literary scholars have identified elements of Mitchell's first husband, Berrien "Red" Upshaw, in the character of Rhett.[89] Another sees the image of Italian actor Rudolph Valentino, whom Margaret Mitchell interviewed as a young reporter for The Atlanta Journal.[90][91] Fictional hero Rhett Butler has a "swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes".[92] He is a "scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor."[92]

If Gone with the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.[1]
â€” Margaret Mitchell, 1936

Mitchell's use of color in the novel is symbolic and open to interpretation. Red, green, and a variety of hues of each of these colors, are the predominant palette of colors related to Scarlett.[112] She is also linked to white by the color of her skin. Symbolically, red and green have been broadly defined to mean "vitality" (red) and "rebirth" (green).[112] Mitchell interwove the two colors into her description of the Tara plantation: "red fields with springing green cotton".[18] The red fields are "blood-colored after rains".[16] The whitewashed brick plantation house is virtually nondescript by comparison to the plantation fields and sits like an island in a sea of red.[16] In springtime, the lawn around the plantation house turns emerald green.[53]

For the Irish and others, green in the novel represents Mitchell's commemoration of her "Green Irish heritage." Gerald O'Hara pridefully sings "The Wearin 'o the Green".[101][113] Scarlett's green-coded Irish identity is the strength that ensures she will thrive post-war.[114] Rhett likens Scarlett's strength to the mythological figure Antaeus, who stays strong only when he is in contact with his Mother Earth.[31] Scarlett's mythical mother is Tara.[115]

Scarlett is not all green; her name suggests the "erotically-charged color" red. The only openly "scarlet woman" in the novel is the red-headed Belle Watling,[116] whose hair is "too red to be true".[108] Mammy is reluctant to reveal her red petticoat to Rhett;[27] nevertheless, she has sexual knowledge akin to Belle Watling.[117] Scarlett, whom Mitchell pits against the war, "prostitutes" herself to pay the taxes on Tara. By her name, Scarlett evokes emotions and images of the color scarlet: "blood, passion, anger, sexuality, madness".[118]

The sales of Margaret Mitchell's novel in the summer of 1936, deep in the Great Depression and at the virtually unprecedented high price of three dollars, reached about one million by the end of December.[35] The book was a bestseller by the time reviews began to appear in national magazines.[7] Herschel Brickell, a critic for the New York Evening Post, lauded Mitchell for the way she "tosses out the window all the thousands of technical tricks our novelists have been playing with for the past twenty years."[119]

Ralph Thompson, a book reviewer for The New York Times, was critical of the length of the novel, and wrote in June 1936:

I happen to feel that the book would have been infinitely better had it been edited down to say, 500 pages, but there speaks the harassed daily reviewer as well as the would-be judicious critic. Very nearly every reader will agree, no doubt, that a more disciplined and less prodigal piece of work would have more nearly done justice to the subject-matter.[120]

Gone with the Wind has been criticized for its stereotypical and derogatory portrayal of African Americans in the 19th century South.[122] Former field hands during the early days of Reconstruction are described behaving "as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wildâ€”either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance."[43]

Commenting on this passage of the novel, Jabari Asim, author of The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why, says it is, "one of the more charitable passages in Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell hesitated to blame black 'insolence'[43] during Reconstruction solely on'mean niggers',[43] of which, she said, there were few even in slavery days."[123]

Critics say that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux Klan and their abuse of freedmen. Author Pat Conroy, in his preface to a later edition of the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having "the same romanticized role it had in The Birth of a Nation and appears to be a benign combination of the Elks Club and a men's equestrian society".[124]

Regarding the historical inaccuracies of the novel, historian Richard N. Current points out:

No doubt it is indeed unfortunate that Gone with the Wind perpetuates many myths about Reconstruction, particularly with respect to blacks. Margaret Mitchell did not originate them and a young novelist can scarcely be faulted for not knowing what the majority of mature, professional historians did not know until many years later.[125]

In Gone with the Wind, Mitchell explores some complexities in racial issues. Scarlett was asked by a Yankee woman for advice on who to appoint as a nurse for her children; Scarlett suggested a "darky", much to the disgust of the Yankee woman who was seeking an Irish maid, a "Bridget".[44] African Americans and Irish Americans are treated "in precisely the same way" in Gone with the Wind, writes David O'Connell in his 1996 book, The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. Ethnic slurs on the Irish and Irish stereotypes pervade the novel, O'Connell claims, and Scarlett is not an exception to the terminology.[126] Irish scholar Geraldine Higgins notes that Jonas Wilkerson labels Scarlett: "you highflying, bogtrotting Irish".[127] Higgins says that, as the Irish American O'Haras were slaveholders and African Americans were held in bondage, the two ethnic groups are not equivalent in the ethnic hierarchy of the novel.[128]

The novel has been criticized for promoting plantation values. Mitchell biographer Marianne Walker, author of Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind, believes that those who attack the book on these grounds have not read it. She said that the popular 1939 film "promotes a false notion of the Old South". Mitchell was not involved in the screenplay or film production.[129]

James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, says this novel should be taught in schools.[122] In 1984, an alderman in Waukegan, Illinois, challenged the book's inclusion on the reading list of the Waukegan School District on the grounds of "racism" and "unacceptable language." He objected to the frequent use of the racial slur nigger. He also objected to several other books: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the same reason.[130]

In 1937, Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gone with the Wind and the second annual National Book Award from the American Booksellers Association.[131] It is ranked as the second favorite book by American readers, just behind the Bible, according to a 2008 Harris Poll.[132] The poll found the novel has its strongest following among women, those aged 44 or more, both Southerners and Midwesterners, both whites and Hispanics, and those who have not attended college. In a 2014 Harris poll, Mitchell's novel ranked again as second, after the Bible.[133] The novel is on the list of best-selling books. As of 2010, more than 30 million copies have been printed in the United States and abroad.[134] More than 24 editions of Gone with the Wind have been issued in China.[134] TIME magazine critics, Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo, included the novel on their list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present (2005).[135][136] In 2003 the book was listed at number 21 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel."[137]

Gone with the Wind has been adapted several times for stage and screen:

Gone with the Wind has appeared in many places and forms in popular culture:

On June 30, 1986, the 50th anniversary of the day Gone with the Wind went on sale, the U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent stamp showing an image of Margaret Mitchell. The stamp was designed by Ronald Adair and was part of the U.S. Postal Service's Great Americans series.[155]

On September 10, 1998, the U.S. Post Office issued a 32-cent stamp as part of its Celebrate the Century series recalling various important events in the 20th century. The stamp, designed by Howard Paine, displays the book with its original dust jacket, a white Magnolia blossom, and a hilt placed against a background of green velvet.[155]

To commemorate the 75th anniversary (2011) of the publication of Gone with the Wind in 1936, Scribner published a paperback edition featuring the book's original jacket art.[156]

The Windies are ardent Gone with the Wind fans who follow all the latest news and events surrounding the book and film. They gather periodically in costumes from the film or dressed as Margaret Mitchell. Atlanta, Georgia is their mecca.[157]

One story of the legacy of Gone with the Wind is that people worldwide incorrectly think it was the "true story" of the Old South and how it was changed by the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The film adaptation of the novel "amplified this effect."[158] The plantation legend was "burned" into the mind of the public through Mitchell's vivid prose.[159] Moreover, her fictional account of the war and its aftermath has influenced how the world has viewed the city of Atlanta for successive generations.[160]

Some readers of the novel have seen the film first and read the novel afterward. One difference between the film and the novel is the staircase scene, in which Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs. In the film, Scarlett weakly struggles and does not scream as Rhett starts up the stairs. In the novel, "he hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened."[29][161]

Earlier in the novel, in an intended rape at Shantytown (Chapter 44), Scarlett is attacked by a black man who rips open her dress while a white man grabs hold of the horse's bridle. She is rescued by another black man, Big Sam.[162] In the film, she is attacked by a white man, while a black man grabs the horse's bridle.

The Library of Congress began a multiyear "Celebration of the Book" in July 2012 with an exhibition on Books That Shaped America, and an initial list of 88 books by American authors that have influenced American lives. Gone with the Wind was included in the Library's list. Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington said:

This list is a starting point. It is not a register of the 'best' American books â€“ although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.[163]

Among books on the list considered to be the Great American Novel were Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Throughout the world, the novel appeals due to its universal themes: war, love, death, racial conflict, class, gender and generation, which speak especially to women.[164] In North Korea, readers relate to the novel's theme of survival, finding it to be "the most compelling message of the novel".[165] Margaret Mitchell's personal collection of nearly 70 foreign language translations of her novel was given to the Atlanta Public Library after her death.[166]

On August 16, 2012, the Archdiocese of Atlanta announced that it had been bequeathed a 50% stake in the trademarks and literary rights to Gone With the Wind from the estate of Margaret Mitchell's deceased nephew, Joseph Mitchell. Margaret Mitchell had separated from the Catholic Church.[167] However, one of Mitchell's biographers, Darden Asbury Pyron, stated that Margaret Mitchell had "an intense relationship" with her mother, who was a Roman Catholic.

Although some of Mitchell's papers and documents related to the writing of Gone with the Wind were burned after her death, many documents, including assorted draft chapters, were preserved.[168] The last four chapters of the novel are held by the Pequot Library of Southport, Connecticut.[169]

The first printing of 10,000 copies contains the original publication date: "Published May, 1936". After the book was chosen as the Book-of-the-Month's selection for July, publication was delayed until June 30. The second printing of 25,000 copies (and subsequent printings) contains the release date: "Published June, 1936." The third printing of 15,000 copies was made in June 1936. Additionally, 50,000 copies were printed for the Book-of-the-Month Club July selection. Gone with the Wind was officially released to the American public on June 30, 1936.[170]

Although Mitchell refused to write a sequel to Gone with the Wind, Mitchell's estate authorized Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel, which was titled Scarlett.[171] The book was subsequently adapted into a television mini-series in 1994.[172] A second sequel was authorized by Mitchell's estate titled Rhett Butler's People, by Donald McCaig.[173] The novel parallels Gone With the Wind from Rhett Butler's perspective. In 2010, Mitchell's estate authorized McCaig to write a prequel, which follows the life of the house servant Mammy, whom McCaig names "Ruth". The novel, Ruth's Journey, was released in 2014.[174]

The copyright holders of Gone with the Wind attempted to suppress publication of The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall,[175] which retold the story from the perspective of the slaves. A federal appeals court denied the plaintiffs an injunction (Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin) against publication on the basis that the book was parody and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The parties subsequently settled out of court and the book went on to become a New York Times Best Seller.

A book sequel unauthorized by the copyright holders, The Winds of Tara by Katherine Pinotti,[176] was blocked from publication in the United States. The novel was republished in Australia, avoiding U.S. copyright restrictions.

Away from copyright lawsuits, Internet fan fiction has proved to be a fertile medium for sequels (some of them book-length), parodies, and rewritings of Gone with the Wind.[177]

Numerous unauthorized sequels to Gone with the Wind have been published in Russia, mostly under the pseudonym Yuliya Hilpatrik, a cover for a consortium of writers. The New York Times states that most of these have a "Slavic" flavor.[178]

Several sequels were written in Hungarian under the pseudonym Audrey D. Milland or Audrey Dee Milland, by at least four different authors (who are named in the colophon as translators to make the book seem a translation from the English original, a procedure common in the 1990s but prohibited by law since then). The first one picks up where Ripley's Scarlett ended, the next one is about Scarlett's daughter Cat. Other books include a prequel trilogy about Scarlett's grandmother Solange and a three-part miniseries of a supposed illegitimate daughter of Carreen.[179]


who played shawn hunter in boy meets world

Rider King Strong (born December 11, 1979), born as Rider King Strong, is an American actor, director, voice actor, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Shawn Hunter on the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World and its 2014 sequel Girl Meets World. He is also known for his role in the 2002 horror film Cabin Fever.

Rider Strong

Rider King Strong was born in San Francisco, California, the second of two boys born for Lin (nÃ©e Warner), a teacher and nutritionist, and King Arthur Strong,[1] a firefighter. He graduated from high school in Sebastopol, California in 1998. His elder brother is Shiloh Strong, an actor and photographer.[2]

Strong began his acting career at the age of nine, when he starred as Gavroche in the San Francisco production of Les Misérables. After the stage production, he appeared in small screen roles on television. In 1992, he received his first regular television series role as Julie Andrews's son on Julie. When the series was canceled, Strong made his debut on film as Amy Irving's son in Benefit of the Doubt. It was not until he was chosen for the role of Shawn Hunter in the ABC series Boy Meets World that he received widespread recognition.

During the seven-year run he was nominated twice for the Young Artist Award and nominated for a Hollywood Reporter YoungStar Award. When the series ended, Strong returned to the big screen to star as Paul in the indie horror film Cabin Fever, directed by Eli Roth. In 2006, he returned to television for a regular series role in Pepper Dennis on the WB. The show was short-lived and was not chosen as one of the transferring shows to The CW Television Network. That same year, Strong recorded a reading for the audio version of the Anthony Kiedis biography, Scar Tissue. He had a brief cameo appearance in 2009's Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, the sequel to Cabin Fever.

Along with his brother, Shiloh Strong, he wrote and directed the short film, Irish Twins, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. It went on to win both the Jury Award and Audience Award at the Woods Hole Film Festival, a Special Jury Prize in the Action/Cut Short Film Competition and Best First-Time Director at DC Shorts. Speaking to Pure Movies in 2010 he expressed that he wanted to expand his writing and directing career: 'Acting is always there and I enjoy it but it’s kind of got a little unfulfilling lately. You know, I’m in the low budget horror world… I have a whole lot of other stuff I want to do.'[3]

In April 2008, Strong, along with his brother Shiloh and his then-girlfriend (now wife) actress Alexandra Barreto, co-created a 30-second television ad in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama titled, "It Could Happen to You." The ad, submitted to MoveOn.org, became one of 15 finalists from a pool of over 1,100 submitted ads, and was chosen as the funniest ad in May 2008. In August, MoveOn raised $200,000 to air the ad on MTV and Comedy Central; it was the first political commercial to ever appear on Comedy Central. In early 2009, Strong narrated the audiobook of The Obama Revolution by Alan Kennedy-Shaffer. In 2010, Strong starred in the science fiction-thriller film The Darkening Sky alongside Ezra Buzzington, Charley Rossman, Sally Berman, Daniel Kirschner and LaShan Anderson under the direction of Victor Bornia.[4]

In late 2012, Strong declined an offer to reprise his role as Shawn Hunter in the upcoming spinoff, Girl Meets World. However, during production of the pilot in March 2013, Strong along with other cast members, who were also unconfirmed to return, appeared on the set sparking rumors of a cameo or return to the new series. Creator Michael Jacobs stated "I think there's more than a chance, I think there's a strong chance" when commenting on Strong and other original series cast members returning. Other current cast members commented on Strong's return indicating that his return might be a secret not ready to be revealed. In June 2013, a Boy Meets World reunion was held with Strong attending along with many of his former cast members.[5] On March 19, 2014, it was confirmed that Strong would reprise his role as Shawn Hunter, the first being a holiday-themed episode along with former cast members Betsy Randle and William Russ.[6] In addition, Strong will also direct a number of episodes.[7]

In March 2012, Strong, Julia Pistell, and Tod Goldberg, started Literary Disco, a podcast about books and writing.[8][9]

In 2004, Strong graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University as an English major. Before Columbia, Strong attended Occidental College. He completed his Master of Fine Arts degree in June 2009 at Bennington College.[citation needed]

Strong began dating actress Alexandra Barreto after they met while filming the 2006 television series Pepper Dennis.[10] They became engaged in December 2012,[10] and married on October 20, 2013 in Oregon.[11] The couple have one son, Indigo "Indy" Barreto Strong, born in December 2014.[12]


when did young wild & free come out

"Young, Wild & Free" is a song by American rappers Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa with American singer-songwriter Bruno Mars. It was released on October 11, 2011 by Atlantic Records as the lead single from the soundtrack of the film, Mac & Devin Go to High School. Mars, Philip Lawrence, and Ari Levine of The Smeezingtons co-wrote the track with Christopher Brown, Snoop Dogg, and Wiz Khalifa. Since the song samples two other songs ("Toot It & Boot It" and "Sneakin' in the Back"), songwriting credits were added for a total of seventeen. Produced by the Smeezingtons, its composition begun during a Smeezingtons freestyle studio session; when progress on the song stalled, Aaron Bay-Shuck considered it a potential hit and asked them to finish it. After the song was finished, Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa were added.

Young, Wild & Free

"Young, Wild & Free" received mixed reviews from music critics, who praised it for standing out stylistically from the rest of the soundtrack with hip-hop drums and a piano hook. Some critics praised Mars' pop-nostalgia chorus and Snoop Dogg's rap, but criticized Wiz Khalifa's rap performance due to being too rough. It was commercially successful, reaching the top ten in several markets (including number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six in France and Switzerland); it peaked at number two in New Zealand and number four in Australia. The single was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), five times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and one-time platinum by Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ).

Its accompanying music video, filmed in Montclair, California in October 2011, was directed by Dylan Brown. The video features Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa having fun driving karts, skateboarding and surrounded by girls at a party, interspersed with footage from Mac & Devin Go to High School. "Young, Wild & Free" was performed live several times, including on the 2012 VMA Tour and at Coachella 2012. It was also part of the 2015 Boys of Zummer (the American leg of Khalifa's tour with Fall Out Boy), Dogg's 2016 Puff Puff Pass Tour Part 2, and two collaborative tours by Dogg and Khalifa: the 2011 High School Tour and the 2016 High Road Summer Tour. The song was nominated for Best Rap Song at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards in 2013, and received the Most Performed Song award at the 2013 ASCAP Pop Music Awards.

During an interview in the American music magazine American Songwriter, Philip Lawrence said that "Young, Wild & Free" was "an after-thought" and "there’s a lot of fun behind it". The song began when the Smeezingtons were experimenting in the studio, a process which usually starts when they get behind the mic and singing "until something sticks". Although the team thought "it was just a little something" which would never be heard, Aaron Bay-Shuck told them the song was a "smash" and they had to finish it.[1] Mars then sent the song to Snoop Dogg, who showed it to Wiz Khalifa. They liked the track, decided to record it and returned the recording to Mars (who added finishing touches).[1][2]

"Young, Wild & Free" was initially written by Calvin Broadus, Cameron Thomaz, Peter Hernandez, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine and Christopher Brown. Since it sampled "Toot It & Boot It" by American rapper Keenon Jackson and singer Tyrone Griffin, they received writing credits with Nye Lee, Marlon Borrow and Marquise Newman (who did additional writing).[3] "Toot It & Boot It" had sampled "Songs in the Wind" by The Association (written by Ted Bluechel) from their 1966 album, Renaissance, so Bluechel was added as a songwriter.[4][5] "Young, Wild & Free"'s opening piano sampled "Sneakin' in the Back", from the 1974 album Tom Scott and The L.A. Express, and the song was re-registered with ASCAP with additional writing credits for Max Bennett, Larry Carlton, John Guerin, Joe Sample and Tom Scott.[6][7][8] The single was produced by Mars, Lawrence and Levine under their stage name, The Smeezingtons, and was engineered by Levine, Andy Drucker and Travis "Shaggy" Marshall at Levcon Studios and Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles and DSR in Hollywood. Levine mixed the track at Levcon Studios, and Chris Gehringer mastered it at Sterling Sound in New York City.[3]

"Young, Wild & Free" is a three-minute, 27-second pop-rap song.[9][10][11] It differs from the G-funk style of other songs by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa on the soundtrack, incorporating pop elements into the chorus.[12][13] According to the digital sheet music, the song was composed in the key of D major with a tempo of 100 beats per minute. Dogg's voice ranges from a low of B2 to a high of A4.[14] The song consists of hip-hop drums overlaid with a revolving, chilled "twinkling" piano hook and Mars' "sprightly" and "carefree choral hook".[9][15] Its "carefree vibes" make the single "the perfect soundtrack for a Friday night with friends".[16] Coughing is heard, implying a party vibe.[17] The song is a weed anthem, reminiscing about "hazy times" and youth:[9][10][15] "It's like I'm 17 again/ Peach fuzz on my face/Lookin', on the case /Trying to get a hella taste", while the former in the following verses "Roll joints bigger than King Kong's fingers/ And smoke them hoes down until they're stingers."[9][10] Mars' pop-soul chorus is also nostalgic:[9][18][19] "So what, we get drunk/So what, we smoke weed/We’re just having fun/We don’t care who sees/So what, we go out/That's how it's supposed to be/Living young and wild and free."[17]

The song received mixed reviews from most music critics. For Entertainment Weekly, Kyle Anderson praised its "sweet" Mars' hook; with "'song of summer' written all over it", it "could have been a graduation anthem for stoners everywhere" if it was released in May.[18] MTV's Jenna Rubenstein gave the song a generally-positive review as more than a "reckless party jam"; the three singers are not bothered by the judgments of others, and "that's the positive, family-friendly message we're taking".[17] Billboard magazine gave it three-and-a-half out of five stars, calling it "a haze of nostalgia". The review praised Snoop Dogg's effortless flow, but called Whiz Khalifa's delivery "forceful" and "punchy"; it "gets on top of the beat and harshes the mellow laid-back production."[9] In a similar review, Lewis Corner of Digital Spy praised Dogg's verses and called the single "cool and addictive"; however, he found the song's "flavor" short-lived.[15] In a negative review, Shea Serrano of LA Weekly compared the track's atmosphere to the "inside of a cloud (smoke), a celebration or idea of what some teenagers who smoke pot would like". Serrano noted, ironically, that the song's performers were neither young, wild nor free.[20]

On AllMusic, David Jeffries wrote that "Young, Wild & Free" had a more contemporary, friendly sound that the rest of the album; the single is "polished, bright and sunshine material".[12] In another album review, Michael Madden of Consequence of Sound considered it one of the few songs good enough for a soundtrack due to the "smooth pop vocals of Bruno Mars and glitzy Hollywood production".[21] The A.V. Club's Chris Martins praised the single's "sharp keys and lite Jackson 5 bounce" in comparison with the other, G-Funk songs on the soundtrack.[13] The song was nominated for Best Rap Song at the 2013 Grammy Awards and received the Most Performed Song award at the 2013 ASCAP Pop Music Awards.[22][23] According to a Billboard list measuring a song's "inebriated energy on a scale of one (mildly buzzed) to 10 (totally stoned)", "Young, Wild & Free" received a seven; according to the Billboard staff, it could be appreciated by "serious stoners" and anyone else because of its playfulness.[10]

"Young, Wild & Free" debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, selling 159,000 digital copies[24] and peaking at number seven.[25] It topped the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 chart for three weeks, and peaked at number four on the Hot Rap Songs chart.[26][27] The song peaked at number 10 in the US Billboard Mainstream Top 40,[28] and was number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end ranking.[29] In Canada, "Young, Wild & Free" peaked at number 13 on the Canadian Hot 100.[30] It was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and triple platinum by Music Canada (MC).[31][32] By September 2012, the song had sold 3,211,000 digital units.[33]

In Europe, "Young, Wild & Free" reached the top 10 of several countries. It entered the French chart at number 50 in early November 2011, peaking at number six and spending 48 weeks on the chart.[34] The song entered Norway's VG-lista chart in early 2012 at number 20. It spent 12 weeks on the chart, peaking at number six in its third week.[35] The single peaked at number six in its tenth week on the Swiss Hitparade, leaving the chart 26 weeks later.[36] "Young, Wild & Free" peaked at number nine and spent 17 weeks on the FlandersUltratop 50 chart.[37] It was certified gold, with the same number of sold copies (15,000) in both countries, by  IFPI Switzerland and the Belgian Entertainment Association.[38][39] On January 14, 2012, the song peaked at number seven in its eighth week on the Dutch Top 40.[40] In Italy, it peaked at number five and was certified double platinum by FIMI.[41][42]

"Young, Wild & Free" debuted on the Australian Singles Chart at number 17, and entered the top ten in its sixth week on the chart at number five. The following two weeks (in early January 2012), it peaked at number four.[43] The song was certified five times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).[44] In New Zealand, it debuted at number 21 and rose to number 11 the following week before peaking at number two for three consecutive weeks. The song spent nine weeks in the top ten,[45] and was certified platinum by Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ).[46]

The music video for "Young, Wild & Free" was filmed on October 19, 2011 at the Mission Tiki Drive-in Theater in Montclair, California.[47] It was directed by Dylan Brown (who also directed Mac & Devin Go to High School),[2] and was produced by Lucy Brown for the Yard Company.[48] Snoop Dogg told MTV that the video is about "the celebration of being young, wild, and free - having a good time".[2] In the behind-the-scenes video, Wiz Khalifa and Dogg were having fun "driving go-karts, spinning through a zorb, and sliding down a Slip-n-Slide" while being "stoned out of their minds". Mars was not seen in this footage, implying that he would not appear in the video.[49] It premiered on October 26, 2011 on several MTV channels.[50]

In the video,  Dogg and Khalifa play two students at "N. Hale High School" (a play on the word "inhale").[51] A "chilled out" Khalifa and an "easy going" Dogg have a good time at a party, skateboard in a parking lot and drive around it in a "souped-up off-road kart" with several girls. They linger "on the hood of a car" with tattooed "hot babes" who play on a Slip-N-Slide.[51][52][2] Dogg is seen driving his 1967 Pontiac Parisienne.[47] The scenes are interspersed with "psychedelic" footage from Mac & Devin Go to High School with a "nerded-out" Khalifa.[51][52] Mars did not appear in the video.[51]

"Young, Wild & Free" was performed live several times. Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa began their High School Tour (a small, joint tour) in late 2011 to promote the soundtrack, and "Young, Wild & Free" was the closing song.[53][54] In early 2012, Dogg and Khalifa appeared on Power 106’s Big Boy’s Neighborhood and performed the single.[55] Khalifa performed the song live on the 2012 VMA Tour, and Dogg performed it during his set at Coachella 2012; Khalifa joined him onstage with a giant joint.[56] [57] Khalifa co-headlined with Fall Out Boy on the Boys of Zummer (North American) leg of the American Beauty/American Psycho Tour (2015), where he performed the single.[58][59] Dogg and Khalifa united for the High Road Summer Tour (2016), where they performed "Young, Wild & Free" together.[60] Dogg rapped the song as the final act of his Puff Puff Pass Tour Part 2 (2016).[61][62]

Rob Markman of MTV attended a show of the High School Tour, and said that Snoop and Khalifa's "onstage chemistry was undeniable."[54] Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone found Khalifa truthful "to his blunted rep"; during the song's performance on the Boys of Zummer tour, he tossed two large, inflatable joints around.[58] The Palm Beach Post's Corvaya Jeffries said about the High Road Summer tour, "No one was seated. If they weren't dancing, they were still standing with phones in hand... Fans sang the feel good chorus at the top of their lungs."[60] Cal Roach of the Milwaukee Record reviewed a Puff Puff Pass Tour Part 2 show, and using "Young, Wild & Free" to close Dogg's set "felt preposterously appropriate".[62]

Mixing and mastering

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Mac & Devin Go to High School (soundtrack), Atlantic, Rostrum, Doggystyle and Fontana Records and ASCAP.[3][6]

*sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone

"Young, Wild & Free" was first released on October 11, 2011, by Rostrum and Atlantic Records in various countries.[11] On December 4, 2011, the single was liberated digitally in the United Kingdom and on February 3, 2012, and it was released with its accompanying music video in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.[97][48]