"The only time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from whom you wished favors." --Scarlett O'Hara, 1864.
Is Scarlett O'Hara a bitch?
One of my colleagues was an English major in undergrad. He received his degree from a northern college, while I got mine from a huge southern university, but we both read the same "classic" books during our four years of undergrad. So we can both speak for hours about Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, O'Connor, Shakespeare, and Henry Adams. But the trouble started when I mentioned my love for GWTW.
Me: "My favorite book of all time is Gone With the Wind."
Colleague: "No, no, no, that's only a movie, not a book."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "It's a movie about a bitchy southern belle and her life on a plantation."
Me: "That's not--"
Colleague: "So what do you think about Anna Karenina?"
I passed over his ignorance because he's an alright sort of a guy, but I spent the entire rest of the day thinking about his pat description of GWTW. Specifically, I tried to come to a conclusions about whether or not Scarlett O'Hara is a bitch. And, more to the point, whether or not her bitchiness actually matters.
More than anything, I think Scarlett O'Hara is cold. I once read a description of JFK that said he had "ice in his veins," largely because he didn't seem to care one way or another about the people in his life. JFK was also strangely apathetic about his own life and times, which is peculiar since he was a first-hand witness to everything from the depression to WW2 to the Civil Rights movement to the beginnings of the Vietnam War. Everybody else was up in arms about one thing or another during the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, but JFK never really seemed to care much about what happened--or how it happened. Or whether he helped it happened. I love JFK, but I would have loved him more if he'd been more engaged with the events that swirled around him.
And I think Scarlett O'Hara is curiously cold in exactly the same way. Even at the start of GWTW Scarlett doesn't really care about the war or the slavery issue. As a matter of fact, she doesn't waste time thinking about the world outside of her home county, and even Atlanta seems like it's on the other side of the world. She's single-minded and driven, and she doesn't give a damn (ahem) about anybody except her parents and Ashley Wilkes. I don't know if I'd exactly call this bitchiness, but it's certainly selfishness and perhaps selfishness=bitchiness? And if Scarlett's behavior is bitchiness, then how come Michael Corleone is largely celebrated for killing Fredo while Scarlett is a villain just for stealing Frank away from Suellen?
Because Scarlett is a woman, that's why.
Scarlett is a bitch, and her bitchiness does matter, but only because it's an integral part of the plot. Interestingly enough, the other three principal characters in GWTW (Rhett, Melly, Ashley) love Scarlett because she's so single-minded/strong/bitchy. Everybody else either disapproves of her or is afraid of her, but MM presents the rest of the cast as such a foolish, easily swayed Greek chorus of observers that they almost come off as patsies. They dislike Scarlett, but they dislike her for all the wrong reasons (because she's running a store and not being "feminine" enough), and the "extras" seem like idiots in the end.
So anyway, this is the chapter where the Yankee deserter comes to Tara and Scarlett shoots him in the face and blows his nose away. Scarlett has killed a Yankee, and she knows she should feel bad about taking a life, but--she doesn't.
Is this one of her "bitchy" moments? What should she have done instead? Maybe she should have just thrown down her gun and engaged him in a lengthy discussion about war and peace or whatever? Or maybe she could have tried to persuade him to walk away? MM brings Melly into the scene and "there was a glow of grim pride in her usually gentle face," and this look gives the reader permission to smile along with Scarlett and Melly, but what if Melly had jumped up and started arguing with Scarlett at this juncture? Would we have judged Scarlett's actions differently?
And if so, why?
Before Scarlett drags the dead Yankee away, the girls stop and go through his knapsack where they find money (greenbacks and Confederate money!), and now that he's dead they take possession of his horse, which means they can buy food and travel a little bit further to look for friends and help. After assessing her new situation Scarlett makes the observation that:
"There was a God after all, and He did provide, even if He did take very odd ways of providing."
And ain't that the truth?
Anyway, this chapter also includes one of my favorite one-off conversations in GWTW (which is to say, one of the few sparkling interactions that doesn't involve the dazzling Captain Butler) when Scarlett goest to visit the Fontaine's. I love Grandma Fontaine, particularly here in this chapter because she's such a straight shooter and she's doling out common sense left and right. I won't transcribe the entire conversation here, but if you haven't read it in a while I recommend that you revisit it ASAP. Interestingly though, while Grandma Fontaine asks pointed questions to get Scarlett to discuss what's going on back at Tara, the old woman eventually drifts off into a few wonderful philosophical observations, ending with:
"Scarlett, always save something to fear--even as you save something to love..."
Scarlett gets cross with Grandma Fontaine, because she's Scarlett and she's always cross whenever somebody starts talking about anything besides money, marriage (to Ashley) and other nuts and bolts stuff. Our heroine disregards Grandma Fontaine's advice, but MM left it for the rest of us to enjoy.
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