Chapter 3 of GWTW begins with a description of Ellen O'Hara, a thirty-two year old woman who "had borne six children and buried three." Scarlett adores and admires her mother, but in my opinion the narrator/Mitchell actually seems ambivalent about the Mistress of Tara. Most literary analysis very quickly makes a connection between Ellen and Melanie Wilkes and the two women are alike on the surface. But while both are strong, quiet, and capable, Ellen lacks Melanie's heart and her pragmatism. Ellen taught her three daughters how to thrive on the distaff side of the planter class, but while her lessons in manners, deportment, and charm are no doubt good training for Scarlett, Suellen, and Careen, none of the girls seems to have actually learned the reasons behind the rules of etiquette and interpersonal relationships (and fashion) that have been drilled into them since birth.
By contrast, while Melanie is just as well-schooled in southern belle behavior as Ellen and her girls, Melanie's character spends most of the book grounded in reality. Melanie sees through all the social constructions of their class and instinctively understands the motives and desires of all those around her. Melanie is the first person to recognize the good in Rhett (or his alleged good, anyway), she's the only person to rationally assess Belle Watling, and she's the one who works hardest to keep the Old Guard together during the post-war years. And so, by chapter 3 of this re-read I've already begun to compare and contrast Ellen and Melanie. Although Scarlett spends most of the book remembering her mother through rose-colored glasses (and understandably so), I'm convinced that there's a coldness to Ellen. A certain blase selfishness and distance from the world that doesn't truly allow her to relax. She never seems to be in the moment, and while the paragraphs of backstory we get in this chapter go a long way toward explaining her behavior, the information doesn't make her any easier to understand. Or to like. As a wise man once said:
"I understand, but I'll be damned if I sympathize."
Anyway, after the narrator gives us eleven paragraphs of exposition about Ellen's background, she then gives us Gerald's backstory. And where Ellen's story is shrouded in mystery and long lost love, Gerald's life is an open book. IAnd what a book it is.
Gerald's life has included: war, murder, older brothers, Catholic prayers, poker games, copious amounts of very strong liquor, swear words, fence jumping, and "his father's parting admonition, 'remember who you are and don't be taking nothing off no man.'" Gerald's past is as colorful and exciting as the man himself, and I bet Mitchell had a field day diagramming how, when and why he came to America. Gerald is a fun character, and a funny one, far and away the most interesting and likeable person in Scarlett's immediate family--not that he has any competition given that everybody else is kind of boring.
Obviously, Gerald's background is very, very similar to Rhett's. He's a good card player and he lives on the edge despite his upper-class surroundings, and I appreciate his humor. He seems comfortable in his own skin at this point in the novel, which makes it all the more tragic when (SPOILER!) he loses his mind after the Yankees ransack the county. I read a review of the movie recently that said that Gerald's death foreshadows Bonnie's death, and while this is true I would also argue that Gerald's 'bout of insanity after his world falls apart directly foreshadows Rhett's unraveling during the final section of the book.
More about that later.
Mitchell ends chapter 3 with a lengthy description of Scarlett herself, and while I was reading it last week one sentence stood out and made me laugh:
"At sixteen....she looked sweet, charming, and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate."
Now that is one hell of a way to describe the protagonist of a book.
A lot of people dismiss GWTW as nothing more than a dated romance novel, a boddice ripper that just sort of lucked into being one of the most popular pieces of art of all time. But I disagree, because as a devoted writer and reader of romance novels, I know that even the most daring authors wouldn't dream of giving us a lead character with so few redeeming traits. Scarlett is smart and funny, but most of her funny thoughts are internal dialogue and I don't think anybody (except maybe Rhett) would call her a wit. She's a popular girl and she becomes a very popular woman, but she's a bitch. Nothing more, nothing less.
She's a boyfriend stealer. She's a slave driver, she's a manipulative woman who married once for spite, once out of desperation, and once for money. She's a bitch, and even on my first read I realized that she wasn't going to be able to easily transition from self-centered bitchiness to butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth polite behavior.
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