In Gone with the Wind, it describes the struggle of the plantation owners of the American South fighting to keep their slaves against the American industrial North fighting to free them. Many critics believed Mitchells novel defended slave labor in the agricultural South and rejected the capitalism of the industrial North. However, an analysis of the historical trends of the period demonstrates that the outcome of the war in favor of the industrial North was, in fact, inevitable. Contrary to the view that the novel opposed the social forces of historical development, Mitchells Scarlett OHara is the story of one individual who perhaps awakens from a deep sleep and must necessarily change to take a stand, and make cold, hard choices in order to embrace survival in a land at war with itself in spite of the shadow of slavery.