Now that Gerald is dead and buried, let's talk about Ashley Wilkes.
Ashley has been out of GWTW for a number of chapters now. Of course he's never been fully out of Scarlett's heart since she love, love, loves him, but our heroine has been too busy for the past few months to give him more than a passing thought. Her heart will always belong to the sleepy-eyed Ashley Wilkes, but between marrying Frank Kennedy and running his store and getting pregnant with his child, her childish fantasies have taken a back seat to the workaday world. As I said last time, I do believe that MM consciously drew a line between Atlanta Scarlett and Tara Scarlett, a line that very few characters ever cross. Scarlett's husbands certainly never cross that line, do they? Frank Kennedy did visit Tara in the aftermath of Sherman's March To The Sea, but at that point in the story he belonged to Suellen. Charles almost certainly visited Tara before, during, and after their wedding, but MM leaves all of that to our imagination. Rhett blurs every line in the book, but we're never treated to a scene of him hanging around, enjoying the red earth of Tara.
By contrast, Will Benteen, Suellen and Careen never leave Tara. They're frozen in time and space down there on the farm, existing at the edges of Scarlett's consciousness and functioning merely as reminders of her past and her present responsibilities.
But not everybody from The County, stays in the county. Gerald, Melly, and Ashley are three major characters who journey from Atlanta to Tara and back again, although I think it's highly significant that the Wilkes' cannot move between the two settings without Scarlett's help. Melly was born in Atlanta and she belongs mainly to the Atlanta scene in the book, and she only arrives at Tara in 1864 because Scarlett (and Rhett) are able to spirit her away just-in-the-nick-of-time. Ashley is of course County born and bred, and by the time we arrive in Chapter 41 Mr. Wilkes seems totally unable to generate any business prospects in Atlanta. He's a crappy farm hand and a dreamer and I think everybody in Atlanta knows that he wouldn't be much help as a banker or a cotton broker. Therefore, rather than using his personal connections to find work 20 miles away in central Atlanta, Ashley has no choice but to head to New York City (of all places!) to find work because "an old friend who made the Grand Tour with (him) has offered (him) a position in his father's bank."
Interestingly enough, Ashley's instincts are actually right for a change, assuming the reader ascribes to the long-view of things. The American economy during the latter half of the 19th century was transforming from the traditional agrarian lifestyle of the planter and farmer class into the highly stratified, "robber baron" economic structure that took over around the turn of the century. There was lots of money to be made during the 1870's and 1880's, but most of that money was going to be made in northern cities, and it was mostly going to be made by men who fought for the Union (or anyway, by the men who were wealthy enough during the war to pay for a replacement). Running a plantation was hard work, and it was almost impossible to run a large scale, profitable plantation without slaves. On the other hand, the Manhattan/North Shore/Gentleman's Club Northerners quickly developed a way to "work smarter" rather than harder, and Ashley is at least smart enough to recognize that getting in on the ground floor with Carnegie and Rockefeller is a better fit for his skill set (or lack thereof) than planting and hoeing and all the backbreaking effort that goes into farming.
He's right, but interestingly enough MM doesn't tip her hand in Chapter 41. MM wrote GWTW during the Great Depression, and she was therefore well schooled in the socio-economic realities of post Civil War America. Ashley and Melly could have made easy money in New York, and they probably could have avoided much of the trouble that happens in the last third of the book if they'd decided to leave during this chapter. As a matter of fact, all the characters in GWTW could have used a change of scenery, but with the exception of Rhett they almost seem glued to the ground. Of course the South was always a parochial society and people stayed put in their little towns and on their plantations for generations, and GWTW was certainly promoted as something of a love letter to Atlanta and the Old South, and having Melly and Ashley leave Atlanta at this point would have gone against the grain of the narrative, so I understand why they stay. Plus, Ashley can't leave because he's the catalyst of the remaining drama in the novel.
And yes, I do mean he's the catalyst and I'm very deliberately declaring that he's not the impetus of the final 30% of GWTW. I was going to say he was the impetus for what happens next, but then I turned to Google to get a precise definition of these words and I am firmly in the catalyst camp.
Impetus: the force or energy with which a body moves.
Catalyst: a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.
Now, ain't that the truth? When Ashley moves to Atlanta, his very presence in town causes so many different things to boil over all at once. Ashley is probably the most boring, stable chemical in MM's periodic table of character elements, but once you mix him in with Scarlett and Rhett and Frank and all the Reconstruction drama hanging over the entire state, things get real very quickly. Ashley undergoes the smallest changes over the course of the novel and it's easy to think of him as little more than a rag doll of a man who gets pushed and prodded by whichever way the wind is blowing, but in truth he's the center of all the crazy shit and ugly feelings that happen from Gerald's funeral until the end of the novel. And so many things could have been avoided if Ashley had the balls to be direct. Sometimes in life we have to be like Iyanla Vanzant and "Call a Thing a Thing," even if our words make other people uncomfortable. Scarlett and Ashley's post-funeral conversation is awkward and difficult, but he needs to stop leading her on. It was one thing when they were kids back in the first chapters of the novel, but this is getting ridiculous, isn't it?:
"But...you could gradually buy the mill from me and it would be your own and then--"
"Scarlett," he interrupted fiercely, "I tell you, no. There are other reasons."
"What reasons?"
"You know my reasons better than anyone in the world."
"Oh that? But--that'll be all right," she assured swiftly. "I promised, you know, out in the orchard, last winter and I'll keep my promise and--"
"Then you are surer of yourself than I am. I could not count on myself to keep such a promise."
So...what are his other reasons?
Scarlett thinks Ashley's "other reasons" are spelled L-O-V-E. And perhaps this is the surface meaning of his words, but then again maybe not. I don't pretend to know anything about Ashley and Melly's private life (LIES! I think about it all the time!), but we know for sure that doctor Meade doesn't want Mrs. Wilkes to consider having any more children. Which means...I mean, we can all kind of guess what it means. And we all know that men of a certain background often kept mistresses whenever their wives couldn't or wouldn't deliver all promised wifely duties, I don't think Ashley has the time or money to keep a woman on the side. So....there's that. Scarlett discounts this reality because Scarlett doesn't really enjoy marriage (ahem), but Ashley probably thinks about it non-stop. So instead of L-O-V-E, I'd bet my next paycheck that Ashley's "reasons" have to do with L-U-S-T, something that he's too proud and too well-bred to spell out to Scarlett.
But--and this is the biggest but of the novel, and the reason why I think Ashley gets a bad rep--that doesn't mean Ashley doesn't love Scarlett. I think he loves her--like a sister. He probably wants to have sex with her, but that doesn't mean he pines for her or thinks about her unless she's standing right in front of him. His silence is misguided since it should be obvious to him that he needs to clear the air and let Scarlett know that his feelings for her have nothing to do with her feelings for him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about Scarlett.
At least I don't think so. And neither does he, I don't think. GWTW is fiction, but it stands out because of the realism in the words and actions of the characters. Unfortunately, the real world isn't filled with confidant, swash-buckling, take-no-prisoners people like Scarlett, Rhett and Gerald. Instead, most people in the world aren't self-assured enough to be honest with themselves, let alone other people. Everything in real life is muddled and confusing, and there is very little certainty in anything, and there certainly isn't any certainty in love. I'm Ashley's biggest critic, but whenever he avoids the truth he's being true to life. So that's something, isn't it?
Anyway, Scarlett pitches a fit when Ashley rejects her offer of working in the mill and says he's moving to New York. Melly comes to Scarlett's aid, and she chastises Ashley for making good old Scarlett cry. Eventually, the Wilkes move to Atlanta and Ashley realizes that he is lost forever because he'll never have a chance to stand up on his own two feet.
Boo-freakin'-hoo.
They move to Ivy Street in Atlanta, in a "little brick house...directly behind Aunt Pitty's house," which means the Wilkes' have moved right into Scarlett's backyard. This? Is a mess. I know Atlanta was much smaller in those days than it is now, but come on, Ashley. Do the right thing for once, and at least get a nice little house somewhere down the way so you aren't constantly running into Scarlett and her green eyes whenever you look out your back windows.
Oh, and good old India moves in with them, a small little detail that means absolutely nothing to the first-time reader but which means everything to the rest of the plot. Everybody scattered to the four winds during and after the Civil War, but while the outside world has gotten a lot bigger, the world of upper class Atlanta is contracting very quickly. Back in the County the Wilkes lived a fair distance from Tara. And even while they all lived at Tara, the vast grounds of the old plantation provided plenty of breathing space and elbow room. But now everybody is six years older than they were at the beginning, they're a hell of a lot poorer, and they're living cheek to jowl with their best friends and sworn enemies and yuck, yuck, yuck. This is all so yucky, isn't it? To return to my earlier chemistry metaphor, MM is doing a pretty sneaky mad-scientist routine here in Chapter 41. Just when it seemed like Ashley and Melly might actually leave the South and go AWOL like so many of the old friends who've drifted out of the story by this point in the book, MM decides to pluck them out of the peaceful poverty at Tara and puts them right back in the center of things. It's a hair-raising turn of events, but the first-time reader of GWTW would have no reason to be alarmed because there doesn't seem to be anything inherently dangerous in the largely expository second half of Chapter 41. The Wilkes residence becomes the heart of Old School, upper-crust Atlanta, but even this turn of events seems natural and not at all catastrophic, mostly because Melly was already fairly popular in Atlanta during the first section of the book, so her triumphant return seems like a foregone conclusion.
And yet--
And yet--
Melly hasn't changed, not much anyway. Not yet. But Atlanta has changed a lot. And Scarlett has transformed during the last few chapters, and there's something almost sinister lurking in the shadows at Melly's parties. MM portrays it all in a straightforward manner, and she rarely even compares pre-War life to post-War life with anything other than broad strokes in this section of the book, but a sophisticated reader (and certainly a sophisticated reader who's read this book hundreds of times), cannot miss the difference. I was never any good at chemistry, but you don't have to be Marie Curie to realize that Stressed Scarlett + Trusting Melly + Depressed Ashley + Stupid Frank + Yankees + Inflation + Rhett Butler= ABSOLUTE CHAOS.
It takes a while for all hell to break loose, but we know it's coming.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Chapter 40: "He was a fightin' Irishman and a Southern gentleman and as loyal a Confederate as ever lived..."
Chapter 40 of GWTW is all about Gerald's funeral. But before I get to my analysis of this fairly important chapter of GWTW, I've gotta say a little bit about the new Bravo tv show Southern Charm.
Is anybody else watching this?
Southern Charm is a reality show--and it's not a very good reality show when all is said and done. Most of the main characters are a touch too obvious in their quest for attention, and T-Rav and the guy who lives with his mother (I'm blanking on his name at the moment, but I believe he also does documentary films or something?), clearly want to be famous and are willing to do or say anything on camera to increase their notoriety. Having said that, though, Cameran Eubanks is one of my favorite Real Worlders of all time, so I was thrilled when she introduced the topic of GWTW smack in the middle of a post-polo (yes, polo. Yawn) dinner they were all having at T-Rav's "plantation."
"Are you an Ashley or a Rhett?" Cameran asks the male cast members, in a question that was clearly a producer plant since I don't believe for a moment that these reality tv stars are interested in even basic discussions about American literature. But anyway, all the guys immediately say they're Rhett and it is all quite predictable and phony, except--
And here's the thing--
T-Rav is a native Charlestonian and he's wealthy and his family is old and exceedingly well connected. And so, although he's clearly an arrogant douche who probably hasn't read a book since he left the University of South Carolina business school, he leans back in his chair and starts quoting GWTW and discussing MM's survival of the fittest theme. And then, in a totally different conversation that happens later that evening, he starts quoting Shakespeare. It wasn't so much the words he quoted/paraphrased, but the way he did it that got my attention, because his casual approach to repeating famous words reminded me so much of Rhett Butler that I actually did a double take.
I visited Charleston a few years ago, but we didn't meet any native Charlestonians. And we certainly didn't engage with anybody from any of the old families, so now I'm wondering if quotations from famous works of Western literature is a common feature in the speech patterns of native Charlestonians? And if so, why? I'd always chalked Rhett's proverbs and random chatter was his own verbal tick, but now I'm starting to think MM was using Rhett's speech pattern to both connect him to his Southern roots and to demonstrate how even an infamous black sheep can never truly break away from the lessons he learned during his youth.
I dunno, but it's something to think about.
Alright, so anyway, Chapter 40 of GWTW is all about Gerald's funeral. There are a few levels of tension in this chapter, with the first being what kind of service will be held at the burial. Ashley is officiating the funeral because it's impossible to find a priest in that part of Georgia that can arrive quickly enough to pray over Gerald, but Ashley is torn between using the formal, dry Catholic/Ecclesiastical funeral that Gerald undoubtedly would have expected, and the less formal, more common, lengthier funeral the county neighbors are undoubtedly expecting. Ashley being Ashley, he settles on middle-ground by beginning with the Catholic prayers, but then skipping the part about Purgatory he was supposed to read, then he begins reciting the Lord's Prayer, then the Hail Mary, then he begins reciting stuff from memory, which is fine. Except, of course, this stuff happens to be part of the Episcopal burial service. And so "a devoutly Catholic Irishman was being laid to rest by the Church of England's service."
And how's that for characterization? As one of my favorite writers Jacob Clifton always says: "The thing that makes you awesome is also the thing that makes you suck." Isn't that the truth? It's certainly the truth in GWTW. Scarlett loves Ashley because he's clear-eyed and philosophical, and we can't help but love and admire him for being so diplomatic and regal. But Ashley's diplomacy is ultimately the cause of his disasters because he always chooses the middle ground or the easy way out, rather than risk injuring anyone's feelings.
The second source of tension in this chapter is the friction between Southern manners/traditions and the true feelings that are bubbling underneath the surface of the people in the county. The neighbors are angry at Suellen and they can't wait to light into the middle O'Hara girl for attempting to trick her father into signing the loyalty oath (and ultimately causing his death). However, because they're southerners they have to follow custom at all times. And local custom dictates that all sass-sessions have to take place after the more formal parts of the funeral have come to an end. So the ladies hold their tongues for a little while, but mentally count down until they can tell Sister Sue exactly what they think about her chicanery.
But this never happens because Will and Ashley are conspiring to use the rules to their own advantage. So when the time comes for Ashley to cede the floor to the neighbors so they can all have a chance to "say a few words" about Gerald, Will steps forward and starts de-fanging the vipers by saying some good, smooth, words about Gerald. Oh and by the way, he's also going to marry Suellen so....thanks for coming everybody, exit stage left, grab your gift bags on the way out.
Everybody's furious, of course. But there's nothing they can do, especially when Will asks Grandma Fontaine (yay!) and Mrs. Tarleton to usher the very pregnant Scarlett into the house. Most likely because he knows that these two women were ready to be the ring leaders in whatever trouble was getting ready to start.
Crisis averted. Well done Will and Ashley. Well anyway, well done Will and thanks for not screwing everything up like you usually do, Ashley.
Grandma Fontaine is pretty amazing, isn't she? She's so blunt and perceptive, one of those people in GWTW who sees things clearly and dishes out good advice--although Scarlett is too stubborn and self-centered to actually listen to the older woman. But I always listen and smile whenever I read Grandma Fontaine's words, words that I don't think you can truly appreciate until you've lived through a few personal crises. I won't transcribe every line of it, here, but I'll leave you with one of my favorites:
"When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play among with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival. I pass it on to you."
Great advice from a great lady.
Is anybody else watching this?
Southern Charm is a reality show--and it's not a very good reality show when all is said and done. Most of the main characters are a touch too obvious in their quest for attention, and T-Rav and the guy who lives with his mother (I'm blanking on his name at the moment, but I believe he also does documentary films or something?), clearly want to be famous and are willing to do or say anything on camera to increase their notoriety. Having said that, though, Cameran Eubanks is one of my favorite Real Worlders of all time, so I was thrilled when she introduced the topic of GWTW smack in the middle of a post-polo (yes, polo. Yawn) dinner they were all having at T-Rav's "plantation."
"Are you an Ashley or a Rhett?" Cameran asks the male cast members, in a question that was clearly a producer plant since I don't believe for a moment that these reality tv stars are interested in even basic discussions about American literature. But anyway, all the guys immediately say they're Rhett and it is all quite predictable and phony, except--
And here's the thing--
T-Rav is a native Charlestonian and he's wealthy and his family is old and exceedingly well connected. And so, although he's clearly an arrogant douche who probably hasn't read a book since he left the University of South Carolina business school, he leans back in his chair and starts quoting GWTW and discussing MM's survival of the fittest theme. And then, in a totally different conversation that happens later that evening, he starts quoting Shakespeare. It wasn't so much the words he quoted/paraphrased, but the way he did it that got my attention, because his casual approach to repeating famous words reminded me so much of Rhett Butler that I actually did a double take.
I visited Charleston a few years ago, but we didn't meet any native Charlestonians. And we certainly didn't engage with anybody from any of the old families, so now I'm wondering if quotations from famous works of Western literature is a common feature in the speech patterns of native Charlestonians? And if so, why? I'd always chalked Rhett's proverbs and random chatter was his own verbal tick, but now I'm starting to think MM was using Rhett's speech pattern to both connect him to his Southern roots and to demonstrate how even an infamous black sheep can never truly break away from the lessons he learned during his youth.
I dunno, but it's something to think about.
Alright, so anyway, Chapter 40 of GWTW is all about Gerald's funeral. There are a few levels of tension in this chapter, with the first being what kind of service will be held at the burial. Ashley is officiating the funeral because it's impossible to find a priest in that part of Georgia that can arrive quickly enough to pray over Gerald, but Ashley is torn between using the formal, dry Catholic/Ecclesiastical funeral that Gerald undoubtedly would have expected, and the less formal, more common, lengthier funeral the county neighbors are undoubtedly expecting. Ashley being Ashley, he settles on middle-ground by beginning with the Catholic prayers, but then skipping the part about Purgatory he was supposed to read, then he begins reciting the Lord's Prayer, then the Hail Mary, then he begins reciting stuff from memory, which is fine. Except, of course, this stuff happens to be part of the Episcopal burial service. And so "a devoutly Catholic Irishman was being laid to rest by the Church of England's service."
And how's that for characterization? As one of my favorite writers Jacob Clifton always says: "The thing that makes you awesome is also the thing that makes you suck." Isn't that the truth? It's certainly the truth in GWTW. Scarlett loves Ashley because he's clear-eyed and philosophical, and we can't help but love and admire him for being so diplomatic and regal. But Ashley's diplomacy is ultimately the cause of his disasters because he always chooses the middle ground or the easy way out, rather than risk injuring anyone's feelings.
The second source of tension in this chapter is the friction between Southern manners/traditions and the true feelings that are bubbling underneath the surface of the people in the county. The neighbors are angry at Suellen and they can't wait to light into the middle O'Hara girl for attempting to trick her father into signing the loyalty oath (and ultimately causing his death). However, because they're southerners they have to follow custom at all times. And local custom dictates that all sass-sessions have to take place after the more formal parts of the funeral have come to an end. So the ladies hold their tongues for a little while, but mentally count down until they can tell Sister Sue exactly what they think about her chicanery.
But this never happens because Will and Ashley are conspiring to use the rules to their own advantage. So when the time comes for Ashley to cede the floor to the neighbors so they can all have a chance to "say a few words" about Gerald, Will steps forward and starts de-fanging the vipers by saying some good, smooth, words about Gerald. Oh and by the way, he's also going to marry Suellen so....thanks for coming everybody, exit stage left, grab your gift bags on the way out.
Everybody's furious, of course. But there's nothing they can do, especially when Will asks Grandma Fontaine (yay!) and Mrs. Tarleton to usher the very pregnant Scarlett into the house. Most likely because he knows that these two women were ready to be the ring leaders in whatever trouble was getting ready to start.
Crisis averted. Well done Will and Ashley. Well anyway, well done Will and thanks for not screwing everything up like you usually do, Ashley.
Grandma Fontaine is pretty amazing, isn't she? She's so blunt and perceptive, one of those people in GWTW who sees things clearly and dishes out good advice--although Scarlett is too stubborn and self-centered to actually listen to the older woman. But I always listen and smile whenever I read Grandma Fontaine's words, words that I don't think you can truly appreciate until you've lived through a few personal crises. I won't transcribe every line of it, here, but I'll leave you with one of my favorites:
"When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play among with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival. I pass it on to you."
Great advice from a great lady.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Chapter 39: "Besides she honestly thought she was actin' for the best..."
(Before I begin, let me apologize for taking so much time off between blog posts. I got an unexpected promotion at my day job, so my schedule went from 40 "easy" hours per week of lollygagging and daydreaming to a very tough 70 hours per week of deadlines and depositions. C'est ma vie.)
Alright, let's get back to business.
Chapter 39 of GWTW begins with Scarlett alighting from the train in Jonesboro. She's raced home to Tara because Gerald is dead, and--isn't it interesting that she came all the way down there without Good Old Frank? As a matter of fact, we never actually witness any of Scarlett's husbands visiting dear old Tara, not Charles, not Frank, certainly not Rhett. MM seems almost determined to keep Tara as a place apart, something separate from the intrigues and crazy-stuff and wifely duties that seem to be part and parcel of Big City life in Atlanta. In Atlanta Scarlett is, at varying times, Mrs. Charles Hamilton, Frank Kennedy's shopkeeping wife, and Mrs. Rhett Butler. But back at Tara she's just plain old Scarlett. Food for thought, right?
Anyway, I believe that chapter 39 and all the events surrounding Gerald's funeral are brilliantly written. MM is a master plotter as I've said many times before, and she manages here to build tension and excitement even though there's nothing particularly remarkable or interesting about Gerald dying. We like Gerald as a character of course, and we're genuinely sad to see him go, but he's been sick for some time. Plus, this is GWTW and we've been mired in death--senseless, horrible, never ending death--since the very first chapters of the novel. Most of the boys from the county are long dead, so why should we feel particularly sorry about Gerald's death when he got to live a comparatively long life?
And yet, MM is such a good writer that we do in fact wind up feeling very, very sorry.
But then again, I'm getting ahead of myself. So let me just switch gears for a minute and point out that Chapter 39 (and the rest of the funeral sections)acts as something of an echo/mirror of the Wilkes BBQ that opens the novel. All the extras have died of course--the Tarleton's, Charles, Ellen, etc--but the major players are still in the story, and Scarlett's return to Tara gives us the chance to see them all with fresh eyes for the first time in quite a long while. Ashley and Melly are at Tara, but now they're getting old and wearing rags instead of the finery they sported before the Civil War. Suellen and Careen are front and center too, and their personalities (sour and sweet as they are) remain true despite all the events that have swept over them during the past five or six years. And then there's Scarlett: in the beginning of GWTW she's a young girl, fretting over which green dress to wear so she can charm Ashley into marrying her. But now she's pregnant and wearing a big black dress and her ankles are swollen, and her major concern is hiding her big belly and puffy ankles from Ashley's perfect sight.
Oh Scarlett.
In addition to worrying about how Ashley is going to view her now that she's pregnant with Frank's child, Scarlett is also obsessed with holding back her tears. It's dark and there's really nobody around and her father just died for heaven's sake, but Scarlett doesn't want anybody to see her crying. I don't exactly know why she's so obsessed with not being seen with tears in her eyes, but kudos to her for trying to maintain her composure. Although her lot in life would probably be improved if she'd let people see her break down once in a while, if only just to keep things fresh. Even nowadays folks never really know what to do with a woman who hides her emotions, and I can only imagine how scornful Scarlett's neighbors would have been in the face of her massive ability to control her emotions.
Although, and here's a thought, maybe Scarlett isn't working very hard to control her emotions. Sadness and despair aren't really her thing anyway, and she's already had to come to terms with death many times over the first parts of the novel, and her father had been very sick for a long while. I'm not saying that Scarlett isn't sad that her father is gone, but perhaps she hasn't decided to wear a mask and fool the world. She feels things, but maybe she doesn't feel them very deeply.
(On the other hand, and I think this is a major difference between the two characters, the ending of the novel gives us every indication that Rhett Butler is emotional almost to a fault. His face is practically frozen into a mask most of the time, but down below he's a swirl of love and hate and lust and ambition and a lot of other stuff. When he cracks up during the last third of the novel, you get the impression that his breakdown is the logical result of decades of repressed emotion.)
And speaking of not feeling things too deeply, Good Old Will Benteen picks Scarlett up from the train station. Good Old laconic, easygoing, Will Benteen. Will Benteen is one of the few guys in GWTW who doesn't fall madly in love/lust with Scarlett. I suppose that's because he's saving all his pent up desire for Carreen, but at the same time I think MM is subtly driving home an important theme of the novel. The chapters in GWTW that occur during the height of reconstruction can be fairly easily categorized as round 2 of Rebs vs. Yankees. But in reality this is the beginning of the raging battle that erupts in the final third of the novel, the battle between the clear-eyed, rational characters who thrive in the new era and the dewy-eyed, nostalgic people who can't stop reliving Pickett's charge. Will, Scarlett, Rhett, and Mammy (!) belong to the first group, and everybody else (besides Melly, I think. But she's sort of a special case) are in the second camp. Will probably sized Scarlett up from the first moment he saw her, recognized that she was fundamentally hard and self-sufficient, and decided to pursue Carreen since she's nice. Except, of course, because "Baby Sister" belongs to the second, nostalgic group, she decides to devote her life to the church.
Sigh. Nobody's happy in GWTW, are they?
Anyway, so Will starts giving Scarlett the lowdown on what's been happening at Tara since the last time we checked in with the county gang. This section could be boring exposition, but it's fascinating because it really functions as a nice little update with our old friends. Plus, MM does a wonderful job of maintaining interest through the magic of dialect. Will's speech patterns read almost comically on the page, and he drops a lot of homespun phrases that never cease to bring a smile to my lips ("snatchin' her bald-headed" is a personal favorite of mine). But he's perceptive and Scarlett trusts his descriptions and assessments, and so do we. He says what he thinks, and we admire him for thinking it. And for having the gall to say it directly to Scarlett's face.
I don't know how I'm supposed to exactly feel about the saga of Gerald and Suellen and the oath of citizenship, but I think I know how MM feels about the whole thing. GWTW has been dismissed as racist and backward, but with the exception of a few things that I'll get to at a later date, I don't think MM was particularly political. And, for all of her obviously affection for the county life and Tara and the other "fine plantations" of the South, I get the impression that MM was actually more of a city girl. I think she preferred faster-paced Atlanta living to the slow, simple life back at Tara. I may not agree with MM's politics and I get the sneaking suspicion that we would be members of opposite political parties, but--
GWTW is not about race or politics at all. GWTW is about money and survival, plain and simple. It's about greed and capitalism and the kind of self-sufficiency that modern readers usually only encounter in Ayn Rand. Chapter 39 is a forgettable, throwaway chapter that ramps us up to the good stuff of Gerald's funeral(something we can already tell is going to be a hot mess like a Bravo reality show), but MM was such an excellent writer that she stays interesting and consistent even in the paragraphs of what would have otherwise been a pretty dry conversation. Because in this chapter, Scarlett gets good and mad at Suellen when she learns that her sister tried to trick her father into signing the citizenship agreement. But once she learns that there was $150,000 on the table (2.7 million in today's money!), Scarlett mentally changes her tune:
"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars," murmured Scarlett, her horror at the oath fading....After all, anything you could get out of the Yankees was fair money, no matter how you got it."
And that's the point of GWTW when you get down to it. With the exception of Ashley's love (and that's debatable at this point in the novel, even if our heroine doesn't realize it), Scarlett would do anything to be rich again. She was already sort of selfish and self-serving at the beginning of GWTW, but the end of the war has taught her that money is the only thing that matters. This might be one of the moments were the subtle differences between Scarlett and the rest of the gang becomes much more pronounced. As a matter of fact, I'm almost certain this is one of those moments, since Will and Melly and everyone else are downright horrified at the thought of Gerald being disloyal to the Confederacy and don't give a darn about the money. And yet, at the same time, I'm also pretty sure that MM is on Scarlett's side, and that she feels the same way. Love and patriotism are important, but security might be the most important thing in MM's fictional universe.
Alright, let's get back to business.
Chapter 39 of GWTW begins with Scarlett alighting from the train in Jonesboro. She's raced home to Tara because Gerald is dead, and--isn't it interesting that she came all the way down there without Good Old Frank? As a matter of fact, we never actually witness any of Scarlett's husbands visiting dear old Tara, not Charles, not Frank, certainly not Rhett. MM seems almost determined to keep Tara as a place apart, something separate from the intrigues and crazy-stuff and wifely duties that seem to be part and parcel of Big City life in Atlanta. In Atlanta Scarlett is, at varying times, Mrs. Charles Hamilton, Frank Kennedy's shopkeeping wife, and Mrs. Rhett Butler. But back at Tara she's just plain old Scarlett. Food for thought, right?
Anyway, I believe that chapter 39 and all the events surrounding Gerald's funeral are brilliantly written. MM is a master plotter as I've said many times before, and she manages here to build tension and excitement even though there's nothing particularly remarkable or interesting about Gerald dying. We like Gerald as a character of course, and we're genuinely sad to see him go, but he's been sick for some time. Plus, this is GWTW and we've been mired in death--senseless, horrible, never ending death--since the very first chapters of the novel. Most of the boys from the county are long dead, so why should we feel particularly sorry about Gerald's death when he got to live a comparatively long life?
And yet, MM is such a good writer that we do in fact wind up feeling very, very sorry.
But then again, I'm getting ahead of myself. So let me just switch gears for a minute and point out that Chapter 39 (and the rest of the funeral sections)acts as something of an echo/mirror of the Wilkes BBQ that opens the novel. All the extras have died of course--the Tarleton's, Charles, Ellen, etc--but the major players are still in the story, and Scarlett's return to Tara gives us the chance to see them all with fresh eyes for the first time in quite a long while. Ashley and Melly are at Tara, but now they're getting old and wearing rags instead of the finery they sported before the Civil War. Suellen and Careen are front and center too, and their personalities (sour and sweet as they are) remain true despite all the events that have swept over them during the past five or six years. And then there's Scarlett: in the beginning of GWTW she's a young girl, fretting over which green dress to wear so she can charm Ashley into marrying her. But now she's pregnant and wearing a big black dress and her ankles are swollen, and her major concern is hiding her big belly and puffy ankles from Ashley's perfect sight.
Oh Scarlett.
In addition to worrying about how Ashley is going to view her now that she's pregnant with Frank's child, Scarlett is also obsessed with holding back her tears. It's dark and there's really nobody around and her father just died for heaven's sake, but Scarlett doesn't want anybody to see her crying. I don't exactly know why she's so obsessed with not being seen with tears in her eyes, but kudos to her for trying to maintain her composure. Although her lot in life would probably be improved if she'd let people see her break down once in a while, if only just to keep things fresh. Even nowadays folks never really know what to do with a woman who hides her emotions, and I can only imagine how scornful Scarlett's neighbors would have been in the face of her massive ability to control her emotions.
Although, and here's a thought, maybe Scarlett isn't working very hard to control her emotions. Sadness and despair aren't really her thing anyway, and she's already had to come to terms with death many times over the first parts of the novel, and her father had been very sick for a long while. I'm not saying that Scarlett isn't sad that her father is gone, but perhaps she hasn't decided to wear a mask and fool the world. She feels things, but maybe she doesn't feel them very deeply.
(On the other hand, and I think this is a major difference between the two characters, the ending of the novel gives us every indication that Rhett Butler is emotional almost to a fault. His face is practically frozen into a mask most of the time, but down below he's a swirl of love and hate and lust and ambition and a lot of other stuff. When he cracks up during the last third of the novel, you get the impression that his breakdown is the logical result of decades of repressed emotion.)
And speaking of not feeling things too deeply, Good Old Will Benteen picks Scarlett up from the train station. Good Old laconic, easygoing, Will Benteen. Will Benteen is one of the few guys in GWTW who doesn't fall madly in love/lust with Scarlett. I suppose that's because he's saving all his pent up desire for Carreen, but at the same time I think MM is subtly driving home an important theme of the novel. The chapters in GWTW that occur during the height of reconstruction can be fairly easily categorized as round 2 of Rebs vs. Yankees. But in reality this is the beginning of the raging battle that erupts in the final third of the novel, the battle between the clear-eyed, rational characters who thrive in the new era and the dewy-eyed, nostalgic people who can't stop reliving Pickett's charge. Will, Scarlett, Rhett, and Mammy (!) belong to the first group, and everybody else (besides Melly, I think. But she's sort of a special case) are in the second camp. Will probably sized Scarlett up from the first moment he saw her, recognized that she was fundamentally hard and self-sufficient, and decided to pursue Carreen since she's nice. Except, of course, because "Baby Sister" belongs to the second, nostalgic group, she decides to devote her life to the church.
Sigh. Nobody's happy in GWTW, are they?
Anyway, so Will starts giving Scarlett the lowdown on what's been happening at Tara since the last time we checked in with the county gang. This section could be boring exposition, but it's fascinating because it really functions as a nice little update with our old friends. Plus, MM does a wonderful job of maintaining interest through the magic of dialect. Will's speech patterns read almost comically on the page, and he drops a lot of homespun phrases that never cease to bring a smile to my lips ("snatchin' her bald-headed" is a personal favorite of mine). But he's perceptive and Scarlett trusts his descriptions and assessments, and so do we. He says what he thinks, and we admire him for thinking it. And for having the gall to say it directly to Scarlett's face.
I don't know how I'm supposed to exactly feel about the saga of Gerald and Suellen and the oath of citizenship, but I think I know how MM feels about the whole thing. GWTW has been dismissed as racist and backward, but with the exception of a few things that I'll get to at a later date, I don't think MM was particularly political. And, for all of her obviously affection for the county life and Tara and the other "fine plantations" of the South, I get the impression that MM was actually more of a city girl. I think she preferred faster-paced Atlanta living to the slow, simple life back at Tara. I may not agree with MM's politics and I get the sneaking suspicion that we would be members of opposite political parties, but--
GWTW is not about race or politics at all. GWTW is about money and survival, plain and simple. It's about greed and capitalism and the kind of self-sufficiency that modern readers usually only encounter in Ayn Rand. Chapter 39 is a forgettable, throwaway chapter that ramps us up to the good stuff of Gerald's funeral(something we can already tell is going to be a hot mess like a Bravo reality show), but MM was such an excellent writer that she stays interesting and consistent even in the paragraphs of what would have otherwise been a pretty dry conversation. Because in this chapter, Scarlett gets good and mad at Suellen when she learns that her sister tried to trick her father into signing the citizenship agreement. But once she learns that there was $150,000 on the table (2.7 million in today's money!), Scarlett mentally changes her tune:
"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars," murmured Scarlett, her horror at the oath fading....After all, anything you could get out of the Yankees was fair money, no matter how you got it."
And that's the point of GWTW when you get down to it. With the exception of Ashley's love (and that's debatable at this point in the novel, even if our heroine doesn't realize it), Scarlett would do anything to be rich again. She was already sort of selfish and self-serving at the beginning of GWTW, but the end of the war has taught her that money is the only thing that matters. This might be one of the moments were the subtle differences between Scarlett and the rest of the gang becomes much more pronounced. As a matter of fact, I'm almost certain this is one of those moments, since Will and Melly and everyone else are downright horrified at the thought of Gerald being disloyal to the Confederacy and don't give a darn about the money. And yet, at the same time, I'm also pretty sure that MM is on Scarlett's side, and that she feels the same way. Love and patriotism are important, but security might be the most important thing in MM's fictional universe.
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