Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

First published: 1936

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: 1861-1873

Locale: Atlanta and Tara Plantation, Georgia

Principal characters

• Scarlett O’Hara, a southern belle who maintains her family through the Civil War and Reconstruction
• Ellen and Gerald O’Hara, her parents
• Ashley Wilkes, the neighbor Scarlett loves
• Melanie Hamilton, the woman Ashley marries, his cousin
• India, Ashley’s sister
• Charles Hamilton, Melanie’s brother, Scarlett’s first husband
• Frank Kennedy, Scarlett’s second husband
• Rhett Butler, a blockade runner, Scarlett’s third husband
• Bonnie Blue, the child of Scarlett and Rhett
• Miss Pittypat, Melanie’s maiden aunt
• Mammy, Scarlett’s nurse, a slave, then a servant
• Wade Hampton Hamilton and Ella Kennedy, Scarlett’s other children

The Story

Scarlett O’Hara, sixteen years old, is the most popular belle in Clayton County, Georgia, where her family’s plantation, Tara, is located. The daughter of fiery Gerald O’Hara and Ellen Robillard O’Hara, Scarlett has her father’s courage and temper, which her genteel mother and her slave Mammy try to “refine.”

The best families in the county are invited to nearby Twelve Oaks plantation for Ashley Wilkes’s birthday party in April, 1861, where talk concerns whether the South would secede from the Union. Ashley announces his engagement to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. When Scarlett tells Ashley she loves him, he says that Wilkeses always marry cousins. Scarlett later realizes that Rhett Butler, a scoundrel from Charleston, has been eavesdropping.

Upset by Ashley’s rejection, Scarlett accepts the proposal of Melanie’s brother, Charles. The party dissolves in chaos at the announcement that Union troops had fired on Fort Sumter. Both weddings occur immediately, so that the men can go fight for the Confederacy. Charles becomes ill and dies in the army, leaving Scarlett pregnant with their son, Wade Hampton. Scarlett then goes to stay with Melanie at her Aunt Pittypat’s in Atlanta, where the two young women nurse sick and wounded soldiers, a task Scarlett hates. Rhett, now a blockade runner, frequently visits the women.

As Union soldiers shell Atlanta, Melanie goes into labor, and Scarlett has to deliver the baby. Then she, Melanie, the baby, and their slave Prissy escape the burning city, aided by Rhett, who leaves them to join the Confederate army. Scarlett goes to Tara, where she finds her mother dead, her sisters sick, her father insane (he is later killed in a fall from his horse), most of the slaves gone, and the food and money stolen by Union soldiers. Most of the neighboring plantations have been burned.

Scarlett’s family, with the help of Mammy, Pork, and Dilcey, their former slaves, scrounge for food and farm. When a Yankee soldier comes into the house to pillage, Scarlett kills him. Other Union soldiers try to burn Tara, but Scarlett and Melanie extinguish the fire.

The war ends, and Ashley returns from a Northern prison camp. He helps farm, as does a wounded soldier the O’Haras had nursed back to health. The Yankees had burned their cotton, however, and their work does not yield enough to pay the high taxes.

Scarlett learns that Rhett is in jail because the Yankees think he has illicit money from blockade running. She has Mammy make her a dress from the drapes and goes to Atlanta to try to persuade him to give her the money. He says he cannot get to it. She runs into Frank Kennedy, her sister Suellen’s fiancé. Realizing that if Suellen marries him she will send none of his money to Tara, Scarlett gets him to marry her instead by lying about Suellen’s engagement to someone else. Frank and Scarlett have a daughter, Ella.

Scarlett buys a sawmill with money secretly borrowed from Rhett and manages her own affairs. Frank and other citizens of Atlanta are appalled that a lady would transact business. Scarlett even picks cotton to save Tara, however, and is determined never to be poor again. She also brings Ashley to Atlanta to run a second mill.

One night as Scarlett drives her buggy to check on her mills, she is attacked by freed slaves. One of her family’s former slaves saves her, but that night, Frank and his friends go to avenge her. Frank is killed and Ashley injured. The Union occupation troops come to find Frank and the others, but Rhett lies, saying they had been with him at a brothel and that Frank had been killed in a duel. Belle Watling, the madam, vouches for the men, saving them from hanging.

Rhett proposes to Scarlett; they marry, honeymoon in New Orleans, and build an enormous house. Rhett treats Scarlett like a spoiled child. When she becomes pregnant and contemplates an abortion, however, he is furious. So Scarlett has the baby. Rhett adores his daughter, Bonnie Blue, and begins to behave more respectably so that she can later be received into society.

One day, as Melanie plans a birthday party for Ashley, Scarlett goes to the sawmill to discuss business. They begin reminiscing about the way things were before the war. As they commiserate, Ashley’s sister and two other people come in and see them embracing. Melanie refuses to believe the gossip and asks Scarlett to receive guests with her at the party.

Scarlett and Rhett have a miserable marriage. Scarlett uses a separate bedroom because she does not want more children. Rhett often visits Belle. The night after Scarlett is caught in Ashley’s arms, Rhett forces her to have sex with him, although she is ready to reconcile with him the following morning. Scarlett becomes pregnant again, but miscarries during a fight with Rhett. She almost dies, and Rhett is overcome with guilt and worry.

After Scarlett recovers, she and Rhett return to their bickering. They argue over the raising of Bonnie, whom Rhett indulges. When the pony he buys the child throws her and kills her, Scarlett blames Rhett, and he blames himself. His grief almost destroys him, and their marriage loses its only tie.

Melanie, who has never been healthy, dies after a miscarriage. On her deathbed, she asks Scarlett to take care of Ashley and their son, Beau. She also says, “Captain Butler—be kind to him. He—loves you so.” Finally, Scarlett realizes that her love for Ashley is just an old habit, and that she loves her own husband. When she gets home, however, Rhett is leaving her. As he leaves, she repeats her response to almost every crisis: “I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara.”

Bibliography

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