ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, I explored how and why Randall appropriated stereotypical characters from Gone With the Wind into her novel The Wind Done Gone. That chapter brought to light the major factors that motivated Randall, including the persistence of racist stereotypes of black female identity, the pervasiveness of these stereotypes in media, and the ways in which these stereotypes compete with positive representations of black women. It detailed the compelling rationales that led Randall to reject an artistic strategy of black uplift in which she would counter Gone With the Wind’s negative stereotypes with positive representations. That chapter also grounded Randall’s novel within important African American literary traditions such as slave narratives and contemporary narratives of slavery. With this contextualization, I move into this chapter, which considers the largest controversy surrounding the novel, the court case against Alice Randall and her publisher, Houghton Miffl in.
