Happy 2014!/Chapter 33: "They think God is going to work a miracle especially for their benefit..."

Happy New Year everybody!

Unfortunately for me, most of December 2013 was spent nursing an unfortunate bout of what I assumed was something like carpel-tunnel syndrome in the middle fingers of my left hand.  My fingers were swollen and weirdly numb for a few weeks, but everything seems to be back to normal now. I'm hungover (too much Prosecco and celebrating!) and battling a nasty sinus infection, but writers write, so I thought it would be a good idea to start the new year off with a new GWTW post about chapter 33. 

However, before I begin Chapter 33 I think it's essential that I say a few words about Ashley Wilkes. 

I don't really talk about Ashley all that much, do I? He's been away from home with General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia for most of the book, and the few references I've made to Melly's husband have been pretty mean.  He pales in comparison to Rhett, of course, but he's not actually a villain, is he?

Probably not.  Ashley is an honorable gentleman living during a dis-honorable era, he's nice and as helpful as he can be (which isn't saying much, but not all of us are cut out for physical labor), and he does and says precisely what's expected of him at all times.  And yet--

And yet--

When I initially read GWTW I had no reason to be critical of Ashley.  MM presents him as a gleaming, oh-so-polite, oh-so-untouchable Beta male. He's super serious and seems to have a tough time giving Scarlet a straight answer on her he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not fantasies, but that's Scarlett's problem, not his. 

And yet--

When I was a teenager, I thought every guy you encountered was a potential mate. And because I'd filled my head with the characters of GWTW and Pride and Prejudice and every single one of the Harlequin check-out-counter romance novels I could get my hands on, I thought men and women approached love and romance in precisely the same manner.  Every girl I'd known in high school and junior high school and all the way back to kindergarten had nursed a secret (or sometimes not so secret, if she were very lucky) crush on a boy in our social circle.  And after we'd finally gotten over our 9-year-old devotion to Joey McIntyre or Bobby Brown or Donny Osmond or Justin Beiber, we spent much of our free time daydreaming about that cute guy in history class or the boy with the cheekbones who's locker was on the other side of the hallway or whatever.  And everything I'd read on the subject indicated that boys were just as obsessed with relationships as we were. 

Well, I was wrong.  Duh. 

Because boys don't obsess about relationships in that way.  They may or may not be sex obsessed or have the hots for a particular girl, but boys don't regularly spend time dreaming of weddings and everlasting devotion, etc.  Of course this is an over-generalization, but in my experience guys are simply not wired that way.  The male of our species is straightforward and goal-oriented, and if a man likes you he'll let you know immediately.  

If I'd known that earlier in my life, I could have saved myself a great deal of trouble.  Men generally don't play the kinds of games we think/hope/wish/pray that they're playing.  If they like you, they'll let you know. They might be suave about letting you know, they might be brutal, they might buy you a gift for your birthday or send you flowers, or they might simply let you know by grabbing you and kissing you, but that's the bottom line: if a man likes you he'll let you know immediately.  

Even if he's married.

So now....even though Ashley is married he knows Scarlett is obsessed with him.  Therefore, I think it's his duty to tell her frankly that her devotion is misplaced.  But instead he plays the coward and refuses to tell her straight to her face.  That doesn't make him a terrible person, but he's not helping.  At all. 

Anyway, enough about the Woolen-Headed Mr. Wilkes (for now).  I can't pick on him too much anyway, given that his reticence sets the next section of the plot in motion. 

Alright, so on to chapter 33.

Scarlett returns to Atlanta by train at the beginning of chapter 33, but this visit to the capitol city is the opposite of everything MM gave us the first time our heroine visited the town.  In her first foray to Aunt Pitty's house as Charles' widow she was greeted by Uncle Peter and she rode through the best neighborhood of Atlanta waving to her buddies.  But now all the people she knew in the beginning of the story are either dead, gone, or too busy and poor to shout hello to her.  As a matter of fact MM drives this point home by directly comparing "how crowded this space [the area around the depot] had been with wagons and carriages and ambulances and how noisy with drivers swearing and yelling ad people calling greetings to friends." GWTW is the story of the sweeping change that occurred during and after the civil war, and I think MM does her best work when she uses silences and emptiness to convey the feeling of change and the notion that something is missing.  Scarlett wasn't particularly happy back in the 1862 and during the early days of the war (she hated being a wife and a widow and she missed Ashley too much), but the old world was filled with a polite bustle and a hum of energy that has completely disappeared now.  And of course, the silence of the New World Order becomes even more dominant in the last third of the novel, after Scarlett and Rhett marry and move into the big mansion she designs.  There's a lot wrong in their oh-so-fashionable house, but my overall impression of the place is that it was big, empty, boring, quiet, and sad. 

So Scarlett and Mammy walk to Aunt Pitty's house, and MM has them pass landmarks we remember from the earlier part of the novel, including the Atlanta Hotel ("where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived..."), Five Points/Peachtree Street ("denuded of landmarks"), and a bunch of "vacant lots". There are three story buildings in town now (wow!), and the sidewalks are crazy crowded (especially because of all the trashy people and Yankee uniforms), but Scarlett till feels all alone, and I think MM does a nice job of making sure the reader shares her alienation. 

And hey--Belle Watling is in this chapter, too!

Hail hail, the gang's all here!

Belle's got a carriage and bright red hair and a "fine fur hat," two description of which put me in mind of Lucy Ricardo after a shopping binge.  The two women don't speak, of course, but Mammy doesn't like the looks of Belle because she can quickly see that she is a "professional bad woman," and isn't it hilarious how MM plays up prostitution for laughs throughout GWTW? GWTW is conservative in many places (*ahem*), but wonderfully progressive on a variety of issues. MM could have easily gotten up on her moral high horse about Belle, but she does the opposite right here in chapter 33:

"[Scarlett] wanted to feel superior and virtuous about Belle but she could not. If her plans went well, she might be on the same footing with Belle and supported by the same man."

Ooooooh boy! I've read a half-dozen contemporary novels over the past few months, and none of them has said a word about prostitution.  But if they had addressed the topic, I'm almost certain the authors would have lapsed into finger-wagging, etc.  But MM is too much of a realist and too well-versed in the nature of the world to waste our time with morality, so she actually decides to align the destiny of her heroine with the life of the town fancy woman.  Interesting stuff. 

Anyway, Scarlett eventually makes it to Aunt Pitty's house, and--it's nice to see her, isn't it?  A lot of strong characters died during and immediately after The War, but Aunt Pitty is apparently more of a survivor than we are led to assume during the first third of the novel.  Hmmph.  Pitty gives Scarlett a gossipy rundown of the neighbors (the Merriweather's are selling pies to Yankees, the Meades and Elsings and Whitings are living together to save money), and by-the-way, "did I tell you that Captain Butler was in jail?"

If you've only seen GWTW the movie, you get the impression that Rhett is in jail because of something to do with taxes or maybe the war or a trumped up charge having to do with blockading.  But in reality Rhett was formally arrested for killing a negro.  Which--did Rhett really kill a black guy? At this point in the novel we've yet to see our boy in anything close to a murderous rage (that...comes...later), and I obviously don't relish the notion of my Rhett killing a black man for having the unmitigated temerity to "insult a white woman." But politics aside, everything about this is tantalizing, isn't it? Rhett has been nothing but suave in Scarlett's presence (even when he tried to kiss her on the road to Tara), so it's almost jarring to think that that same playful/funny/silly guy we think we know so well is also a cold-blooded killer.  We've heard about his past gun-play of course, but it's easy to chalk all of that up to youth and self-defense.  But he's no longer young and scared and it seems unlikely that the big, strapping, armed-to-the-teeth blockader we know and love was bested in a fight, so--what really happened?  The way I see it, there are three main possibilities:

1.) None of this is true.  The Yankees have suspended habeas corpus and they arrested Rhett because he's got the money, because he's an Old Unreconstructed Rebel, and because he's a snarky bastard who probably told off one-too-many Yankee officers.

2.) Some of this is true.  Maybe this whole thing is another one of those wild rumors that seem to surround Rhett like smoke from his beloved cigars, but in GWTW there's usually a kernel of truth in every rumor Scarlett hears.  After all, Melly and Ashley's marriage was initially nothing more than a gossipy rumor from the Tarleton twins and that turned out to be God's honest truth, so maybe there's a morsel of fact inside this wild story.  Maybe Rhett did kill the black guy, but maybe the circumstances weren't the way Pitty says they were. I didn't love everything about David McCaig's book, but I did enjoy the spin he put on this particular issue.  You should check it out if you haven't read it, if only for this little tidbit.

3.) It's totally true.  You guys, what if this is all totally true?

Well, let's avoid those unpleasant thoughts for a moment.  In any case, MM keeps ramping up the incredible amount of information pouring out of Pitty's mouth about Rhett's situation.  Rhett isn't just in Atlanta--he's in jail in Atlanta.  And he's not just a wealthy former blockader--he's made off with millions of Confederate gold. And he's not just a rogue--he's a murderer.  Scarlett's conversation with Aunt Pitty has more twists and turns than last night's Johnny Football Bowl Game (S-E-C!), and instead of simply being a rehash of information we already know, MM changes the game by giving us a bunch of data we simply didn't expect.  I've read this book a thousand times, and even know this Chapter makes me tingle with suspense.  If Rhett's fortunes (and personality?) have changed so much since we saw him last, what's it going to be like when Scarlett visits him in jail?


Oh drama!