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"Frankly, my dear..." - a Gone with the Wind Overview
“Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm…” – Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
The classic story about a Southern belle and her conquests and trials, set in the most volatile of American settings – the Civil War. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, an Oscar-winning film (in what can arguably be called Hollywood’s best and brightest year), and several sequels and several million fans later….
The Story and the Drama:
The year is 1861, and a lazy April in the heart of Georgia finds our heroine, Katie Scarlett O’Hara of Tara, pining for the dashing Ashley Wilkes of Twelve Oaks. For Scarlett, it seems things just couldn’t get worse – Ashley’s about to announce his betrothal to one Melanie Hamilton, his cousin from Atlanta. Not to be cowed by the likes of a mealy-mouthed nobody, Scarlett arrives at a barbeque at Twelve Oaks dressed to kill, attracting everyone from her sister Suellen’s fossil of a beau, Frank Kennedy, to Melanie’s brother, the equally meek and mild Charles Hamilton.
Unbeknownst to Scarlett, this barbeque will rule the fate of many – for Rhett Butler, a rogue from Charleston, is there as Ashley’s invited guest. Scarlett throws herself at Ashley in a confession and love scene gone awry, and Rhett (rumored to be the very worst sort of cad, staying out with young ladies without a chaperone and not even welcome in his father’s home!) overhears the whole thing. For whatever reason, Scarlett’s flashing green eyes and unladylike passion intrigue Rhett, but he’ll have to wait his turn.
The setting is fleshed out by news that Southern secession has sparked a war with the Yankees (not the baseball team, but the US federal government). The Wilkes’ barbeque is interrupted as the boys all dash out to join the army and fight for the Confederacy. In the confusion, the shy Charles Hamilton runs up to Scarlett to declare his undying love and propose marriage. Scarlett, anxious to revenge herself on Ashley, accepts.
Scarlett will go through two husbands and two children before Rhett snags her, and all the while she’ll pine for Ashley and have several half-meaningful interludes with him. The novel ends with Scarlett and Rhett’s emotional parting – famously, after Scarlett asks Rhett what she will do without him, he replies with “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
The story lasts through the Civil War and several years of Reconstruction, meaning it’s rife with politics and intrigue as much as love, lust, and romance.
Margaret Mitchell, the book’s author, wrote the entire book in longhand, and it’s said that the book contains some autobiographical characterization. Published in 1936, it went on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time, and Mitchell won the Pulitzer for it. Of course it was scooped up by Hollywood, and the story of the film could be a fandom in itself. The movie was released in 1939, in full color and record length (despite the omission of several characters and major scenes). The film stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Olivia deHavilland. Mitchell didn’t live to write a sequel – she was run over by a car in 1949.
In 1991, Alexandra Ripley published Scarlett, which picks up where GWTW left off and answers the question many fans have had – did Scarlett and Rhett ever get back together? It was made into a television film starring Joanne Whalley as Scarlett and Timothy Dalton as Rhett, but the plot of the novel didn’t survive the transition. In 2000, an unauthorized retelling called The Wind Done Gone, penned by Alice Randall, was published – it is the story of GWTW told from the point of view of the slaves in the novel. The Mitchell estate tried to keep the book from being published, but the courts ruled that it was protected as a parody under the First Amendment. A new book, Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig, was published just this year. It covers the time period of GWTW and tells the story from Rhett’s point of view.
The fanfiction for GWTW is generally based on Mitchell's book, and not the 1939 film or the sequels. It's very possible that Rhett Butler's People could spawn a following, but it's most likely that it will simply contribute to existing canon if it reaches the fandom at all. GWTW has been a fandom in the annual Yuletide holiday fanfiction exchange, because it is such a small fandom.
A quick note about race:
Okay, the thing you need to know about this book, and really even the movie, is that it's set in an ugly time in American history. Scarlett, Ashley, Melanie, and Rhett are part of the Southern aristocracy; the book's protagonists are slaveowners. If you pick up the book, beware that a lot of slang is used, and Mitchell writes the dialogue for her black characters in dialect similar to what people assume antebellum-era slaves would use. Some historians and critics have said that Mitchell glossed over a lot of the truth of the era (how slaves were treated, etc), but Mitchell took a lot of her information from hand-me-down family stories, so the truth in this case may be subjective. The book demonstrates the author's commitment to Southern history and the "Lost Cause" mentality - it is a Confederate rallying piece in a lot of ways, and Mitchell gained a lot of respect in Atlanta and throughout the South because of this (though undoubtedly there wouldn't be this kind of reaction today, or even in other parts of the US at the time).
The film featured one of the most controversial scenes in terms of race relations. Scarlett strikes her slave Prissy in a fit of frustration during Melanie's labor. The actress who played Prissy, Butterfly McQueen, would not allow herself to actually be struck. However, the scene is incredibly realistic, and is the one scene of cruelty towards slaves that either the book or film allow.
Also, the book features an early forerunner to the Ku Klux Klan, in the Decatur Road scene where Frank Kennedy is killed and Ashley injured. Neither Scarlett nor Rhett demonstrate anything but contempt for the organization's goals (though for Scarlett, it's mercenary, and not noble, reasons that prompt this feeling).
The Major Characters
Katie Scarlett O’Hara (Hamilton Kennedy Butler) – Eldest daughter of Gerald O’Hara and Ellen Robillard O’Hara. Her father is the only person who calls her “Katie Scarlett,” though, and she’s Scarlett to everyone else. We first meet her when she’s sixteen years old, an antebellum Southern belle living at Tara, a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Scarlett’s spoiled, mean-spirited, and willful, but she wants to be a lady like her mother. She prides herself on her tiny waist (the smallest in her county!) and her many beaus and admirers, though she is particularly enamored of Ashley Wilkes, a gentile figure from Twelve Oaks (another local plantation). When war comes to the Confederacy, Scarlett finds herself married to Charles Hamilton – and never having been told the facts of life, she fights him off on their wedding night. In the novel, she does end up pregnant before he rides off to war (her son is Wade Hampton Hamilton, named for the real-life general who serves as Charles’ commander in the novel), but in the film they have no progeny. When Charles dies before even seeing battle, Scarlett becomes a widow before she’s even 17. She married Charles for spite, so she is not in true mourning for anything except her youth. She travels to Atlanta for a change in scenery, to stay with her archnemesis, Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, and their Aunt Pitty-Pat Hamilton. We witness the rise and fall of the Southern Confederacy from Scarlett’s point-of-view. The war has a great effect on everyone, but for Scarlett it is a hardening, soul-deadening experience. In the midst of it, Melanie has a son, too – Beau, again named for a real-life general. Despite her longing for Ashley, Scarlett’s being courted by Rhett Butler, only to find herself without even that crutch as Sherman invades and burns Atlanta to the ground (and Rhett decides at last to join the fight). She runs to Tara, her home, and for the first time our spoiled heroine learns the meaning of hardship.
Scarlett returns to Atlanta after the war has ended, and the heroes begin coming home – she pulls it off by marrying Frank Kennedy, her sister’s beau, all so she can get the money to pay off the Yankee-imposed taxes on Tara. Scarlett scandalizes the town when she gets involved in running a lumber business and starts doing business with Yankees and Atlanta’s natives alike. Scarlett and Frank have Ella (again, she does not make an appearance in the film), and Scarlett finds herself a widow once again after Frank participates in a raid on a shanty village of freed Negro slaves and is shot by Yankee soldiers. She’s not single for long, though, as Rhett rescues her from her guilty mourning. She marries him “for fun,” and for awhile it is…until Scarlett has Bonnie (who does make it to the movie!), and Rhett’s attention is divided. Scarlett pines, AGAIN, for Ashley, and as Melanie can’t have any more children, Scarlett sacrifices having more children with Rhett in some misguided attempt to prove her love to Ashley. But a scandalous moment with Ashley leads to Scarlett’s public disgrace, and a drunken Rhett breaks through Scarlett’s bedroom door for a night of what we can only assume is passionate love-making. Scarlett wakes up happy and glowing, but a sober Rhett decides to take Bonnie and travel – Scarlett won’t give him a divorce (she’s a born-and-bred Roman Catholic and has Southern pretensions to boot).
Upon their return, Scarlett is pregnant and wishes to tell Rhett, but a fight with him leads to her falling down the stairs and miscarrying. During her recuperation, Bonnie, anxious to show off for Mother, takes her pony out and is thrown when attempting a jump. She’s killed instantly, and Rhett is thrown into deep and unrelenting grief. Scarlett’s pretty upset and sad, too, but ever practical. It’s a sad season in Atlanta as Melanie also dies (it’s implied that she’s pregnant and her body can’t handle it), leaving Ashley free and Scarlett sworn to “look after him and Beau, and Captain Butler.” Scarlett, however, realizes she loves Rhett after all and runs to find him. He announces he’s leaving her, going to Charleston for good. She throws herself at him as she once did to Ashley, and Rhett isn’t even charmed. “Oh Rhett…if you leave….where shall I go, what shall I do?” Despite his cold response, our heroine rallies her spirits, declaring that she will find a way to get him back, because after all, “tomorrow is another day!”
Scarlett is played by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, and by Joanne Whalley in Scarlett.
Rhett Butler – The all-time rogue, scoundrel, Scallywag, and romantic hero. Rhett is a lot older than Scarlett (we’re never told exactly how old, though Alexandra Ripley posits that he could be as old as forty when we first meet him), and he’s, um, “been around.” He starts off by voicing the highly unpopular opinion that the valiant, brave Confederacy doesn’t stand a chance against Lincoln’s Yankee troops in battle. This, of course, makes him intriguing to the thoughtful Ashley Wilkes, but they never get to discuss it, because Scarlett’s declaration of love to Ashley gets in the way. Rhett overhears that bit, and he’s immediately smitten with Scarlett. When next they meet in Atlanta, Scarlett’s a widow and Rhett can’t help it – he knows her well enough already to know she’s faking. So, in between running blockades and making a profit on the war, Rhett courts her and coaxes her out of her mourning. When Sherman attacks, Rhett can be found partying it up with Belle Watling and her whores (not an uncommon position for him, really). But he’s convinced to run to Scarlett and Melanie’s aide, and gets them out of Atlanta just in the nick of time. The last of the old men, boys, and slaves that march to meet Sherman’s forces trigger something in Rhett, and he leaves Scarlett to get to Tara on her own – but not before leaving her with a very memorable kiss!
Rhett’s turn to the Confederacy at the eleventh hour gains him a bit of respect in Atlanta society, which Scarlett uses to her advantage later.
He’s known as “Captain Butler” to most, because he captained a ship during his blockade running adventures.
Rhett is played by Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind (the only bit of casting that gave the production crew no qualms or second-thoughts), and by Timothy Dalton in Scarlett.
Ashley Wilkes – Ashley is a fairly symbolic character, as much as he’s also an important part of the story. We meet him at the Twelve Oaks barbeque, where he’s about to announce his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton. Ashley’s been stringing Scarlett along, though, partially because she really does attract him and partially because he doesn’t think (and he’s probably right) that they would make a good pair. Of all the county boys, he’s nearly the only war survivor, and has the honor of serving at several major battles before he’s captured by the Yankees. He’s set free after the war, of course, and appears at Tara more or less just in the nick of time – occupation is wearing, and taxes are skyrocketing. Scarlett manages to refrain herself, except for a moment of weakness that leads to a passionate embrace between them. It’s that moment that sparks Scarlett running to Atlanta to beg Rhett for money, which ends in marriage to Frank, and Scarlett snags Ashley with a guilt-trip to help her start and run the lumber business. In Atlanta, Ashley doesn’t thrive like others – he very much represents the dying, lingering Old South. Scarlett by this point is hanging on to her infatuation without really feeling it; she’s pining for what they’ve lost as much as for him.
Ashley more or less cracks when Melanie dies; he’s unable to cope and it’s revealed that he really did love her, after all.
Ashley was played by Leslie Howard in Gone with the Wind, and by Stephen Collins in Scarlett.
Melanie Hamilton Wilkes – Scarlett’s rival for Ashley’s affections, and to a degree her rival for society’s good opinion. Melanie is everything Scarlett is not. She’s kind, demure, shy, and loyal like a dog to the Confederacy and the South. We meet Melanie at Twelve Oaks, but we get to know her well as she’s Scarlett’s constant companion after Charles’ death and up until Ashley’s return from the war. Melanie is well-respected in Atlanta, loved by the Old Guard and kept busy by every society and charity imaginable. Scarlett occasionally makes the unwitting comparison of Melanie to her own mother, Ellen, in terms of being a “great lady.”
Melanie is somewhat frail (probably owing to inbreeding, honestly), and when she gives birth to Beau she doesn’t fully recover her strength. But we do get a taste of her backbone when she comes to Scarlett’s aid when a Yankee deserter trespasses at Tara; after Scarlett shoots him, Melanie helps bury the body and even gives up her nightgown for the cause!
She’s desperately in love with Ashley, and utterly blind to Scarlett’s devotion to her husband. The thing is, she’s also extremely loyal to Scarlett, and even after the disgrace of Ashley embracing Scarlett in public, Melanie sticks by Scarlett and defends her to all who would hear.
Scarlett despises Melanie for most of the plot, but does see sense as Melanie lays dying. Melanie entrusts Ashley and Beau to Scarlett’s care on her deathbed, but also tells Scarlett to “look after Captain Butler, he loves you so.”
Melanie is played by Olivia deHavilland.
The cast of thousands....:
• Wade Hampton Hamilton – Scarlett and Charles Hamilton’s son. Does not appear in the film.
• Ella Lorena Kennedy – Scarlett and Frank Kennedy’s daughter. Does not appear in the film.
• Eugenie Victoria "Bonnie Blue" Butler – Scarlett and Rhett's pretty, beloved, spoiled daughter. Commonly called Bonnie, she's got her father's wild streak and her mother's spirit. She's spoiled, too, as any daughter of these two would be. She dies in a riding accident, which sets off the short chain of events that effectively end Rhett and Scarlett's marriage.
• Beau Wilkes – Melanie's and Ashley's son, delivered by Scarlett.
• India Wilkes – Ashley's sister. She hates Scarlett in spite of Melanie’s loyalty, mostly because she sees right through Scarlett. She’s also pretty bitter about Scarlett’s attempts to woo away her beau, Stuart Tarleton, before the war.
• Honey Wilkes – Sister to Ashley and India. Doesn’t appear in the film, but was intended for Charles Hamilton before he married Scarlett.
• John Wilkes - Owner of Twelve Oaks Plantation, and Ashley/India/Honey’s father. Brief appearance in the film – he dies around the time Scarlett and Melanie return to Tara.
• Mammy – Scarlett’s slave, who remains by Scarlett’s side after the war frees her from bondage. Mammy’s fiercely protective, for all that she scolds and wrestles with Scarlett
• Gerald O'Hara – Scarlett's fiery Irish father. He dies in a riding accident.
• Ellen Robillard O'Hara – Scarlett's beloved mother, of aristocratic French ancestry, who dies during the war of typhoid fever.
• Suellen O'Hara – Scarlett's younger sister, with whom she had a rivalry of sorts in their teen years. Suellen is courted by Frank Kennedy, who intends to marry her before he’s wooed away by Scarlett. Suellen ultimately married Will Benteen, a character who doesn’t make the film.
• Carreen O'Hara – Scarlett's youngest sister, passionately in love with Brent Tarleton. Brent, of course, doesn’t notice her until very late, and he dies at Gettysburg. Carreen pines for him and ends up becoming a nun.
• Pork – Gerald O’Hara’s chief man-servant. He was Gerald’s first slave when he made his American fortune, and he’s very loyal to the O’Hara family.
• Dilcey – Pork's wife, purchased from Twelve Oaks. Not in the film.
• Prissy – slave daughter of Dilcey, silly and foolish. Prissy makes the film, of course, as she ends up as Scarlett’s maid when she marries Charles, and Prissy remains an important character throughout the plot.
• Big Sam – Overseer at Tara and slave; rescues Scarlett in Shantytown. Big Sam does make the film, and has a memorable scene where he runs into Scarlett on his way to fight for the Confederacy.
• Charles Hamilton – Melanie's brother, Scarlett's first husband. Charles is shy and reticent, and a true believer. He doesn’t even live to see combat, however, dying of (I think) dysentery.
• Frank Kennedy – Suellen's former beau, Scarlett's second husband. He’s older and referred to constantly as an “old maid in britches,” but Frank’s got a sense of honor and duty. He fought in the war and is able to make money when he opens a store in Atlanta. He dies when participating in a raid on Shantytown.
• Belle Watling – The madam. She’s great friends with Rhett (maybe more?), and is the story’s “hooker with a heart of gold.” She and Melanie have a bond, and she also hates Scarlett with a fury, probably due in some part to a love for Rhett.
• Jonas Wilkerson – former overseer of Tara, father of Emmy Slattery's illegitimate baby. He’s fired in a memorable sequence with Ellen O’Hara, who won’t put up with that kind of thing on the O’Hara plantation. He gets his revenge later as tax collector, though he’s not able to defeat Scarlett.
• Emmy Slattery – later wife of Jonas Wilkerson. Her name could not be more telling (from “slattern”). Her family is described as “Cracker” (white trash).
• Will Benteen – Confederate soldier who seeks refuge at Tara and eventually stays on to help with the plantation, in love with Carreen but marries Suellen. He does not appear in the film.
• Aunt Pittypat – Charles’ and Melanie’s aunt who lives in Atlanta. No one remembers her real name. She’s been called Pittypat since her father nicknamed her that long ago. Pittypat is part of Atlanta’s Old Guard, and has a tendency to faint and need her smelling salts.
Links:
Gone with the Wind on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/
Scarlett on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108915/
The Margaret Mitchell House and Museum: http://www.gwtw.org/gonewiththewind.html
Gone with the Wind, provided by Gutenberg.net: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200161.txt
Livejournal community: http://community.livejournal.com/gonewiththewind/
APCKRFAN’s Gone with the Wind fanfiction: http://www.phantomroses.com/apckrfan/fanfic/GWTWfic/
Jenn’s Spin on GWTW: http://jltsgwtw_fanfic.tripod.com/
Fanfiction.net’s GWTW archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Gone_With_The_Wind/
SW’s Fanfic: http://swfics.50megs.com/index.html
The classic story about a Southern belle and her conquests and trials, set in the most volatile of American settings – the Civil War. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, an Oscar-winning film (in what can arguably be called Hollywood’s best and brightest year), and several sequels and several million fans later….
The Story and the Drama:
The year is 1861, and a lazy April in the heart of Georgia finds our heroine, Katie Scarlett O’Hara of Tara, pining for the dashing Ashley Wilkes of Twelve Oaks. For Scarlett, it seems things just couldn’t get worse – Ashley’s about to announce his betrothal to one Melanie Hamilton, his cousin from Atlanta. Not to be cowed by the likes of a mealy-mouthed nobody, Scarlett arrives at a barbeque at Twelve Oaks dressed to kill, attracting everyone from her sister Suellen’s fossil of a beau, Frank Kennedy, to Melanie’s brother, the equally meek and mild Charles Hamilton.
Unbeknownst to Scarlett, this barbeque will rule the fate of many – for Rhett Butler, a rogue from Charleston, is there as Ashley’s invited guest. Scarlett throws herself at Ashley in a confession and love scene gone awry, and Rhett (rumored to be the very worst sort of cad, staying out with young ladies without a chaperone and not even welcome in his father’s home!) overhears the whole thing. For whatever reason, Scarlett’s flashing green eyes and unladylike passion intrigue Rhett, but he’ll have to wait his turn.
The setting is fleshed out by news that Southern secession has sparked a war with the Yankees (not the baseball team, but the US federal government). The Wilkes’ barbeque is interrupted as the boys all dash out to join the army and fight for the Confederacy. In the confusion, the shy Charles Hamilton runs up to Scarlett to declare his undying love and propose marriage. Scarlett, anxious to revenge herself on Ashley, accepts.
Scarlett will go through two husbands and two children before Rhett snags her, and all the while she’ll pine for Ashley and have several half-meaningful interludes with him. The novel ends with Scarlett and Rhett’s emotional parting – famously, after Scarlett asks Rhett what she will do without him, he replies with “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
The story lasts through the Civil War and several years of Reconstruction, meaning it’s rife with politics and intrigue as much as love, lust, and romance.
Margaret Mitchell, the book’s author, wrote the entire book in longhand, and it’s said that the book contains some autobiographical characterization. Published in 1936, it went on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time, and Mitchell won the Pulitzer for it. Of course it was scooped up by Hollywood, and the story of the film could be a fandom in itself. The movie was released in 1939, in full color and record length (despite the omission of several characters and major scenes). The film stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Olivia deHavilland. Mitchell didn’t live to write a sequel – she was run over by a car in 1949.
In 1991, Alexandra Ripley published Scarlett, which picks up where GWTW left off and answers the question many fans have had – did Scarlett and Rhett ever get back together? It was made into a television film starring Joanne Whalley as Scarlett and Timothy Dalton as Rhett, but the plot of the novel didn’t survive the transition. In 2000, an unauthorized retelling called The Wind Done Gone, penned by Alice Randall, was published – it is the story of GWTW told from the point of view of the slaves in the novel. The Mitchell estate tried to keep the book from being published, but the courts ruled that it was protected as a parody under the First Amendment. A new book, Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig, was published just this year. It covers the time period of GWTW and tells the story from Rhett’s point of view.
The fanfiction for GWTW is generally based on Mitchell's book, and not the 1939 film or the sequels. It's very possible that Rhett Butler's People could spawn a following, but it's most likely that it will simply contribute to existing canon if it reaches the fandom at all. GWTW has been a fandom in the annual Yuletide holiday fanfiction exchange, because it is such a small fandom.
A quick note about race:
Okay, the thing you need to know about this book, and really even the movie, is that it's set in an ugly time in American history. Scarlett, Ashley, Melanie, and Rhett are part of the Southern aristocracy; the book's protagonists are slaveowners. If you pick up the book, beware that a lot of slang is used, and Mitchell writes the dialogue for her black characters in dialect similar to what people assume antebellum-era slaves would use. Some historians and critics have said that Mitchell glossed over a lot of the truth of the era (how slaves were treated, etc), but Mitchell took a lot of her information from hand-me-down family stories, so the truth in this case may be subjective. The book demonstrates the author's commitment to Southern history and the "Lost Cause" mentality - it is a Confederate rallying piece in a lot of ways, and Mitchell gained a lot of respect in Atlanta and throughout the South because of this (though undoubtedly there wouldn't be this kind of reaction today, or even in other parts of the US at the time).
The film featured one of the most controversial scenes in terms of race relations. Scarlett strikes her slave Prissy in a fit of frustration during Melanie's labor. The actress who played Prissy, Butterfly McQueen, would not allow herself to actually be struck. However, the scene is incredibly realistic, and is the one scene of cruelty towards slaves that either the book or film allow.
Also, the book features an early forerunner to the Ku Klux Klan, in the Decatur Road scene where Frank Kennedy is killed and Ashley injured. Neither Scarlett nor Rhett demonstrate anything but contempt for the organization's goals (though for Scarlett, it's mercenary, and not noble, reasons that prompt this feeling).
The Major Characters
Katie Scarlett O’Hara (Hamilton Kennedy Butler) – Eldest daughter of Gerald O’Hara and Ellen Robillard O’Hara. Her father is the only person who calls her “Katie Scarlett,” though, and she’s Scarlett to everyone else. We first meet her when she’s sixteen years old, an antebellum Southern belle living at Tara, a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Scarlett’s spoiled, mean-spirited, and willful, but she wants to be a lady like her mother. She prides herself on her tiny waist (the smallest in her county!) and her many beaus and admirers, though she is particularly enamored of Ashley Wilkes, a gentile figure from Twelve Oaks (another local plantation). When war comes to the Confederacy, Scarlett finds herself married to Charles Hamilton – and never having been told the facts of life, she fights him off on their wedding night. In the novel, she does end up pregnant before he rides off to war (her son is Wade Hampton Hamilton, named for the real-life general who serves as Charles’ commander in the novel), but in the film they have no progeny. When Charles dies before even seeing battle, Scarlett becomes a widow before she’s even 17. She married Charles for spite, so she is not in true mourning for anything except her youth. She travels to Atlanta for a change in scenery, to stay with her archnemesis, Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, and their Aunt Pitty-Pat Hamilton. We witness the rise and fall of the Southern Confederacy from Scarlett’s point-of-view. The war has a great effect on everyone, but for Scarlett it is a hardening, soul-deadening experience. In the midst of it, Melanie has a son, too – Beau, again named for a real-life general. Despite her longing for Ashley, Scarlett’s being courted by Rhett Butler, only to find herself without even that crutch as Sherman invades and burns Atlanta to the ground (and Rhett decides at last to join the fight). She runs to Tara, her home, and for the first time our spoiled heroine learns the meaning of hardship.
Scarlett returns to Atlanta after the war has ended, and the heroes begin coming home – she pulls it off by marrying Frank Kennedy, her sister’s beau, all so she can get the money to pay off the Yankee-imposed taxes on Tara. Scarlett scandalizes the town when she gets involved in running a lumber business and starts doing business with Yankees and Atlanta’s natives alike. Scarlett and Frank have Ella (again, she does not make an appearance in the film), and Scarlett finds herself a widow once again after Frank participates in a raid on a shanty village of freed Negro slaves and is shot by Yankee soldiers. She’s not single for long, though, as Rhett rescues her from her guilty mourning. She marries him “for fun,” and for awhile it is…until Scarlett has Bonnie (who does make it to the movie!), and Rhett’s attention is divided. Scarlett pines, AGAIN, for Ashley, and as Melanie can’t have any more children, Scarlett sacrifices having more children with Rhett in some misguided attempt to prove her love to Ashley. But a scandalous moment with Ashley leads to Scarlett’s public disgrace, and a drunken Rhett breaks through Scarlett’s bedroom door for a night of what we can only assume is passionate love-making. Scarlett wakes up happy and glowing, but a sober Rhett decides to take Bonnie and travel – Scarlett won’t give him a divorce (she’s a born-and-bred Roman Catholic and has Southern pretensions to boot).
Upon their return, Scarlett is pregnant and wishes to tell Rhett, but a fight with him leads to her falling down the stairs and miscarrying. During her recuperation, Bonnie, anxious to show off for Mother, takes her pony out and is thrown when attempting a jump. She’s killed instantly, and Rhett is thrown into deep and unrelenting grief. Scarlett’s pretty upset and sad, too, but ever practical. It’s a sad season in Atlanta as Melanie also dies (it’s implied that she’s pregnant and her body can’t handle it), leaving Ashley free and Scarlett sworn to “look after him and Beau, and Captain Butler.” Scarlett, however, realizes she loves Rhett after all and runs to find him. He announces he’s leaving her, going to Charleston for good. She throws herself at him as she once did to Ashley, and Rhett isn’t even charmed. “Oh Rhett…if you leave….where shall I go, what shall I do?” Despite his cold response, our heroine rallies her spirits, declaring that she will find a way to get him back, because after all, “tomorrow is another day!”
Scarlett is played by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, and by Joanne Whalley in Scarlett.
Rhett Butler – The all-time rogue, scoundrel, Scallywag, and romantic hero. Rhett is a lot older than Scarlett (we’re never told exactly how old, though Alexandra Ripley posits that he could be as old as forty when we first meet him), and he’s, um, “been around.” He starts off by voicing the highly unpopular opinion that the valiant, brave Confederacy doesn’t stand a chance against Lincoln’s Yankee troops in battle. This, of course, makes him intriguing to the thoughtful Ashley Wilkes, but they never get to discuss it, because Scarlett’s declaration of love to Ashley gets in the way. Rhett overhears that bit, and he’s immediately smitten with Scarlett. When next they meet in Atlanta, Scarlett’s a widow and Rhett can’t help it – he knows her well enough already to know she’s faking. So, in between running blockades and making a profit on the war, Rhett courts her and coaxes her out of her mourning. When Sherman attacks, Rhett can be found partying it up with Belle Watling and her whores (not an uncommon position for him, really). But he’s convinced to run to Scarlett and Melanie’s aide, and gets them out of Atlanta just in the nick of time. The last of the old men, boys, and slaves that march to meet Sherman’s forces trigger something in Rhett, and he leaves Scarlett to get to Tara on her own – but not before leaving her with a very memorable kiss!
Rhett’s turn to the Confederacy at the eleventh hour gains him a bit of respect in Atlanta society, which Scarlett uses to her advantage later.
He’s known as “Captain Butler” to most, because he captained a ship during his blockade running adventures.
Rhett is played by Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind (the only bit of casting that gave the production crew no qualms or second-thoughts), and by Timothy Dalton in Scarlett.
Ashley Wilkes – Ashley is a fairly symbolic character, as much as he’s also an important part of the story. We meet him at the Twelve Oaks barbeque, where he’s about to announce his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton. Ashley’s been stringing Scarlett along, though, partially because she really does attract him and partially because he doesn’t think (and he’s probably right) that they would make a good pair. Of all the county boys, he’s nearly the only war survivor, and has the honor of serving at several major battles before he’s captured by the Yankees. He’s set free after the war, of course, and appears at Tara more or less just in the nick of time – occupation is wearing, and taxes are skyrocketing. Scarlett manages to refrain herself, except for a moment of weakness that leads to a passionate embrace between them. It’s that moment that sparks Scarlett running to Atlanta to beg Rhett for money, which ends in marriage to Frank, and Scarlett snags Ashley with a guilt-trip to help her start and run the lumber business. In Atlanta, Ashley doesn’t thrive like others – he very much represents the dying, lingering Old South. Scarlett by this point is hanging on to her infatuation without really feeling it; she’s pining for what they’ve lost as much as for him.
Ashley more or less cracks when Melanie dies; he’s unable to cope and it’s revealed that he really did love her, after all.
Ashley was played by Leslie Howard in Gone with the Wind, and by Stephen Collins in Scarlett.
Melanie Hamilton Wilkes – Scarlett’s rival for Ashley’s affections, and to a degree her rival for society’s good opinion. Melanie is everything Scarlett is not. She’s kind, demure, shy, and loyal like a dog to the Confederacy and the South. We meet Melanie at Twelve Oaks, but we get to know her well as she’s Scarlett’s constant companion after Charles’ death and up until Ashley’s return from the war. Melanie is well-respected in Atlanta, loved by the Old Guard and kept busy by every society and charity imaginable. Scarlett occasionally makes the unwitting comparison of Melanie to her own mother, Ellen, in terms of being a “great lady.”
Melanie is somewhat frail (probably owing to inbreeding, honestly), and when she gives birth to Beau she doesn’t fully recover her strength. But we do get a taste of her backbone when she comes to Scarlett’s aid when a Yankee deserter trespasses at Tara; after Scarlett shoots him, Melanie helps bury the body and even gives up her nightgown for the cause!
She’s desperately in love with Ashley, and utterly blind to Scarlett’s devotion to her husband. The thing is, she’s also extremely loyal to Scarlett, and even after the disgrace of Ashley embracing Scarlett in public, Melanie sticks by Scarlett and defends her to all who would hear.
Scarlett despises Melanie for most of the plot, but does see sense as Melanie lays dying. Melanie entrusts Ashley and Beau to Scarlett’s care on her deathbed, but also tells Scarlett to “look after Captain Butler, he loves you so.”
Melanie is played by Olivia deHavilland.
The cast of thousands....:
• Wade Hampton Hamilton – Scarlett and Charles Hamilton’s son. Does not appear in the film.
• Ella Lorena Kennedy – Scarlett and Frank Kennedy’s daughter. Does not appear in the film.
• Eugenie Victoria "Bonnie Blue" Butler – Scarlett and Rhett's pretty, beloved, spoiled daughter. Commonly called Bonnie, she's got her father's wild streak and her mother's spirit. She's spoiled, too, as any daughter of these two would be. She dies in a riding accident, which sets off the short chain of events that effectively end Rhett and Scarlett's marriage.
• Beau Wilkes – Melanie's and Ashley's son, delivered by Scarlett.
• India Wilkes – Ashley's sister. She hates Scarlett in spite of Melanie’s loyalty, mostly because she sees right through Scarlett. She’s also pretty bitter about Scarlett’s attempts to woo away her beau, Stuart Tarleton, before the war.
• Honey Wilkes – Sister to Ashley and India. Doesn’t appear in the film, but was intended for Charles Hamilton before he married Scarlett.
• John Wilkes - Owner of Twelve Oaks Plantation, and Ashley/India/Honey’s father. Brief appearance in the film – he dies around the time Scarlett and Melanie return to Tara.
• Mammy – Scarlett’s slave, who remains by Scarlett’s side after the war frees her from bondage. Mammy’s fiercely protective, for all that she scolds and wrestles with Scarlett
• Gerald O'Hara – Scarlett's fiery Irish father. He dies in a riding accident.
• Ellen Robillard O'Hara – Scarlett's beloved mother, of aristocratic French ancestry, who dies during the war of typhoid fever.
• Suellen O'Hara – Scarlett's younger sister, with whom she had a rivalry of sorts in their teen years. Suellen is courted by Frank Kennedy, who intends to marry her before he’s wooed away by Scarlett. Suellen ultimately married Will Benteen, a character who doesn’t make the film.
• Carreen O'Hara – Scarlett's youngest sister, passionately in love with Brent Tarleton. Brent, of course, doesn’t notice her until very late, and he dies at Gettysburg. Carreen pines for him and ends up becoming a nun.
• Pork – Gerald O’Hara’s chief man-servant. He was Gerald’s first slave when he made his American fortune, and he’s very loyal to the O’Hara family.
• Dilcey – Pork's wife, purchased from Twelve Oaks. Not in the film.
• Prissy – slave daughter of Dilcey, silly and foolish. Prissy makes the film, of course, as she ends up as Scarlett’s maid when she marries Charles, and Prissy remains an important character throughout the plot.
• Big Sam – Overseer at Tara and slave; rescues Scarlett in Shantytown. Big Sam does make the film, and has a memorable scene where he runs into Scarlett on his way to fight for the Confederacy.
• Charles Hamilton – Melanie's brother, Scarlett's first husband. Charles is shy and reticent, and a true believer. He doesn’t even live to see combat, however, dying of (I think) dysentery.
• Frank Kennedy – Suellen's former beau, Scarlett's second husband. He’s older and referred to constantly as an “old maid in britches,” but Frank’s got a sense of honor and duty. He fought in the war and is able to make money when he opens a store in Atlanta. He dies when participating in a raid on Shantytown.
• Belle Watling – The madam. She’s great friends with Rhett (maybe more?), and is the story’s “hooker with a heart of gold.” She and Melanie have a bond, and she also hates Scarlett with a fury, probably due in some part to a love for Rhett.
• Jonas Wilkerson – former overseer of Tara, father of Emmy Slattery's illegitimate baby. He’s fired in a memorable sequence with Ellen O’Hara, who won’t put up with that kind of thing on the O’Hara plantation. He gets his revenge later as tax collector, though he’s not able to defeat Scarlett.
• Emmy Slattery – later wife of Jonas Wilkerson. Her name could not be more telling (from “slattern”). Her family is described as “Cracker” (white trash).
• Will Benteen – Confederate soldier who seeks refuge at Tara and eventually stays on to help with the plantation, in love with Carreen but marries Suellen. He does not appear in the film.
• Aunt Pittypat – Charles’ and Melanie’s aunt who lives in Atlanta. No one remembers her real name. She’s been called Pittypat since her father nicknamed her that long ago. Pittypat is part of Atlanta’s Old Guard, and has a tendency to faint and need her smelling salts.
Links:
Gone with the Wind on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/
Scarlett on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108915/
The Margaret Mitchell House and Museum: http://www.gwtw.org/gonewiththewind.html
Gone with the Wind, provided by Gutenberg.net: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200161.txt
Livejournal community: http://community.livejournal.com/gonewiththewind/
APCKRFAN’s Gone with the Wind fanfiction: http://www.phantomroses.com/apckrfan/fanfic/GWTWfic/
Jenn’s Spin on GWTW: http://jltsgwtw_fanfic.tripod.com/
Fanfiction.net’s GWTW archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Gone_With_The_Wind/
SW’s Fanfic: http://swfics.50megs.com/index.html