Gone With The Wind

When Scarlett is well enough to return to business affairs, she is appalled that her waist is no longer 17 inches. She thinks that babies not only ruined her figure but that they ruin everything, and she is determined to have no more children. When she tells Rhett to move out of their shared bedroom, he doesn’t object.

Scarlett pays a visit to Ashley’s mill. As always, he is barely breaking even because he doesn’t work the convicts as hard as Johnny Gallegher does. Scarlett objects, and Ashley is appalled by her pitiless attitude. He says, “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 […] hardened you, brutalized you by his contact” (1150). Scarlett later attributes his comment to jealousy, which gratifies her.

A year later, the family is at home on a rainy day when Rhett discovers that Wade is being excluded from parties with the other planter children. He is determined that Bonnie won’t be excluded from Old Guard social events as Wade and Ella have been: “I’m not going to see her forced to marry a Yankee or a foreigner because no decent Southern family will have her—because her mother was a fool and her father a blackguard” (1159).

Rhett begins a concerted campaign to ingratiate himself with everyone who matters. This is doubly hard because of his association with Governor Bullock, who turned the formerly enslaved against the plantation owners and encouraged them to vote:

Few of them could read or write. They were fresh from cotton patch and canebrake, but it was within their power to vote taxes and bonds as well as enormous expense accounts to themselves and their Republican friends. And they voted them (1163).

Against these odds, Rhett manages to win over members of the Old Guard. In time, the elderly ladies and gentlemen come around because he saved many of them during the Yankee raid on the shantytown. They also learn that Rhett served in the artillery during the last stages of the war, which goes far to undo his bad reputation. Soon, everyone paints Scarlett as the family villain but approves of Rhett and his daughter.

In April, Melanie is planning a surprise birthday party for Ashley. This will be the first such celebration since the barbecue at Twelve Oaks so long ago. While preparations are being made at the house, Scarlett is given the task of keeping Ashley at the mill until five o’clock. Although she is happy to spend time alone with Ashley, Scarlett no longer feels the intense passion they once shared. Now, she is content to be his friend. When she arrives at the mill, she learns that Ashley already knows about the party. He alludes to the barbecue at Twelve Oaks and reminisces about how much the world has changed since.

Ashley’s talk about his lost past makes Scarlett sad too. She thinks, “I was right when I said I’d never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart […] That’s what’s wrong with Ashley. He can’t look forward anymore” (1190). Scarlett begins to weep, and Ashley puts his arms around her to comfort her. At that moment, his sister India arrives with Archie. The two are incensed to see what they interpret as an illicit romance. Scarlett leaves in a hurry. That night, she tries to beg out of attending the party, but Rhett forces her to dress and appear in public as a punishment. The rumored tryst with Ashley has aroused his own jealousy. To Scarlett’s surprise, Melanie receives her, signaling that she is still welcome in the Wilkes home. This has the effect of quelling unkind gossip.

Rhett sends Scarlett home alone and doesn’t return until much later. When he arrives, he is very drunk and accuses her of unfaithfulness. She tries to explain, but he won’t listen and becomes verbally abusive. While Rhett generally behaves as if nothing matters much to him, he seems deadly serious. He says, “We could have been happy, for I loved you and I know you, Scarlett, down to your bones, in a way that Ashley could never know you” (1208). Scarlett is shocked to hear this declaration, which is quickly followed by intense kisses that make her dizzy.

Rhett forcibly and roughly carries Scarlett upstairs to their bedroom for a sexual encounter. The following morning, she thinks, “[…] she had felt alive, felt passion as sweeping and primitive as the fear […] the night she fled Atlanta, as dizzy sweet as the cold hate when she had shot the Yankee” (1210). Scarlett is now convinced that Rhett really does love her, which puts him at her mercy.

By the time she starts her day, Rhett has already disappeared, and he doesn’t return until the following morning. Then, he reverts to his usual sardonic self and brushes off their encounter as if it were nothing. This dashes Scarlett’s hopes of controlling him: “He hadn’t changed, nothing had changed, and she had been a fool, a stupid, conceited, silly fool, thinking he loved her” (1213). Rhett then says he’s taking an extended trip to Charleston and New Orleans and that he’s taking Bonnie with him.