Jabarkan Ilham dari Gone with the Wind dalam bahasa melayu

Several components of Gone with the Wind have parallels with Margaret Mitchell's own life, suggesting her experiences provided some inspiration for the story. Mitchell's understanding of life and hardship during the Civil War, for example, came from elderly relatives and neighbors passing war stories to her generation. While Margaret Mitchell used to say that her Gone with the Wind characters were not based on real people, modern researchers have found similarities to some of the people in Mitchell's own life as well as to individuals she knew or she heard of. Rhett Butler is thought to be based on Mitchell's first husband, Red Upshaw, whom she married in 1922, but divorced after it was revealed that he was a bootlegger. (It should also be noted here that it is also thought he was modeled after Sir Godfrey Barnsley of Adairsville, Georgia. After a stay at the plantation called The Woodlands, and later Barnsley Gardens, Mitchell may have gotten the inspiration for the dashing miscreant.) The story is set in Clayton County, south of the City of Atlanta.

Another at least partial character source for Scarlett O'Hara might have been Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, the mother of US president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt biographer, David McCullough, discovered that Mitchell conducted an interview with one of Martha's closest friends and bridesmaid, Evelyn King Williams, at age 87, while a reporter for The Atlanta Journal. In that interview, Martha's physical appearance, beauty, grace and intelligence were described in great detail. The similarities between Martha, who was also called Mittie, and Scarlett are striking.