Part Four--Chapter 31: "Honest labor could no longer earn its just reward...."

Chapter 31 of GWTW begins on a cold day in January of 1866.  Ashley has been home for some time by this point, but MM doesn't address Scarlett and Ashley's relationship right away.  In a traditional romance novel--or in lesser hands--part 4 of GWTW would begin with a depiction of the status of Scarlett and Ashley's relationship, but MM is the champion of the slow burn and she keeps us waiting while she addresses something much more important: taxes!

And--you see? While the Scarlett--Rhett--Ashley--Melly love rectangle dominates GWTW the movie and almost all commentary about the novel (even that written by people who should know better), the romantic entanglements of the four leads  is a secondary concern for MM.  Yes, Scarlett's love of Ashley and her rejection of Rhett and her frenemy relationship for Melly drives most of the events in the novel, but by the middle of the novel even Scarlett herself is too busy to think too much about her longing for Ashley.  She still loves him and wants to run away with him, but her primary concerns are food, shelter, and safety. 

Anyway, after Will Benteen goes on a lengthy tirade against the Yankees, freed slaves, injustice, etc, we learn that the scallywags and carpetbaggers have hiked up the taxes on Tara sky high.  Pork delivers this news in the movie, but out of the mouth of Will Benteen this passage seems particularly pathetic. Especially when he poses this question:

"What are we goin' to do, Miss Scarlett?" 

Now I do realize that Tara is the O'Hara farm and that Scarlett is in charge because her Pa "isn't quite himself these days." But--seriously, Will? Why is he asking her what they're going to do about raising the tax money? What's his plan? I like Will Benteen and I realize he contributes a lot to the upkeep of Tara, but he's been living on Scarlett's charity for several months without contributing a cent.  He's helpful and friendly and we all like him, but the gang at Tara needs money more than anything.  Love and affection might be sufficient consideration for helpless figures like Beau and Wade and Pa O'Hara and even Melly (she's physically weak right now), but everybody else needs to put some work in.  After all, Tara is only 20 miles from Atlanta and there's a lot of money changing hands in the city.  Maybe Will should have headed up to Atlanta and sniffed around for a job instead of simply running home to Tara to tell Scarlett the bad news.

And speaking of selfishness, Scarlett then races off to see Ashley to tell him about the tax money.  Of course Ashley doesn't have any money either, but Scarlett races out to tell him about it anyway and this is the first time she's been alone with him since he returned from the war.  Scarlett is absolutely heartbroken by the vision of her beloved Ashley Wilkes splitting rails, and MM is such an excellent writer that even the reader is struck with the sadness of the scene.  As Scarlett puts it:

"She could endure the sight of her own child in aprons made of sacking and the girls in dingy old gingham, could bear it that Will worked harder than any field hand, but not Ashley." 

And--wait, what?

So Scarlett has no problem with Wade and Will Benteen living in poverty, but the sight of Ashley swinging an axe breaks her heart? Hmmph.  I want to believe that Scarlett's discomfort with the scene stems from the difference between expectation and reality.  She loves Ashley Wilkes because he's so cultured and smooth and dreamy, so it must be quite jarring for her to see him working harder than their former slaves.  On the other hand, because Scarlett didn't know Will before the war perhaps she's not disturbed by the vision of him putting in menial labor.  That's what I'd like to believe, anyway. It's true that Scarlett isn't particularly maternal and is irritated by Wade most of the time, but I think the main takeaway from this internal dialogue is that she simply doesn't like to see Ashley working hard when she never expected him to lift a finger for the rest of his life. 

So Scarlett goes to discuss money matters with Ashley, and Ashley's no help. He doesn't have any money and he's hopeless and depressed and totally out of ideas, so he doesn't supply her with an answer for her problems.  Or does he?

"In all these months since I've been home I've only heard of one person, Rhett Butler, who actually has money."  

And isn't that interesting? It's been several chapters since Scarlett even thought about Rhett, and a first-time reader who knows nothing about GWTW could safely assume that we're never going to see him again.  He's been out of the story for 18 months by this point, and most of the men Scarlett knew before the war are dead, wounded, missing, or living in another state at this juncture in the story.  Interestingly, Scarlett has been in communication with almost everybody in the story who's still alive by this point, but Scarlett doesn't even think about Rhett during all that time.  Aunt Pitty even mentioned Rhett in a few letters (she's convinced that he managed to get away with the mythical millions of the Confederate treasury), but Scarlett apparently doesn't even think about him until this very moment.

Now, isn't it interesting that the first person who mentions Rhett Butler's name is Ashley Wilkes? There have to be other rich men in Atlanta during this time (after all, the money had to have gone somewhere, right?), but Ashley talks about Rhett.  The two men haven't officially crossed paths since April of 1865, and while Rhett knows a lot about Ashley simply by virtue of being "friends" with Scarlett, Ashley cannot know much--or anything--about Rhett.  Of course I think it's safe to assume that Melly spoke highly of Rhett for saving them during the Battle of Atlanta; I also think it's safe to assume that gossip was spreading like wildfire in Georgia during this time.  And if there's gossip then most of it's going to be about Rhett Butler, but--still. Ashley's words are a bit too on the nose for my taste, except--

You know what? Ashley discussing Rhett with Scarlett closes the cosmic circle, doesn't it? Scarlett spent most of the first part of the novel discussing Ashley with Rhett. And now part four begins with Scarlett and Ashley discussing Rhett.  Rhett and Ashley are almost never in the same place at the same time until the final third of the novel--and even then they have almost nothing to say to each other.  But they balance the story quite nicely, and I think it's therefore important that Ashley inject Rhett into this conversation. Scarlett thinks that Ashley and Rhett are mirror opposites and many essayist and literary critics agree with this assessment, but I'm not certain that that's true.  And I'm pretty certain that MM makes Ashley kiss Scarlett on that morning, during that conversation, so we can understand that Ashley is (almost) just as lustily in love with Scarlett as Rhett has been all along. 

When I read this chapter for the first time I was shocked and excited because I was a teenager.  And teenagers are more excited by kissing than they are about sex or love or marriage or money or almost anything else under the sun.  This chapter is still exciting because there are so many emotional swings and crazy behavior, and because Ashley's words about being a misfit in a changed world resonate with me in much the same way they probably struck a chord with people who read GWTW during the Great Depression and World War II. But I'm also more practical nowadays. So instead of being impressed and overwhelmed by the kisses, I'm also totally frustrated by Ashley and his unsaid words and his inability to anticipate trouble and offer solutions. 

Anyway, although I think Leslie Howard was a pretty good choice to play Ashley Wilkes, I always (always, always, always) think of Prince William whenever I read about Melly's beloved husband.  And so, because a little touch of Will is always good for the soul, here's a lovely photograph of the Duke of Cambridge looking deliciously scruffy.  He's not splitting rails or starving, but if you squint and use your imagination I betcha can see a little bit of Ashley in the future king. 

Chapter 30: "Going Home!"

GWTW made the New York Times this week!

It's a pretty brief mention, especially compared to the way the magazine commemorated the Kennedy assassination and the Banksy graffiti saga from last month, but I was honestly surprised to see the Gray Lady actually mention the novel by name.  I lived in NYC for eight years and anybody who has spent any time in the North East quickly realizes that people in the Big City pay very little attention to what happens out here in Fly Over Country.  I tried to convince my classmates and colleagues that there actually was life--good life!--outside of the five boroughs that form the New York metro area, but I don't think they believed me all that much.  So it was really quite thrilling to see GWTW in the pages of the paper of record--even though the columnist of this particular piece seems adamant about distancing herself from the novel.  Like, why'd she bother to write about GWTW if she was going to be so scornful? And why is GWTW/MM so trivial/juvenile while Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Salinger get nothing but love even for their non-masterpieces? I think GWTW is regularly dismissed as fluff when there's nothing fluffy about the novel.

Sigh.

Anyway, here we are in Chapter 30.  This chapter takes place in the summer of 1865, a time when "Tara suddenly lost its isolation," and Scarlett and friends are suddenly faced with a flood of soldiers returning from the war.  Interestingly enough, MM makes the point that "few of them were bitter" because "they left bitterness to their women and their old people."  Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Interesting and unexpected.  The men who've fought and lost are ready to move on, but everybody else is still pissed and angry at the way the war ended. We are always taught that the people who fought the Civil War were downright angry when they returned from battle (thereby automatically giving rise to the KKK and all that Reconstruction-era violence), but perhaps it wasn't really as simple as that.  Some of them were bitter and truculent to be sure, but some were also exhausted or hungry or just plain worn out with the whole thing, and it's kind of nice that MM included viewpoints that diverge from the common perception of the post-war South. 

Anyway, among this stream of soldiers, the girls also get a visit from Good Old Uncle Peter, Aunt Pitty's driver from Atlanta.  Aunt Pitty is mad at the girls for deserting her in her time of need, and she's scared of the dark anyway, so Uncle Peter has traveled to Tara to try to make the girls come back to Atlanta.  Uncle Peter and Aunt Pitty have always functioned as comic relief for the story, and MM does a great job of bringing the funny during a part of the book that could easily drag. And, what's more, Uncle Peter's visit serves an important function because he also brings a letter from Ashley Wilkes.

It's addressed to Melly (of course), but Scarlett reads it and is thrilled with the words: "Beloved, I am coming home to you." The sentiment is meant for Melly, but it gives Scarlett the warm fuzzies anyway, which means the reader also titters with excitement because we are suddenly anxious to find out what's going to happen next in the saga.  So much of the world has changed over the past few years, and all the certainty of the pre-war years has been replaced with an unpredictable world where down is up, the Confederacy has disappeared, Scarlett works the fields, and the once proud Tara has been reduced to nothing more than a burden.  In retrospect Scarlett's reaction to Ashley's letter seems downright silly, but is it really? The world is topsy-turvy and anything can happen now, and when all the rules are out the window maybe even Ashley has been altered by the times.  Before the war he was dutiful and serious and never the type to leave his wife, but now it seems downright plausible that Ashley would turn up at Tara and whisk Scarlett away for a new life in a new part of the country.

Will Benteen also makes his first appearance in this chapter, and I've always regretted that they didn't add his character to the motion picture.  Will Benteen and Archie (racist, crazy, mean-as-hell Archie) are two of the more memorable characters in GWTW, but people who haven't read the book don't even realize they exist. Obviously, adding Will and Archie and Grandma Fontaine and all of those other characters would have stretched the movie and expanded the cast and tested everybody's patience, but--still.  MM is rather hard on the lower classes in GWTW, and Will Benteen's dignified personality blunts some of the author's sharpest attacks on working class whites. 

So, even as Scarlett and Will and the rest of the gang at Tara begin to slowly plant and plow and do all that other farmy-farm stuff that city slickers like me know absolutely nothing about, MM continues to sew the seeds for the last bits of the novel right there in chapter 30 by addressing Melly's continuing ill-health.  

"Old Dr. Fontaine diagnosed her trouble as female complaint and concurred with Dr. Meade in saying she should never have had Beau.  And he said frankly that another baby would kill her." 

If you blink, you'd pretty much miss that, wouldn't you?  But on a second/third/hundredth read the words and their meanings jump out at you and make you do a double-take, don't they? Here's a rudimentary equation to show us exactly how MM builds anticipation in this part of the novel:
 Another baby will kill Melly. 
+ Ashley is on his way home. 
+ Melly loves babies. 
 +Ashley loves Melly.  
??????????

The problem with this equation is that we don't know how much Ashley loves Melly. Scarlett seems utterly convinced that their relationship is little more than a brother/sister, duty-filled, boring sort of thing, and the reader has little reason to doubt her conclusion.  Ashley is not lusty and honest like Rhett (who I'm missing terribly at the moment), and Melly never seems to give much thought to romance or whatever, so it would not be unreasonable for Scarlett to believe that the Wilkes' marriage is platonic and that Beau is something of a fluke.  I think Scarlett is so single-minded about her life that she can't even entertain the notion that Ashley can love (and lust after) Scarlett and Melly at the same time.  Every other man besides Ashley and her father (and Will Benteen?) irritates her to no end, so how in the hell could Ashley have desire for a woman who's not Scarlett? 

And we'll soon get answers to all of our questions because Ashley comes home at the end of this chapter, and things quickly start to change. 

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Chapter 29: "....And the war was over."

In GWTW the Civil War ends with a whimper. 

Interestingly enough, MM does not connect the end of the War with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, of 1865. Rather , MM does not consider the Civil War to be truly at an end until "General Johnston...surrendered in North Carolina," which Wikipedia dates as April 26, 1865.  I'm a Yankee and I was always taught that the Civil War ended when General Grant and Abe Lincoln said it did, which was when the Army of Northern Virginia waved the white flag and everybody in the Union started celebrating. But of course MM was a southerner who was writing about a cast of very proud Confederates, so it's only natural that she'd date the end of the War to the date of Johnston's surrender (which also happened to be the largest surrender of the war), since Johnston's army represented the last possible chance for defense against Sherman and the gang.

Anyway, the Fontaine boys are the first ones home from the front, and they deliver the news of the end of the war to the folks at Tara.  The other ladies are sad that their dream of Confederate independence is over, but Scarlett doesn't care.  The war is over, and that means she doesn't have to worry about various armies burning her house or stealing her food or her horses, and Scarlett is too practical to shed tears over lost dreams and southern pride:

"Yes, the cause was dead but war had always seemed foolish to her and peace was better." 

And so, once again, Scarlett's blase attitude toward the end of the war highlights my contention that Gone With the Wind is not actually a civil war novel.  People want to believe that GWTW is a romanticized, dewy-eyed portrait of the Confederacy, but in my mind nothing could be further from the truth.  GWTW isn't about the Civil War--it just happens to take place during the Civil War.  It's like Mad Men: Don Draper is a contemporary of JFK, but it would be false on all fronts to pretend that anything that happens at Sterling, Cooper, Pryce, Draper has anything to do with the Kennedy administration.

The War is over, Scarlett has food, shelter and the security that her property won't be destroyed by an invading army, and:

"If Ashely was alive he'd be coming home!" 

The first time I read GWTW I honestly thought Ashley was dead at this juncture of the novel.  He's been out of the frame for nearly two whole years and nearly every other man from the first section of the novel is dead, wounded or missing, so why not Ashley?

Interestingly enough, MM builds suspense through this part of the novel by having Scarlett visit all the other plantations in the area, meeting and greeting her old friends.  There are several poignant episodes in this chapter, where Scarlett visits the families we met in the beginning of the book and reflects on how much has changed over the course of the war. When Scarlett goes over to the Tarelton house she visits the graveyard, and while the description of the three new stones above Brent, Stuart, and Tom ("they had never found Boyd or any trace of him) is really quite moving and sad even for Yankees like me, Scarlett can. Not.  Believe the Tarleton's have "wast[ed] precious money on tombstones when food was so dear..."

She's right to be practical, of course. But it's astonishing that Scarlett can't comprehend the notion that tombstones can be just as important--or more important--than food or money.  Scarlett is a mother herself by this point in the novel and she's recently lost her mother, but all she can think about is how silly it is to buy a headstone.  Scarlett's lack of sympathy is hilarious, but perhaps her harsh reaction is another little signpost MM left along the way to show us how very different Scarlett is from the typical, sentimental Southern Belle? 

The South is unraveling, the boys are all dead or sick, and Scarlett is preoccupied with day-to-day living.  This part of GWTW lacks the charm, grace, and romance of the earlier section, but here MM has stripped away all the manners and silly rules that dominated the first part of the novel and Scarlett and her friends are obliged to get by with nothing but their wits and hard work.  GWTW came out during the depression and I firmly believe Scarlett's focus and drive are the reason GWTW became so popular, which means that this middle section of the novel is the cornerstone of MM's masterpiece and not the "mushy-middle" most people make it out to be.  Anyway, next time the girls finally get word of Ashley, Will Benteen comes on the scene, and Uncle Peter pays a visit and brings some comic relief.  

Chapter 28: "The problem was food...."

Any novelist knows the middle of the novel is always, always, always the most difficult section to write.  Beginnings and endings are comparatively easy to plan and execute.  The beginning sets the tone and if you write your novel in sequence it can be a lot of fun to develop new characters with new problems.  And endings are--well, it can be pretty tough to walk away from your story and darned tough to come up with a good "landing place" for your characters, but there's something wonderfully satisfying about putting a project to bed.

But the middle is.....

I've agonized over many middle sections in my time, so I can only imagine how difficult MM found it to write the middle sections of GWTW.  All of Scarlett's original motivations are now gone (Ashley is married to Melly and a prisoner in Rock Island), and she's returned to Tara, and I'll betcha MM rewrote the middle a thousand times before she came up with a satisfying way to connect the beginning third of the novel with the final third.  Scarlett's obsession with Ashley and her desire to become Mrs. Ashley Wilkes keeps us interested (especially those of us who enjoy romance novels), but the rest of Scarlett's challenges and problems are just as compelling and MM starts developing the problems that will eventually come to a head in the last third of the novel right here in Chapter 28. 

First of all, as MM makes clear early in this chapter: "At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food." The Civil War is not officially over, and in another novel by a less talented author who'd done less research, the protagonist's focus probably would have been on the disappointment of defeat.  But MM and Scarlett are nothing if not practical, so instead of recounting the death of the Confederacy and the maneuvers of Robert E. Lee or whatever, MM decides to narrow the conflict down to the basics of survival: food, shelter, and money.  Of course Scarlett and everybody else in the County are completely isolated from the world and haven't seen a newspaper in ages, so they couldn't exactly follow battles and events blow-by-blow even if they wanted to--but I get the distinct sense reading these chapters of GWTW that none of the characters particularly give a damn about what happens outside of their neighborhood.  And this narrow view isn't simply something that occurs because of the War or because they're hungry: Scarlett and her friends have always been fairly ignorant and isolated about the world outside of Georgia, and it would certainly take more than casualties in a far off corner of Virgina or Tennessee to get their attention.

Anyway, by narrowing Scarlett's attention onto necessities like food and shelter, MM demonstrates that Scarlett is single-minded and mature.  She shoulders the burden of feeding her family here in the center of the novel, and her hard-work and laser-like focus in this section make it quite easy for us to see how Scarlett develops into such a hard-working, focused woman in the final part of the book.

The second idea MM develops here in Chapter 28 is the continued destruction of the stratified southern society.  MM spent the first 10% of the novel explaining the rigid divisions in Southern society.  Of course our modern eyes notice the racial differences she gives us more than everything else, but I think it's also worth remembering that she draws distinctions between rich and poor planters, Northerners and Southerners, flighty girls and serious young women, wild boys like the Tarletons and quiet, studious, serious types like Ashley.  Everybody has a distinct role to play in pre-War society, but now that the war is over everybody breaks away from all of these expected behaviors. 

In this chapter we have southern belle Scarlett riding a horse and looking for food, the whole formerly wealthy family eating "rabbit and possum and catfish," and former slave (ahem!) playing an essential role in keeping food on the table.  I've read a lot of commentary about 12 Years a Slave lately, and most of the film reviews praise 12 Years while also taking potshots at GWTW and Birth of a Nation.  I'm definitely not going to defend Birth of A Nation, and I do have a few problems with some of MM's depictions of black characters, but I think it's unfair to pretend that GWTW and Birth are similar in their approach to race.  Birth demonizes African-Americans (at least it does in the clips I've seen on TV lately), but GWTW takes the opposite tact in 90% of the novel.  There are some bad or evil or wild black characters in GWTW, but Pork and Mammy (and even Prissy, to a lesser extent) have more in common with the "Magical Negro" character type than with anything particularly negative.  In any case, as I've said many times before MM is an equal-opportunity offender in the pages of GWTW, and for every "evil" black character I can count ten white characters who are portrayed in a negative light. Either way, the social structure has broken down by the time we arrive to this section of the novel; so far everybody is cooperating and behaving, but the seeds of the madness of the reconstruction period are sewn right here in the wake of Sherman's army.

The third important thread that MM starts here in Chapter 28 is Scarlett's dream.  I tend to stay away from dream sequences when I'm writing and I usually don't like them when I'm reading either, but I don't mind Scarlett's misty dream here in GWTW.  For one thing it adds a nice touch of the Southern Gothic to the story, since it's foreboding and terrifying and all of that.  However, I think MM did a great job with the dream because it's a dream about nothing.  It would have been corny if MM had included persons, places, or identifiable things in Scarlett's dream.  Imagine, for instance, if Scarlett dreamed about her mother or Ashley or the Tarleton twins? In lesser hands Scarlett's dream would have provided her with advice or encouragement, sort of like that earlier dream featuring her ancestors.  But here the dream is vague and empty and terrifying, and it gives nothing away, which adds to the uneasiness we all feel as we turn the pages in GWTW. 

Alright, so now that MM has added these story threads that will pay off later, the second half of Chapter 28 features a cameo by one of my favorite characters Frank Kennedy! He's part of the commissary department (because, of course he is!), and he brings news of the war (The Confederates have retaken Atlanta, but it has been burned to the ground...), but because he's a well-bred gentleman he doesn't give them too much bad news.  That's nice of him, I suppose, and once again MM displays her talent by "showing without telling." If Rhett or Ashley or Gerald had ambled up to Tara instead of Frank, any of the three of them would have eventually told Tara precisely what was going on in the world, if only so that she could prepare for the future.  Rhett would have given it to her straight, Ashley would have told her reluctantly, and Gerald would have done it by accident, but none of the three of them would have spared her feelings.  Scarlett is in charge and she therefore needs to know everything that's happening outside of Tara, but Frank still evidently doesn't want to upset the ladies. 

Sigh. 

Anyway, at the end of this Christmas dinner Frank timidly asks Scarlett for Suellen's hand.  Scarlett agrees even though "it was beyond her comprehension that anyone could love Suellen." After Frank says yes, he opens up a little and talks frankly to Scarlett about the fact that the war is winding down. This final disclosure provides a nice bridge for the next few chapters, but Scarlett is so practical she doesn't care much about the fortunes of the rebel government and is more concerned with the impending lack of food and resources than she is with her sister's love life. 

Next time: The Civil War ends....and life begins again.

Chapter 27: "Yes, the worst was over!" (Girl Power!)

My horoscope said today was a good day for traveling and publishing, so here I am.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month.  I fancy myself as a novelist in moments of supreme self-confidence, and I take on the challenge of writing new words about new topics every year.  NaNoWo is supposed to be about writing without editing. It's supposed to be about letting your ideas flow as you type-type-type the Fall blues away.  I always start off with a head full of steam, but eventually run out of gas because I'm pretty picky about my style and I honestly begin most mornings striking or erasing most of the things I wrote the day before. I've always been pretty darn good at writing dialogue, and I can put together a pretty decent scene. But my sequels suck.

What are sequels? I can hear you ask.  And I'm glad you asked, although I'm pretty sorry that you asked me since, as I mentioned, I'm absolutely terrible at writing them.  Essentially, sequels cap off scenes. Sometimes they are little more than a summation of what has come before, but sometimes they're a springboard for the next bit of action or simply a characters internal dialogue as they reassess whatever has just happened to them.  I can knock out thousands of lines of dialogue without missing a beat, but sequels are the secret to good writing. It's what separates the amateurs from the professionals, or so I'd like to think.

MM was darn good at writing sequels, wasn't she?

One of my favorite sequels comes at the end of Chapter 26:

"There was hope now. The war couldn't last forever. She had her little cotton, she had food, she had a horse, she had her small but treasured hoard of money. Yes, the worst was over." 

Scarlett has suffered and struggled since she left Atlanta, and in the hands of a lesser novel killing the Yankee would have been our heroine's nadir.  But because GWTW is a great novel Scarlett's murder is almost celebrated, and it propels the action over the next part of the novel.  Scarlett might be a murderer, but she's got food, money, and a horse, so what difference is a little criminal sin? MM doesn't dwell on Scarlett's soul or her mental well-being, here. She's just glad Scarlett is slowly finding a way to get by in a world gone mad, and you know what? I'm glad, too.

Except, uh-oh.  As we turn to Chapter 27 we see that all is not well. Because the Yankees are back.

Is this overkill? You think this is overkill having the Yankees return twice to Tara? Perhaps you could make the argument that MM is laying it all on a little thick, but you know what? The Yankees were all over Georgia during late 1864 and early 1865.  I don't know much about life in a war zone, but I have seen it on TV.  And TV wars are never as cut and dry as we like to think war is.  Atlanta is in ruins and we know the Yankees were massing up for the March to the Sea, but I'm pretty sure the Yankees were swarming all over Clayton county, and I'm pretty sure that they would have returned to Tara a few times to look for spoils and goodies.

Everybody else runs into the swamp when the Yankees are coming, and Scarlett is about to join them but she doesn't.  Because she's afraid the Yankees will burn Tara over her head, and Tara is all she's got left in the world.  Everybody else scampered away because they've got good sense and are totally afraid of confronting men with guns, but Scarlett isn't afraid.  Tara is her home and she aims to defend it, and if the Yankees don't like it, well..."they're only a passel of damn Yankees!"

Interestingly enough, this Chapter also includes a little bit of rape panic ("For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters"), and it's fairly interesting how MM keeps that threat bubbling under the surface of the story, isn't it?

But Lordy Lordy, the end result of Chapter 27 is that the Yankees who show up at Tara take almost everything Scarlett had left.  All the things that gave her security during the sequel of Chapter 26 are gone by the end of Chapter 27.  The Yankees even try to burn the house, although Scarlett and Melly put it out pretty quickly (but with a great deal of effort).  I guess I could grumble a little bit about the slurs Melly and Scarlett toss around after they've put the fire out, but...sigh.  I won't.  I don't like to read those words anymore than you do, but I think they're pretty accurate here.  Scarlett and Melly were women of the South, and they grew up on plantations.  They were at the top of a very precisely structured hierarchy, and besides neither of these women were modern liberals, were they? Let's just say that the harsh words they use here rub me the wrong way, but they're not at all shocking or out of place.  As a matter of fact, not using those words would ring false in this situation.  This is historical fiction after all, and PC-talk hadn't been invented during 1864.

Anyway, Chapter 27 ends with a sequel that is almost as perfect as the one that winds up Chapter 26.

"I'll say this for her," Scarlett muses about Melly, "she's always there when you need her." 

And so, for all that GWTW sometimes rubs me the wrong way regarding racial harmony and equality, I think the book is very modern in its portrayal of Girl Power.  Scarlett hates Melly, but Melly loves Scarlett unconditionally.  And as the book edges forward, we are able to experience the blossoming of Scarlett's love for Melly in what feels like real time.  GWTW is often wrongly described as nothing more than a Love Story between Scarlett and Rhett, but in actuality I often think that the real romance in GWTW occurs between Melly and Scarlett.  I love Captain Butler, but the ending of GWTW wouldn't be half as tragic if Melly were still alive in the final chapter, and Chapter 27 is one of those chapters that best demonstrates the way the women's relationship gradually changes.