Gone With The Wind

This segment sets up a contrast between Rhett’s behavior and Ashley’s. Rhett once again demonstrates his capacity to Adapt to Change. Two years into the war, he is already able to foresee the outcome. He is deeply critical of planter class ideology, comparing it to the feudal system in Europe and recognizing that both are antiquated models of social order. Although he initially wins the approval of the Old Guard for his blockade running, Rhett senses an even bigger monetary opportunity to be gained from buying up food and selling it at a profit. This war profiteering earns the dislike of the Old Guard, and they respond as they always have, by using social ostracism to control unruly members of their class. The strategy doesn’t work very well since Rhett is still welcome in Aunt Pitty’s home and finds a staunch ally in Melanie.

Rhett’s pragmatic behavior contrasts sharply with Ashley’s idealistic stance. In letters to Melanie, Ashley has already disclosed that he pines for a return to the quiet life at Twelve Oaks before the war and expresses distaste for the brutality of combat and the bustle of commerce. He wants to hide from both. When he comes to Atlanta on furlough, his desire to hide is shown in his brief encounter with Scarlett. Once again, he seems to offer a veiled expression of love but refuses to take any action to break off his relationship with Melanie. Further, when Ashley is captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, he refuses to take a Yankee oath of allegiance to secure his freedom. Although he demonstrates the behavior of a gentleman, even Scarlett realizes that making such a choice violates common sense.

This section’s comparison of Rhett and Ashley is the book’s first serious departure from the Lost Cause narrative. Ashley’s behavior is typical of an aristocratic Southern gentleman, but as he admits himself, such a stance has no place in the postbellum world. Rhett is highly critical of the feudal arrogance still exhibited by the planter class, and even Scarlett recognizes the impracticality of trying to cling to past notions of chivalry and the antebellum world. Rhett’s and Ashley’s respective disillusionments in these chapters reflect a complex depiction of doubt regarding the veracity of Southern narratives surrounding the war; the narrative is being framed as a tragedy, but some characters see the cracks in the depiction of the Old South. Notably, the novel does not present Black perspectives on these matters or the reality of the economic engine on which the antebellum South ran, so even as some characters express their doubts, those feelings are not pegged to a more historically accurate rationale. For Rhett and Ashley, the looming tragedy is linked to the Old Guard’s shortsightedness and naivete, not the violent system that brought them to power in the first place, which goes unexplored in the narrative.