Gone with the Wind Part VIII

Scarlett makes a slow recovery from her miscarriage, and Rhett tries to persuade Melanie to get Ashley to buy out the mill, and run it, partly because he wants his wife to work less hard but also to sever the link between her and Ashley. Scarlett is watching Bonnie riding her pony, and as she watches Bonnie puts the pony at a higher fence and falls, breaking her neck. Rhett is devastated and Scarlett attacks him for encouraging the child to ride and jump fences and buying her a spirited pony. He begins to drink heavily. She feels guilty then and tries to persuade him to give their marriage another chance and have another child. He shrugs her off and goes on drinking. He is beginning to feel that he was wrong to turn against his southern heritage and he wants to reconnect with his roots again, to visit places where the Old South still exists. Scarlett goes to Tara for a holiday, to rest and then is summoned back to Atlanta, by a telegram to say that Melanie is very ill. SHe hurries back and Rhett takes her to Melanie's house, explaining that she had become pregnant and had been told when Beau was born that she should not have any more children.. and the pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Scarlett goes in to see Melanie who is very ill and she asks her to look after Beau and Ashley. She promises that she will do so, but realises that she does not really want Ashley any more and that he only wanted her on a physical level. When she gets home, she tries to tell Rhett that she now knows that he is the one she loves. He laughs at her, saying that she has found out how dull Ashley is and no longer wants him. She tries to explain and he laughs again and tells her that she is such a child, that she thinks she can just say sorry and be forgiven and make up for all the hurt she has caused. He tells her that he did really love her when they got married but he knew that if he revealed his love, she would bully him and so he concealed it. He says it is too late to make up for the fissures in their marriage, and that he'll give her a divorce. She says no, and he says that he will go travelling, trying to find the Old South and places where he can fit in, after his years of estrangement from his roots, but he'll come back often enough to avoid gossip about their marriage. He tells her that he has just stopped loving her and no longer cares what she does. He walks out and Scarlett collapses in tears. She then shakes herself up and tells herself that she can get him back, and that she will think of her problems tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.

Gone with the Wind Part VII

Unfortunately, Scarlett pays a visit to Ashley at the mill, because Melanie has asked her to distract him while she prepares a surprise birthday party. He and Scarlett talk, and remember old times before the war when life was happy and luxurious, and he kisses her in a brotherly way. India Wilkes, Ashley's sister, who has always disliked Scarlett, and is rather sour spinster, finds them in an embrace and rushes to tell everyone in the town. Rhett is furious and he insists that Scarlett face her detractors at the birthday party. She is scared because she knows that most of the local elite do not like her because she has made more of a success of her businesses than they have, including the men, and she will be sneered at now for her apparent flirtation with Ashley. She has also had a reputation as a flirt which doesnt help. She begs Rhett to let her stay home but he fairly drags her to the party, wanting her to be humiliated. Scarlett finds that Melanie who has always been loyal to her, welcomes her and asks her to help receive the guests. She is wretched but faces it out, hating Melanie for her goodness. When she gets back home, Rhett is waiting and they have a violent row, which ends by his telling her that he's going to only have one person in his bed that night.. and he forces her upstairs and rapes her. THe book was written in the 1930s, so the idea of a woman enjoying rape was not unknown at the time, but it is distasteful to modern minds. Scarlett finds that she is overwhelmed by Rhett's sexual force, and is surprised when the next morning he tells her he is going away on a trip, and he takes Bonnie with him. Soon afterwards Scarlett finds that she is pregnant. She hopes that Rhett will return and that their marriage will work out, if they have another baby. She is realising that she and Ashley are not compatible and that her love for him was just an illusion. A couple of months later, Rhett returns with Bonnie who has missed her mother. He is not willing to show vulnerabilty to his wife, knowing that she will domineer over him if she realises that he cares for her. They soon have a row, and she is angry and resentful when she tells him she's pregnant.. He laughs at her and says that she might be lucky and have a miscarriage. Angrily, she lashes out at him and slips on the stairs. She does have a miscarriage and is very ill. She is delerious and calls for Rhett but he is drunk and weeping over the miscarriage...

Gone with the Wind Part VI

Rhett tells Scarlett that he has pursued her for years, and she has never given way to his seduction, so he is going to have to marry her. She is tempted as she does like him even though she continues to love Ashley. They get married and he encourages her to run her businesses. She has another baby, a daughter, called Victoria Eugenie, but the family call her Bonnie. Rhett adores his daughter and spoils her. But Scarlett tells him she does not want any more children. He is angry but he laughs it off and tells her that if she wont sleep with him, there are other women who will. He returns to Belle Watling and renews their affair. Rhett however begins to change after Bonnie's birth. He realises that because he and Scarlett are so unpopular among the Southern elite of Atlanta, it will affect her and also his step children. The upper class rarely invite the children to their parties and Rhett decides that he has to at least show willing to be a good Southerner and Democrat. He starts to ignore Scarlett's Yankee friends, and to court the friendship of the old Confederate families. He tells the ladies of the elite that he did fight for the South, in the latter years of the war, and that he is proud of his military service. The society ladies begin to warm to him, as he obviously loves Bonnie a lot and it seems he is not such a renegade as they believed. Scarlett is irritated by Rhett's sudden conversion to the Confederate cause, he tells her that her Yankee friends will end up kicked out of the South some day and that most of them are dishonest. She and Rhett are not so close by now. She lives in the moment and does not worry about whether Bonnie will be able to find a Southern gentleman husband when she is older. Rhett gets annoyed by her continuing infatuation for Ashley.

Gone with the Wind Part V

Rhett jeers at Ashley because he is jealous of Scarlett's affection for him. He points out to her that his family threw him out years ago because of his wild ways, and he managed to make his own way in the world and became a successful businessman and blockade runner. Scarlett gives Ashley a job, as manager of the sawmill and she continues to visit the business, driving herself alone. One day, she is attacked by some men who are living rough on a lonely part of the road. She manages to get away, but Frank feels obliged to defend his wife after she has almost been molested by black men, so he and some other men in the town set out to punish them. Scarlett does not know what is happening, because she rarely takes any interest in anything outside her own life, but the other women do. Rhett turns up and tells Melanie and Scarlett that the Yankee officers who are ruling the town are aware that Frank and his friends are making an attack on the men who tried to assault Scarlett and that they are very angry at the rebellious act.. He tells them that he found out because he is friendly with the Yanks and plays cards with them, and he advises that he must know where they have gone so that he can try and get them out before the soldiers find them. Melanie tells him, and Rhett manages to rescue most of the men, except for Frank, who was shot. He gets his prostitute mistress Belle Watling to swear that the men were in her whorehouse that night, and the Yanks find they have no case. They are maliciously amused to believe that a group of Southerners spend one night a week at the brothel. However, Scarlett finds, to her horror that she has been widowed again. She gets very upset, not because she cared much for Frank, but because she feels guilt that he has died and that she took him from Sue Ellen when she did not love him. Rhett visits her and laughs at her grieving, telling her that she is not sorry that she wasn't always kind to Frank but its just that she's afraid of divine punishment. He tells her that she did what she had to do to keep Tara, and she would do the same thing again. Gradually she recovers.. and goes back to running her businesses. The local Confederate families dont like her much because she seems so heartless and she has been a greater success at making money than they have been. She also does business with Yankee soldiers and carpet baggers, even though she hates them for the war... whereas most Southerners avoid them.

Gone with the Wind Part IV

Scarlett becomes pregnant and has a daughter, Ella by Frank. Rhett Butler was imprisoned after the war but is finally released. He has made a lot of money during the war, running the blockade to bring necessities into the South for the war effort. Scarlett has not forgiven him for deserting her on the road to Tara, to join the defeated Southern army. But she can't help liking him so she sees him occasionally and shows off the baby to him. Her son Wade Hampton is a nervous shy little boy and Scarlett finds him exasperating. Ashley comes home from the war and resumes living with Melanie and their son Beau, and Scarlett asks him to run a sawmill that she is thinking of buying. She realises that Ashley is not much good at being practical and he is not one of the Confederate veterans who has managed to start to make a new life for himself by setting up a business of his own.

Gone with the Wind Part III

Scarlett's war really begins when she goes home to Tara. Most of the slaves have run away, and her father is incapable of doing anything. Her sisters have been seriously ill and her beloved mother is dead. She has to take on responsibilty for the plantation, for her family and servants. She has always had a frivolous fun seeking life and now she is barely able to find enough to eat for her household. She is tired and weary and often harsh with her family and servants, but she accepts that she is the only one at Tara who can carry the burden of looking after them. When the war ends, many soldiers pass through Tara walking home, and one of them, a small farmer called Will Benteen, decides to stay... He has lost a leg but he's a hard worker and his own farm is gone and his slaves have left it. Scarlett next finds that the government is imposing heavy taxes on Tara and generally coming down hard on those who fought against the North. To get the money, she flirts with her sister SueEllen's admirer, a middle aged fusspot called Frank Kennedy. He has been hoping to marry SueEllen now the war is over, but Scarlett lies to him and tells him that her sister has accepted a new admirer.. She lures him to marry her and is able to save Tara. This means that she has to move back to Atlanta, and leaves Will to manage Tara. He proposes to Sue Ellen, who is furious at being jilted by Frank... and she accepts him. Scarlett realises that she is much better at business than her husband.. and urges him to make more money for them.

Gone with the Wind Part II

Scarlett's marriage only lasts a few nights, as Charles has to go to war. Scarlett becomes pregnant and has a son, Wade Hampton...and Charles dies leaving her a 16 year old widow. Melanie has married Ashley and is very fond of Scarlett believing that she is as grieved at Charles' death as she herself is. Scarlett and the baby go to Atlanta to stay with Melanie, and are trapped there by the war, which is soon beginning to go against the South. She meets Rhett Butler again and he asks her to dance at a fund raising party for the war. She is delighted as she hates being a widow in mourning. She lets him flirt with her, and she refuses to pay much attention to the war, or how badly its going. Melanie becomes pregnant and is due to give birth when Atlanta is burned. She has a son but is very ill and Scarlett manages to get Rhett to steal a horse and buggy to take them out of the city and back to her home of Tara. On the way Melanie is almost dying, but half way along, Rhett starts to feel guilty that he has not joined up and left others to do the fighting while he used the war to make money. He deserts Scarlett and goes off to join the army. Scarlett gets her maid and the 2 babies and Melanie to Tara, only to find that her mother has died of cholera and her father is helpless and demented.