Gone With The Wind

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1936

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-7

Part 2, Chapters 8-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-16

Part 3, Chapters 17-23

Part 3, Chapters 24-30

Part 4, Chapters 31-36

Part 4, Chapters 37-41

Part 4, Chapters 42-47

Part 5, Chapters 48-54

Part 5, Chapters 55-63

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapters 8-9 Summary

In May of 1862, Scarlett arrives in Atlanta and is pleasantly surprised by the bustle of the place. The town is only 20 years old and has grown to become a thriving metropolis and the central rail hub for the entire South. Scarlett is less pleased with her new housemates. Aunt Pittypat is a fluttery and indecisive 60-year-old, while Melanie is a constant reminder of Ashley. Scarlett has little time to brood because she is drawn into the charitable activities of Atlanta’s most prominent families and volunteers her time at the Confederate hospitals in town. Scarlett is nauseated by the gruesome spectacle of wounded and dying men but pretends to care about them to emulate Melanie’s saintlike behavior.

Although Scarlett enjoys the constant activity of Atlanta, she chafes at the necessity of wearing widow’s mourning clothing for a year after her husband’s death. She is especially annoyed to be excluded from a charity bazaar that promises to be a major social gathering simply because she is supposed to be in mourning. At the last moment, two young women drop out of the event, and Scarlett finagles an invitation for herself, Aunt Pitty, and Melanie. On the evening of the bazaar, Scarlett watches the happy partygoers and resents staffing a booth with charity merchandise while everyone else is having a good time. She especially dislikes not being allowed to dance.

Much to her surprise, Scarlett sees Rhett Butler enter the hall. He is now a famous blockade runner who supplies the South with commodities vital to the war effort. Rhett walks over and strikes up a conversation with Scarlett, who is still humiliated by their last encounter at Twelve Oaks. He says that he admires her spirit and deplores the Southern custom of treating widows as if they were as dead as their husbands. When Scarlett rebukes his unconventional comments, he mocks her hypocrisy, pointing out that they both hold the same beliefs. When a charity auction begins for gentlemen to bid on a dancing partner, Rhett offers a royal sum and names Scarlett as his partner. This scandalizes all the older ladies in attendance, but Scarlett accepts. She enjoys the evening entertainment and tells Rhett that she doesn’t care what anybody says.

Part 2, Chapters 10-11 Summary

The following morning, Scarlett tries to make light of the scandal she created, but the news has traveled fast. She receives a letter from her mother rebuking her and saying that Gerald is on his way to bring Scarlett back to Tara. She dreads her father’s lecture and hates the idea of leaving the city. When Gerald arrives, Aunt Pitty goes into hiding, pleading ill health. While Melanie tries to stand as an intermediary between Scarlett and her father, Gerald requests some private time with his daughter. After giving her a dressing down for her public display, Gerald goes to call on Rhett Butler to give him a scolding too. However, when Gerald returns in the early morning hours, he is drunk and serenades the entire street with an Irish melody. Rhett escorts the older man into the house.

The following morning, Scarlett turns the tables and lectures her father on his bad behavior. Not only did he disturb the neighborhood, but he lost a large sum of money to Rhett in a card game. Scarlett threatens to tell her mother unless Gerald allows her to stay in Atlanta. Grumbling at the blackmail, Gerald agrees and says he will play down the scandal at the charity ball when he tells Ellen about it later.

A week afterward, Scarlett returns home in the afternoon from a day at the hospital just as Aunt Pitty and Melanie are leaving the house on their round of calls. Scarlett takes the opportunity to sneak into Melanie’s bedroom and read the letters she has received from Ashley. Scarlett pores over them, trying to find evidence that Ashley is passionately in love with his wife. Instead, she finds more discussions of the war and Ashley’s state of mind.

He feels that his quiet enjoyment of literature and art is gone forever: “I do fear that once this war is over, we will never get back to the old times. And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future, try though I may” (273-74). Scarlett doesn’t know what to make of these words. She concludes that Ashley married Melanie because he didn’t want his placid life disrupted, not because of any great love on his part. Scarlett is still convinced that Ashley loves her.

Part 2, Chapters 8-11 Analysis

This segment introduces Scarlett to the bustle of Atlanta and draws an immediate parallel between her own forthright behavior and the hustling metropolis. No longer under the watchful supervision of her parents and Mammy, Scarlett begins to emerge in these chapters as the rebel that she will soon become.

Her initial steps beyond the boundaries of proper female behavior are modest. Although widows in mourning don’t dance, Scarlett flouts public opinion and dances with Rhett at the charity bazaar. This is a small demonstration of her skill in Adapting to Change. While most widows with newborn children would remain at home, Scarlett is testing the limits of what the Old Guard will accept. She is redefining appropriate behavior for young widows, foreshadowing the ways she will test and redefine the boundaries of “ladylike” behavior in later chapters.

On the day after the bazaar, Scarlett is forced to face the music for her indiscretion when Gerald arrives and threatens to take his daughter home. He soon finds himself caught between the machinations of both Rhett and Scarlett. The former gets him drunk and wins money from him at cards, while the latter blackmails him into hiding his escapades from his formidable wife. Each in their own way, Rhett and Scarlett are ignoring the rules of the Old Guard and proving their readiness to take what they want from life.

The charity bazaar itself is a public display of Planter Class Assumptions of Dominance regarding the Confederacy’s inevitable victory. Such posturing illustrates the Lost Cause narrative of chivalrous knights about to go forth into battle. However, the aristocratic South is unprepared for the realities of 19th-century warfare. Feudal swordplay tactics are useless against Gatling guns, though the Confederacy will later rationalize the defeat of these gallant cavaliers as the result of sheer enemy numbers.

The letters from Ashley that Scarlett finds in Melanie’s room indicate that not every member of the planter class feels so assured and confident of Southern victory. Ashley’s doubts reflect his own Pining for Lost Love—his previously quiet life—but also his lack of belief that the South’s cause is worthwhile. Despite joining the war effort as a soldier, Ashley sees the war as futile, with the “old times” the planter class enjoyed being long behind them. This foreshadows the destruction of their previous way of life that is yet to come, but it also indicates an awareness that belief in the myths of the Lost Cause is not universal.