Gone with the Wind (novel) novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers of 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. 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
Gone with the Wind (film) of the "limit" put on black aspiration by old prejudices. Malcolm X later recalled that "when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I felt like crawling under the rug". Upon its release, "Gone with the Wind" broke attendance records everywhere. At the Capitol Theatre in New York alone, it was averaging eleven thousand admissions per day in late December, and within four years of its release had sold an estimated sixty million tickets across the United States—sales equivalent to just under half the population at the time. It repeated its success overseas, and was a sensational hit during the Blitz