I loved my college roommates!
As a matter of fact, I loved them so much I gave them copies of GWTW for Xmas freshman year. One of my roommates thanked me profusely and then (quite probably) never read a word of her copy, but my other roommate tore right through the book without stopping. As a matter of fact, she read the whole thing in two days, which is quite a feat considering we were in the middle of finals and rushing around campus trying desperately to hustle a ride back to our respective cities/towns/farms.
I asked my roommate how she'd finished GWTW so quickly, and she came out with an answer:
"I skipped some of it."
"What?" I questioned, utterly incredulous that a woman my age, who I got along with and who loved women's fiction could have dared skipped parts of this sacred text. "What are you talking about? Which parts did you skip?"
"I dunno," my roommate shrugged. "Most of the stuff after she leaves at Atlanta, but before she marries her second husband. The farming and reconstruction stuff. It was just sort of boring to me."
As I said, I was shocked and concerned. After all, if my roommate could skip these all-important scenes, then what else was she skipping out on in her everyday life? Homework? Meals? Baths?
I was mad at my roomie for quite some time, but over that xmas break I watched GWTW the motion picture for the ump-teenth time, and I realized that the Hollywood version of GWTW skips most of this stuff, too. But we're not going to skip it, are we?
No, we most certainly are not.
Scarlett/Rhett's love story (hate story?) is definitely the backbone of the novel, but I would argue that it's the skin of the movie. MM's book is the epic journey of one Southern woman's life from 1861 to 1873, but while it includes elements of romance and lubby-dubby-moony stuff (which I adore, by the way), that's not really what GWTW is all about. The novel MM wrote is actually about the struggles of survival and it can be used as something of a how-to example for young women who are trying to make their way in the world. On the other hand, the movie is an epic movie in which a sassy southern lady loves the wrong man until it is too late for her to reconcile with the right one. I love the movie dearly, but it presents limited information about Scarlett and her situation because it wraps up her time at Tara into a few scenes when in reality her experience rebuilding her homestead takes a long time.
So, Scarlett wakes up the day after Rhett abandoned them all somewhere between Atlanta and Tara. The movie actually shows us a couple quick scenes of Scarlett hiding from soldiers, but in the book all of that information is presented as flashback. Scarlett briefly remembers the night before (hiding from the blues and grays, etc), but then she's all business and begins searching for water and food. The horse Rhett stole for her is still alive ("breathing heavily, sick eyes half closed, but alive"), so Scarlett and Prissy set off looking for nourishment. She finds some apples (is MM doing a tree of wisdom/garden of eden thing here? And if so, why haven't I noticed this before?), doles them out to Melly, Prissy and Wade, and then Scarlett shoulders the burden and heads home.
Now that Rhett has disappeared (present now only in Scarlett's cursed memories of last night's wild times) and the day has broken, Scarlett can now refocus on the chief tension in the story ever since Sherman has begun to invade Georgia. As a matter of fact, MM being MM, our author even gives us a sentence that encapsulates the emotions that are truly driving this part of the story.
"It would be hours before she knew if Tara still stood and if Ellen were there."
Throw out all thoughts of Ashley and Rhett and his krazy kisses, throw out everything Our Girl has ever obsessed over during the first third of the novel. Scarlett might be flightly and foolish and she might love the wrong man and she might despise Melly with all her power, but she is still able to see the situation for what it is. And it's a credit to her common sense and focus that she is able to forget all about all the stuff that has gone on in her life during the past few years, and is instead able to focus on what really matters: shelter, safety, and the love and support of her parents.
And then, of course, we come to one of the keystone passages in the novel, one that essentially re-states the sentence I bolded above, but which says the whole thing in a much more eloquent way:
"Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?"
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