Gone With The Wind

“It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him.”

This quote refers to Ellen and her tireless efforts to manage her family as well as run a large plantation. She shoulders these burdens because such uncomplaining behavior is expected of a great lady. Ellen raises her three daughters to fit the same mold, but none of them will, especially not Scarlett. The world in which Ellen was brought up is gone, and her children can only survive by adapting to change rather than maintaining tradition.

“I have seen many things that you all have not seen. The thousands of immigrants who’d be glad to fight for the Yankees for food and a few dollars, the factories, the foundries, the shipyards, the iron and coal mines—all the things we haven’t got. Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance. They’d lick us in a month.”

Rhett makes this comment to the Southern planters assembled at the Wilkes barbecue. They are eager to fight the Yankees and assume they can drive the Northerners out of their territory in a matter of weeks. Their planter class mentality is based on narrow-minded arrogance. Unlike his compatriots, Rhett has seen the real world outside the confines of the plantation system.

“‘Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.’ ‘You do talk scandalous!’ ‘Scandalously and truly. Always providing you have enough courage—or money—you can do without a reputation.’”

Rhett has cultivated a bad reputation among the social elite, which both frightens and intrigues Scarlett. At this early stage of their relationship, Scarlett hasn’t yet demonstrated her own courage or ability to make money, but she will soon be as ostracized and contemptuous of reputation as Rhett is.

“Scarlett, our Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages. The wonder is that it’s lasted as long as it has. It had to go and it’s going now. And yet you expect me to listen to orators like Dr. Meade who tell me our Cause is just and holy?”

Rhett has become an outcast among his own class, which makes it possible for him to see the folly of planter assumptions. A rigid social hierarchy can only be maintained if every contradictory fact is suppressed. Rhett’s comparison to medieval feudalism is appropriate. Both systems survive by maintaining social distinctions between the haves and have-nots and combating change.

“No, I don’t love you. But I do like you tremendously—for the elasticity of your conscience, for the selfishness which you seldom trouble to hide, and for the shrewd practicality in you which, I fear, you get from some not too remote Irish-peasant ancestor.”

During this conversation, Rhett suggests that Scarlett should become his mistress. As later events will prove, he has already fallen in love with her because he sees their similarity in temperament. However, he is cautious not to declare his feelings. Rhett fears giving Scarlett emotional power over him, so he disguises his true feelings at this and many future points in the novel.

“I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable.”

This quote contrasts sharply with the preceding one, yet Rhett makes this speech only weeks after he previously protested that he doesn’t love Scarlett. Such a declaration is only possible because Atlanta is in flames, and he is about to go off and join the Confederate Army. He will subsequently retract the love he professes here. This approach-and-avoidance tactic will continue until the very end of the novel.

“Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: ‘As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill.”

This quote becomes one of the most iconic moments in the film adaptation of the novel. It represents a turning point in Scarlett’s development. Unlike the vast majority of her planter class friends and family, she chooses survival rather than pining away for a lost past. That irrevocable decision occurs at this moment and sets the course for Scarlett’s future life.

“‘The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven’t are winnowed out. At least, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a Gotterdammerung.’ ‘A what?’ ‘A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.’”

Ashley has returned from the war and is confiding his disillusionment to Scarlett. He ruefully acknowledges that “cotton,” “slaves,” and “arrogance” can only carry the planter class so far. Although Ashley can plainly see the problem, he seems willing to allow himself to be winnowed out. His attitude presents a strong counterpoint to Scarlett’s declaration in the preceding quote that she intends to survive.

“Peace had failed her and Ashley had failed her, both in the same day, and it was as if the last crevice in the shell had been sealed, the final layer hardened. She had become what Grandma Fontaine had counseled against, a woman who had seen the worst and so had nothing else to fear.”

Grandma Fontaine is an elderly woman who saw her family massacred during an uprising of Indigenous Americans and lost all her fears that day. She advises Scarlett that women are meant to be soft creatures rather than hardened by tragedy. In this quote, Scarlett feels herself losing the last of her childhood conditioning as a soft, passive girl.

“Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face.”

Scarlett is observing what remains of Atlanta high society after the war and feels alienated from her class. Everyone else is observing the same rituals that existed before the war, as if nothing in their world has changed. Their refusal to adapt keeps them mired in the past, while Scarlett has decided to survive by adjusting to the realities of life after the war.

“Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.”

After marrying Frank, Scarlett takes an interest in his business and quickly realizes that he is an inept storekeeper. Frank has fallen prey to notions of Southern femininity that bear no relation to the practicality of women who can ably run plantations or manage stores. While Ellen gave Gerald all the credit for Tara’s success, Scarlett is not quite so self-effacing with regard to Frank.

“Voting? What did votes matter? Nice people in the South would never have the vote again. There was only one thing in the world that was a certain bulwark against any calamity which fate could bring, and that was money.”

Scarlett barely notices the shift in the political balance of power in Georgia during Reconstruction. Never having had the right to vote, there is little reason why she should. However, this quote also emphasizes the degree to which Scarlett is still focused on survival and that she equates survival exclusively with having money.

“Scarlett thought: What damnably queer people Yankees are! Those women seemed to think that because Uncle Peter was black, he had no ears to hear with and no feelings as tender as their own to be hurt. They did not know that negroes had to be handled gently, as though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded.”

Some Yankee ladies have just insulted Uncle Peter, and this rude treatment infuriates Scarlett. At first glance, her protectiveness toward the old man is admirable. It’s not typical for Scarlett to feel empathy toward anyone. However, she insults Uncle Peter in the next breath by implying that enslaved Black people have the mental and emotional maturity of children. White supremacy is implicit in Scarlett’s thought process.

“You can’t have everything, Scarlett. You can either make money in your present unladylike manner and meet cold shoulders everywhere you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lots of friends. You’ve made your choice.”

Scarlett is now running a profitable lumber business, much to the chagrin of her planter class friends. She is still influenced by social opinion enough to resent their judgment of her. Having been ostracized after making money during the war, Rhett has already discovered the harsh truth that he now imparts to Scarlett. She can’t have social approval and financial success at the same time.

“When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we’re strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we’ve climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of survival.”

Grandma Fontaine has just imparted this cold-blooded advice to Scarlett. While flexibility in the face of change is an admirable quality, Grandma Fontaine is also revealing her planter class arrogance in this comment. She believes that she belongs to society’s elite and that such people are basically better than everyone else.

“It isn’t losing their money, my pet. I tell you it’s losing their world—the world they were raised in. They’re like fish out of water or cats with wings. They were raised to be certain persons, to do certain things, to occupy certain niches. And those persons and things and niches disappeared forever when General Lee arrived at Appomattox.”

Once again, Rhett is the realist who must educate Scarlett about facts that she is too obtuse to notice. Her lack of emotional intelligence is especially obvious as she tries to process why the rest of the planter class doesn’t make a better life for themselves after the war. Since money is all that matters to her, she assumes that having money will fix their problems. Rhett is far more aware of the intangibles that the planters have lost.

“But, added to her stunned sense of loss at Frank’s death, were fear and remorse and the torment of a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in her life she was regretting things she had done, regretting them with a sweeping superstitious fear.”

Scarlett is essentially a materialist. If she can accumulate the good things in life, she is satisfied. Conscience is an intangible and a luxury for someone of her mindset. Frank’s death awakens a sense of personal responsibility in her for having put him in harm’s way. Having never experienced empathy before, the new sensation and its related thought process are unnerving to her.

“These women [...] could be as implacable as furies to any renegade who broke one small law of their unwritten code. This code was simple. Reverence for the Confederacy, honor to the veterans, loyalty to old forms, pride in poverty, open hands to friends and undying hatred to Yankees.”

This comment relates to the alibi that Rhett and Belle provided for the gentlemen of Atlanta when they raided the shantytown. While the men are willing to acknowledge their obligation, the ladies are less generous. Their anger is focused entirely on the social impropriety by which their men were saved. Their rigid code cannot be amended to include gratitude to social outcasts.

“Your—Rhett Butler. Everything he touches he poisons. And he has taken you who were so sweet and generous and gentle, for all your spirited ways, and he has done this to you—hardened you, brutalized you by his contact.”

Ashley is appalled because Scarlett wants him to work his convict laborers harder at the mill. His comment is a staggering indication of how little he knows Scarlett’s true character because he is willing to impute her harshness to Rhett’s influence. This lack of comprehension mirrors Scarlett’s own delusions regarding Ashley’s character, which won’t be apparent until the end of the novel. Neither one has ever seen the other clearly.

“For one night, he had had her at his mercy but now she knew the weakness of his armor. From now on she had him where she wanted him. She had smarted under his jeers for a long time, but now she had him where she could make him jump through any hoops she cared to hold.”

Scarlett is thinking these thoughts the morning after a forced sexual encounter with Rhett that can only be described as marital rape. However, she seems quite pleased with the outcome because it made Rhett admit his love for her. When Scarlett captures a man’s heart without reciprocating his feelings, she sees this as an opportunity to exert power over him. Rhett always feared this reaction from her, and now she articulates it herself.

“Her eyes met Scarlett’s again. Their glance sealed the bargain that the protection of Ashley Wilkes from a too harsh world was passing from one woman to another and that Ashley’s masculine pride should never be humbled by this knowledge.”

Scarlett has just made a deathbed promise to Melanie that she will take care of Ashley. This arrangement echoes Ellen’s handling of Gerald. She ably managed his affairs while he thought himself the master of Tara. The ladies of the planter class devote their lives to protecting men from an awareness of their own weaknesses. Given this conspiracy of silence, misplaced male arrogance is inevitable.

“I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was.”

This quote represents a pivotal moment of self-awareness for Scarlett. Throughout the novel, she is obsessed with controlling outer conditions to ensure her own security. However, she has spent no time at all understanding her psychological state or emotional motivations. This epiphany now changes everything.

“I loved you but I couldn’t let you know it. You’re so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip.”

This quote explains Rhett’s motives for concealing his feelings from Scarlett. Over the course of the story, he makes declarations of love and then retracts them just as quickly. Keeping Scarlett off balance has been his only defense. However, in protecting himself, he has also prevented Scarlett from understanding and possibly reciprocating his feelings. He is too frightened to allow her the chance.