Chapter 46: Fighting a mist

You know what? I'd forgotten all about chapter 46.  Interestingly enough, GWTW the movie contains what seems like 3/4 of the dialogue and action found here in chapter 46. This is  strange, transitional chapter, an abbreviated set-piece that tells us nothing directly about Scarlett and Rhett and their current situation.  But it does give us a remarkable opportunity to glimpse the true personalities of Melly and Belle, the two major supporting characters in the entire novel.  I think Scarlett and Rhett take Melly and Belle for granted.  I think the two main characters in GWTW believe that, deep down, they deserve better friends than mealy-mouthed Melly and the South's most widely known madam, but in reality I think a case could be made that the two of them are so selfish and driven that they're lucky to have friends at all. 

As I said in an earlier post, most of the people in GWTW and in the real world are unpredictable and difficult to figure out, like a calculus problem.  On the other hand, very few people are dependable and true on all times and in all occasions, but Melly and Belle are as predictable as a times table.  You need a doggone graphing calculator to figure out what Rhett is going to do and when/why he's going to do it, but we know that Belle is always going to support him without blinking.  Melly and Belle are lovely women, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease and nobody ever writes a blockbuster, world-beating novel about lovely, nice women.  There's a reason why allposters.com has 108 posters of Eleanor Roosevelt and 2,017 of Marilyn Monroe, but I'd rather be friends with Eleanor Roosevelt all the same.

Anyway, this Chapter is mostly exposition.  We get an update on Ashley's condition (he's going to be fine, although he lost a lot of blood), and Melly thanks Belle for helping out during that morning's court testimony.  Hmmmm.  Then Belle slips and tells Melly that she (Belle) also has a son, which--

No, stop.

We've been through this, y'all.  I'm not going to diagram this whole thing out for you again because I'm tired and I've already worked 60 hours at my regular job this week.  But listen, we're not getting anywhere like this.  Once and for all, Belle's son is not Rhett's son.  It can't be. If we can go back to math for a minute, let's just be clear that 2 + 2 in this case does not equal four.  2 + 2 is probably closer to 9 in this case than four, which is to say that Belle having a son and Rhett being a guardian of a child doesn't mean that they are the parents of said child.  It just means there's a whole hell of a lot more to the story that we don't know about.  So it's like 2 + 2 + (unknown amount)= ???. And anybody who tells you otherwise is grasping at straws.  Trust me. 

He is not the father.

Chapter 45: "For a brief moment, nothing made sense."

And so, here we are.

Another pivotal moment in the story.  Another rescue. 

A few weeks ago, I introduced a theory to my sister and a few other interested parties with backgrounds in American literature.  My theory is that Gone With the Wind is a story of three rescues. 

Rescue 1: Rhett Butler rescues the girls from the Fall of Atlanta. 

Rescue 2: Rhett Butler rescues Atlanta high-society after the failed KKK raid here in chapter 45.

Rescue 3: (SPOILER) Melly rescues Rhett after Bonnie dies. 

(I know a lot of GWTW novel fans have quibbles with the motion picture, and I find many parts of the movie problematic.  But I also believe that each of these three rescues are rendered almost perfectly on screen.  There's a reason why these are three of the most famous movie scenes in history, and that reason is because they are so very, very tense.  Largely because these are the scenes that were most faithful to the novel.  And also because these are scenes that actually let the actors act.  I love Clark Gable, but I don't always love his acting, especially in his later, post-war films.  But he had moments of absolute brilliance, particularly in the late 30's and in The Misfits, moments when you can feel his charisma emanating from the screen.  He's not in the same league with Vivian Leigh, Olivia DeHavilland or Hattie McDaniel in GWTW, but he's always vibrant and always interesting and always so gosh darn good looking.  But there are times in GWTW when he absolutely kills it and actually becomes Rhett Butler, and this botched KKK raid is one of those moments.)

So here we are. The last chapter left us up to our elbows in the nasty world of Reconstruction-era Georgia, with Our Girl being attacked by vagrants moments after she implicitly agreed that working convicts to death was A-Okay.  But now we're up to our necks in the foulest part of the world, because we quickly learn that Frank and Ashley and all the other men we know (i.e. the "safe" men) are avenging the attack by "cleaning out" the shantytown. And this is gross on so many levels. I don't know what we're supposed to think "cleaning out" means, and I don't know what MM thinks it means, but my takeaway is that this is organized KKK violence. Which is to say, terrorism and attempted eradication of undesirables. I'm not making light of Scarlett's fear, but c'mon guys. Really? Big Sam saved Scarlett from...actually we're not at all certain about what's going to happen.  But he does save her from something bad. Which means nothing bad happens to Scarlett. 

So why are they going to burn down the shantytown again? Scarlett and her upper-class friends think the shanty is filled with nothing but prostitutes and violent drunks, but what do they know about it? Nothing except what they've gathered from the rumor mill.  And yet they think this is the right thing to do? Oh boy. They're really in the sh#t now, aren't they? But then again, given their moral codes and the culture of fear that has understandably permeated every moment of their lives, what else could they have reasonably been expected to have done? Ashley and Melly are the closest thing to liberal pacifists in Scarlett's social circle, and even they are out for blood now.  As a matter of fact Ashley is leading the raid. Because he's brave but oh so foolish. 

Scarlett couldn't help being obsessed with money which meant that Scarlett couldn't help riding past shantytown and leasing convicts which meant that Scarlett the impulsive and greedy citizens of shantytown couldn't help but attack her when she drove by in her buggy which meant that Big Sam couldn't help but help which meant that Frank Kennedy couldn't help getting mad and declaring that enough was enough which meant that Ashley couldn't help agreeing with him which meant that the men had no choice but to charge over to shantytown and show them who is boss. 

Haven't these guys ever heard of punching-up? Haven't they ever heard that people who live nice lives in mansions shouldn't take out their frustration on the folks in shantytown? Haven't they ever heard that...actually, I don't know why I'm asking this question.  The Confederate-era south was a close-knit echo chamber, and anybody who didn't share their ideas about the world was shunned as an outsider, a Negro (ahem) lover, or a Yankee.  They're getting riled up and there's no moderating force around to tell them that their rage is misplaced and misdirected. Nobody around except Rhett and lord knows they'd never consider listening to somebody like him. 

So the boys are off at a KKK rally and the girls are stuck at home, reading Les Miz. But of course Scarlett is the very last to realize what's going on, because Scarlett lacks the impersonal view and never really considers the repercussions of her actions.  Scarlett is intelligent and driven, but she has such a low degree of emotional intelligence she doesn't even realize Frank and Ashley are in the Klan, let alone that they are going out there to avenge the attack.  She really does think the boys are at a political meeting. Which they kind of are since war is politics by other means, and this is war. 

Anyway, this is one of those times when the movie strongly parts from the book. The book makes it clear that this is all about the KKK, but the movie puts the emphasis elsewhere, chiefly by having Mammy sub in for Archie during this all-important scene.  Archie isn't even in the movie at all of course, which is a shame because he's such a rich and interesting character. But he's also a bitter racist, and by the time GWTW got to Hollywood in 1938/1939 the California folks smartly side-stepped all the nasty, icky KKK stuff and made it look like Frank and Ashley are...well, it's pretty clear they're up to something but let's just say you would never know there were white robes involved.  Besides, if Mammy is playing such a pivotal role in the action, surely this can't be a Klan rally. Right?

I'll get to all of that in a later blog post. A much later blog post.  So for now let's return to Scarlett and her taut nerves and the slow, slow way in which our heroine finally figures out what in the hell is going on in front of her.  At first she's annoyed with Frank for leaving her at Melly's house on a night when she's already scared out of her wits. Next she's totally cheesed off at the other women around the table for not allowing Scarlett to wallow in her fear and tell them what happened to her out in shantytown.  But then she slowly realizes that everybody in the room is weirdly tense, a situation that Aunt Pitty (of all people!) describes perfectly when she says that "[Melly] and India are as jumpy and cross as two old sticks." MM is so good at those little folk descriptions, ya'll!

Scarlett realizes that Archie and India are both mad at her. But that's no big deal because Archie and India both hate Scarlett like poison.  Then she finally sees that Melly is also tense, and she begins to realize that "something was afoot," although it takes her forever to realize what's going on.  Now, why on earth did the men think it was a totally fine idea to tell Melly what's going on, but everybody conspires to hide the truth from Scarlett? Or maybe Melly guessed at what's about to happen and only Scarlett is too thick to figure it all out. Or not thick exactly, since there's no indication that Scarlett is stupid. But she is self-absorbed, so that prevents her from realizing that people have entire lives that exist even outside of her presence.  Scarlett and India get into it like a few sorority sisters arguing bitterly about who hates whom and why, but their feud is interrupted when Rhett comes racing up the stairs.  In a cape!

Why is he doing this?

I don't...I mean, okay. If we accept the notion that he's in love with Scarlett (I don't think there's any debate about it, but there is some confusion about what love means to him at this point in the novel), then why in the world is he racing off to help Frank and Ashley? He should totally want to see those guys killed, right? Wouldn't his life be so much easier if the two of them were in jail? If Frank were in jail he and Scarlett would finally be free to..do whatever it is he thinks she'll agree to do with him. Which probably isn't much, come to think of it, but still. 

So do you think he's stepping in to help the boys because of his loyalty to Melly? I think that's probably closer to the truth, although I don't think this is quite on the nose either.  You know what I think? I think Rhett is motivated here by the same impetus that drove him into the Confederate Army at the end of the war. Which is to say, it's a little bit gallantry, a little bit loyalty, a little bit love, a little bit humiliation, and a whole lot of crazy.  Even Rhett himself admitted that he'd lost his mind when he left Scarlett by the side of the road on the way to Tara back in 1864, and I think there's something totally nuts in everything he does on this night to save the boys.  Plus, Rhett's face is blank in this section. As a matter of fact, Scarlett/MM take time to tell us that "she had never seen a blanker, more expressionless face than Rhett's," and we all know that the more emotionless RKB pretends to be the more he has going on underneath the surface. 

Mmmm hmmm.

After Rhett leaves Archie breaks the whole situation down for Scarlett and the reader. There are three possible options for the boys at this point, and not one of them is a good look.

1.) Rhett was telling the truth and the boys have walked into a trap.  The Yankees are waiting for them out by the old Sullivan Plantation, and they're all going to die because of Scarlett. 

2.) Rhett was lying, and he's a spy. Which means that this is a huge trap, one big enough to capture the boys, the girls, and almost everybody in  polite southern society. 

3.) Rhett was telling the truth, and he's not a spy.  This scenario would spare the boys lives, but they'll have to live forever on the run in Texas. 

Things come to a head not too long after Rhett leaves because the Yankees come up, threatening to search the house, which they can totally do since Georgia is no longer a state and these ladies are no longer United States Citizens which means they don't have the same rights most of us currently enjoy.  The Union Army can search any rebel houses they want, I guess.  Although what in the hell they expect to find on the premises is a mystery to me.  When I went to law school all the cases we read about illegal searches were about guns or drugs, and I think the boys took their guns and Klan sheets with them, and I seriously doubt Ashley was a cocaine kingpin.  I wouldn't put drug dealing past Rhett, of course, but that's an issue for another day. 

The Yankees surround the house at this point, and things get super tense while we wait to see what's going to happen.  And then there's a breakthrough just like in the movie, a moment when we hear Rhett and the boys singing loudly and pretending to be drunk and all that.  The movie does a pretty good job of covering what happens, and I don't think a blow-by-blow recap is necessary here since we all know how it plays out.  You know what though? I love MM but can I call BS on two things that happen here?

1.) How in the world did Ashley escape all of this with nothing more than a flesh-wound on a part of his body that won't normally be seen by the outside world? Which is to say, why is it that whenever anyone gets shot in a novel and lives, the wound never changes their lives? It changes them internally sometimes, but how many works of fiction have you read where somebody gets shot, but the bullet miraculously doesn't shoot off their face or their arm or harm anything important? Would it have been so terrible for Ashley to have lost an arm here? There were millions of amputees after the Civil War, he probably should have been one of them.

2.) So what are the odds that Frank would be the one to get killed? I realize we're supposed to conclude that Frank and Ashley bore the brunt of this situation because they are Scarlett's closest male relatives, but..come on.  Because if this actually was a trap, then it was likely an ambush. Which means the men were surrounded, which means there would have been bullets fired from at least two ends, which means...you know what? Never mind, ya'll.  Frank Kennedy had to leave the story, and I applaud MM for having the stones to take him out in such a fashion.  The other alternative would have been for Frank to catch a disease and die or something, which probably would have happened in the normal course of things but that wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting. 

Besides, if MM believes anything, I think it's clear that she believes fictional characters should die the way they lived. They should leave the world because of the same character traits they've demonstrated on many prior occasions.  So Charles Hamilton dies a pitiful death because he was pitiful.  Ellen dies from disease after nursing the diseased. Gerald dies because he's impulsive and courageous. The boys who died in the war died on the battlefield because their defining characteristic was loyalty and bravery.  And Frank dies the way he lives: frustratedly, imperfectly, and more than a little stupidly.  Ashley hasn't lived that way, so he can't die that way, but Frank can. And he does.

Chapter 44: Hard Living in Military District #3/Chickens coming home to roost

Sorry I've been away for so long! But between my day job, my night job, and the World Cup I've been totally swamped.  Hopefully, things will quiet down now that it is officially summer, but there are no guarantees I suppose.  Anyway, if you enjoy my writing and have any interest in Prince Harry you should check out my guest blog about Prince Harry and Booze and Brazil over at Prince Harry Watch.

"Georgia's very existence as a state had been wiped out and it had become, with Florida and Alabama, "Military District Three," under the command of a Federal general," MM tells us at the beginning of this chapter, following this information with the opinion that "if life had been insecure and frightening before this, it was doubly so now." 

Everyone around Scarlett is fearful but extremely proud of the legislature for standing up against Reconstruction, but Scarlett's fright is balanced by determination.  And so, instead of giving into her fear and cowering at home Scarlett is still going about her business, still taking charge of the mills, still doing her rounds traveling through the suburbs of Atlanta even though everybody tells her not to leave the safety of her street. Hmmph. Maybe it's time to take a step back and evaluate Scarlett's actions and MM's position on Scarlett's actions when compared to the wild, wild world of Reconstruction-era District 3.

 Is Scarlett being selfish? No, I don't think so. As of right now in GWTW, Scarlett hasn't actually been a firsthand witness to anything too crazy.  As a matter of fact, although Scarlett certainly doesn't believe she's being protected from the wild, wild world, things haven't been as dangerous as she thinks, have they? Sure she had to shoot that deserter Yankee that one time at Tara, but other than that she hasn't come up against anything particularly violent.  Before The War Scarlett was one of the most coddled members of the most coddled class in America. She wasn't supposed to even think about Negroes or lower-class whites or Yankees, and she certainly wasn't supposed to interact with them. But times have changed, and she now finds herself having to actually deal with these groups of people and I think whatever jaded experience she has along these lines comes more from a comparison to her early life than to anything she has actually experienced.  It's like....

Okay, Six Flags Great America here in Illinois just opened a brand new ride. It's the biggest, fastest, highest, blah blah blah, wooden coaster in the world, and I'm sure that 99% of all people who ride the coaster will declare themselves daredevils because they had the stones to get on the ride.  But if you're a Navy Seal who skydives regularly, this ride is nothing special, right? You're used to G-forces and the falling sensation and whatever else happens when you jump out of an airplane, so riding on a roller coaster isn't even all that scary to the Seal. 

But then you have an entire class of people who think skydiving is child's play.  Maybe they've fallen from a plane or out of a three story window. Or perhaps they've lived through an avalanche or an explosion or something seriously danger. This third group of people is so used to danger they would probably sleep through the entire 2 minute roller coaster experience. 

So what I'm saying is, Scarlett belongs to the first group of people. She doesn't think she does anymore because she's been supporting herself for so long and because she's tough and because she killed a man back at Tara, but she does all the same. I would argue that Ashley and all the men who fought through the Civil War belong to the second group of people: they know what real danger looks like and they've had some close calls out there in the big, bad world, but they survived and can make sense of everything that happened.  And then you've got the third group, the people who've had their lives threatened and destroyed on a regular basis, the people who know what it's like to be a starving, half-dead, half-mad, non-person. People like Archie (ex-con who killed his brother for sleeping with his wife), the former slaves (because...well, let's be real, ya'll), and Rhett(gambler/black sheep) and good old Belle (madam!). Scarlett thinks she's so tough, and she is tough. I have no doubt that she'd probably thrive as part of this third group, but the reality is that she isn't nearly as hard as she thinks she is. Not yet, anyway. 



Does MM think Scarlett is being selfish? No. I don't think so.  Not yet, anyway.  The beautiful thing about GWTW is that MM doesn't hit us over the head with her opinion about Scarlett's actions.  Scarlett is the heroine of GWTW and I think MM has great affection for her creation, but I'm not sure that she supports every one of Our Girl's endeavors.  But I don't think MM is scornful of Scarlett's behavior in this section. Yes, it's a little risky to ride through shantytown, past "the sluts" who "seemed to try themselves whenever she drove by," but money is money and business is business, and I think MM likes Scarlett's hustle.

So...here we go.

Scarlett is now forced to drive through shantytown on her own. Nobody from upper-class society would dare ride with her through that part of the county at this juncture in time. And she's of course alienated herself from Archie, so she's riding along with nothing but her gun when she runs into Big Sam. Good Old Big Sam, who plays an interesting role in GWTW. I could write thousands of words about Big Sam, words that would match or perhaps exceed the amount of things I have to say about Mammy and Prissy and even the Luckless Lu (who doesn't even factor into the story until much later). But for now I'll just point out how interesting it is that MM takes such great pains to differentiate between former slaves from the County and unknown Negroes.  County/Tara slaves like Sam and Mammy are always a welcome surprise for Scarlett and the gang, aren't they? On the other hand, anytime Scarlett encounters unknown Negroes something bad is liable to happen, even if that's just a showdown with some sluts as her horses trot on by.  But here's the thing:

ALL THESE NEGROES ARE FORMER SLAVES.

These folks are belonged to somebody, didn't they? I mean, it's not as if Atlanta was suddenly flooded by a bunch of illegal immigrant black people coming to town looking for a good time.  These are local people who lived in local plantations. If they didn't belong to Tara, then they belonged to the Wilkes or the McIntoshes or the Tarleton's or somebody they know. And if so, then why are they so dangerous all of a sudden when Big Sam and the people Scarlett knows are still the same safe, dependable folks they've always been? But actually, this all feeds into MM's apparent favoritism for small town/country living as opposed to the madness of big cities.  Scarlett has been in Atlanta since 1862, but Scarlett's heart still belongs to the county.  There was a meme going around facebook this week saying "you never forget the neighborhood kids you grew up with," and I guess that's MM's view of the world. Big Sam wasn't one of Scarlett's friends, but he was the foreman on Tara and he therefore firmly belongs to the camp of friendlies.

Anyway, Scarlett's next encounter is a fun, fun, fun little face-off with good old Johnnie Gallagher.  We haven't heard much from Mr. G. since Scarlett hired him. We've heard people talk about him (notably Rhett and Archie), but Scarlett hasn't really talked to him much while we've been looking over her shoulder.  MM uses Scarlett's conversation with Mr. G. to show us a lot of things, but I think mostly she uses this to show us that even Scarlett believes in ethical business practices.  Scarlett is most concerned with business profits of course, but she also can't believe how terrible Mr. G. is treating the convicts (which is pretty funny since everybody told her that Mr. G. was going to be a cruel master). Mr. G. is whipping the convicts, he's starving them (no side meat with the black-eyed-peas, y'all!), and he's hoarding most of the good food for himself and selling the rest of it.  Scarlett is mean, but MM wants us to think that Mr. G. is absolutely terrible. Which he is. 

But Scarlett is thrown into a dilemma almost immediately because Johnnie Gallagher calls her bluff and threatens to quit. And finally Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy must choose between profit and Doing The Right Thing.  And she decides...that profit is more important than the well-being of her convict gang.

"As she drove off down the path to the Decatur road her conscience battled with her desire for money.  She knew she had no business exposing human lives to the hard little man's mercies.  If he should cause the death of one of them she would be as guilty as he was, for she had kept him in charge after learning of his brutalities. But, on the other hand--well, on the other hand, men had no business getting to be convicts.  If they broke laws and got caught, then they deserved what they got.  This partly salved her conscience but as she drove down the road the dull thin faces of the convicts would keep coming back into her mind." 

Oh Scarlett.

And I think that here, right here in chapter 44 of GWTW is the beginning of the great transition, the great rift, in Scarlett's life.  Until now Scarlett hasn't been faced with what MM thinks was an actual ethical dilemma. After all, Scarlett's major "sins" until now have only been coveting Ashley and marrying Frank Kennedy, and these are mere affairs of the heart and tiny blips compared to life and death.  But now Mr. G. is going to work these men to death, and Scarlett is the only one who can stop him from bullying them into an early grave and...she...decides...not to do anything. Because convicts deserve what they got, not because they broke the laws, but because they were dumb enough to break laws and get caught.  As I said earlier, we usually have to guess at MM's politics and her opinions about her characters, but not here. Chapter 44 began on an ambiguous note, with MM not taking any particular stance on Scarlett's increasingly risky behavior, but after Scarlett decides to continue employing Johnny G. things immediately begin to fall apart. And all hell breaks loose.  As a matter of fact, Scarlett doesn't even make it home that afternoon before these chickens come home to roost because she's attacked by violent transients on the road back to Atlanta and her entire world is thrown into turmoil.  The dominoes are beginning to fall at this juncture in the story, and they don't stop falling until every character we love is either dead or crazy or just plain gone from the scene. 

Chapter 43: Fireside Chats/Beginning of the End/Dulce et decorum est...

(Once again, my apologies for taking such a long break between posts.  Believe it or not, I was traveling in Europe and the Middle East during most of May, and I'm just now getting over my jet-lag.  I actually had this post ready to roll before I left and I swear--I swear--I pressed the Publish button after I finished my edits, but I guess I was wrong. Mea Culpa.)

So, here we are.

Finally. 

According to my Kindle, the beginning of Chapter 43 marks the 73% mark in GWTW.  It also marks what I consider to be the beginning of the end--which is to say, the beginning of the final third of GWTW.  Although, wonder of wonders, the Butler marriage evidently only makes up one quarter of GWTW as opposed to the 1/3 number I've been carrying in my head since the Clinton administration.  I suppose I'd mentally chopped up the novel into three parts and assigned one slice to each of Scarlett's three husbands, but it's fascinating to find out that MM didn't parse it all out so evenly.  The book does seem remarkably balanced after you've finished reading it though, and as I re-read this section I wonder if MM deliberately divided the book into quarters instead of third in order to account for all the time Scarlett spends pining for Ashley?

Or maybe I'm thinking too deeply about all of this.

So, alright, here we are at the beginning of Chapter 43. There's very little in the beginning of Chapter 43 to indicate that anything unusual or story/life-changing is about to occur, really.  Other Southern authors would have gone totally Gothic here and introduced out-of-season-mad-dogs or blood moons or whatever.  And even Shakespeare or one of his ilk would have treated us to something supernatural in the setting, something like an eclipse or a weird clump of stars in the East or...something.  But MM has written such a strong story with such an incredible plot that she doesn't even feel it is necessary to tip her hand in an obvious way that strange things are about to happen.  And yet, because she's a writer's writer, she still indicates that Scarlett's situation in Atlanta (as Rhett finally makes his sexy way back to the heart of the story) isn't quite as calm as it seems.

"It was one of those rare December days..." she tells us,  "...the sun was almost as warm as Indian summer..." And yet, there is death all around Scarlett as she sits with Ella on Aunt Pitty's porch.

• Dry red (i.e. dead) leaves "cling to the oak." 
• "Faint yellow green still persisted in the dying grass."

And before Scarlett begins to chatter with Rhett, she peers "curiously through the tangle of dead vines on the porch."  Now, MM being MM, she doesn't belabor her point in this section.  But this whole scene is outrageously well-staged, particularly given all the death and destruction that are to follow throughout the final chapters of the novel.  Scarlett and Rhett still have a while to go on their journey, but I think the symbolism is clear here in Chapter 43 if you're looking for it: their story arc isn't finished, but the connection between the two of them is dead (or at least dying), and there's nothing that can be done to bring it back to the land of the living.

Which is a shame because their conversation crackles with life, doesn't it?

After pages and pages of slow moving, predictable, rather boring conversations with comparatively boring characters, Rhett and Scarlett's conversation here fairly jumps off the page.  As a matter of fact, this is one of the first instances where Scarlett admits that she's missed Rhett, although she only admits it through the omniscient narrator.  Anyway, I was going to heap a bunch of criticism down on Scarlett for missing so many chances with Rhett and for treating their every interaction like it's a horrible chore, but Scarlett has manners in this section, ya'll. Because she actually asks Rhett how he's been!

"How are you Rhett?" She asks at the beginning of their conversation.  "You've been away a long time." 

This is a normal greeting between friends, almost a rhetorical question, but in this particular case I don't think Scarlett was merely fulfilling the expectations of polite society when she asks Rhett how he's been.  I really don't.  I think she genuinely wanted to know what her old friend Rhett has been up to since she's last seen him. And I never noticed until this evening that he doesn't answer her. 


He doesn't.

He admits to having been away for a long time, but he doesn't mention how he's been getting along.  Has he had a good time in New Orleans and Cuba and wherever else he's visited? Did he run into trouble? Did he make good dough playing poker or double his money on an investment or...whatever? Did he do anything at all?

He doesn't tell Scarlett.  And I can't tell here if we're supposed to read a lot into this, or if MM was just trying to cram a bunch of characterization into this fairly small space.  Rhett is honest to a fault a lot of the time, but he's always so vague about where's he's been and what he's been doing and especially about how he's feeling.  It's not evasion really, it's more like omission.  I guess.

Anyway, what's a plug-ugly? Rhett calls Johnnie Gallagher a plug-ugly in this section, and I've been hearing that term once-in-a-while for most of my life, but I still don't know what it is. 

A quick Google search indicates that the plug-uglies were a New York City gang, one of those Gangs of New York gangs that basically ran Gotham during the mid-19th century. One of those guys who brawled with Bill the Butcher and Leonardo DiCaprio, and--okay.  You know what? Who gives a care about Johnny Gallagher and all of that, when this is the chapter that reveals Rhett's reasons for going to New Orleans to all of us?

Here we go!


"But I will satisfy your vulgar curiosity since you ask such pointed questions.  It isn't a sweetheart that takes me to New Orleans.  It's a child, a little boy." 

"A little boy!" The shock of this unexpected information wiped out her confusion. 

"Yes, he is my legal ward and I am responsible for him.  He's in school in New Orleans.  I go there frequently to see him." 

"And take him presents?" 

"Yes," he said shortly, unwillingly. 

"...Is he handsome?" 

"Too handsome for his own good." 

"Is he a nice little boy?" 

"No. He's a perfect hellion.  I wish he had never been born.  Boys are troublesome creatures." 

  
WTF?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? (As my heroes in the Navy Seals might say)

So....like...wait a minute..what?

Questions:

1.) Who's kid is this?

2.) Seriously, who's kid is this?

3.) No, I'm still totally not convinced.  Who's kid is this again?

4.) Seriously: WTF?


There's so much beauty in this, ya'll.  The Rhett we've known is a rogue.  He's carefree.  He's not without his own morality and honor code, but he definitely plays by his own rules.  He's the manliest man that ever manned in the pages of GWTW, but he's not a traditional man in their highly traditional society.  So...what in the heck is he doing here? He's the legal guardian of this kid? This is such a huge shift, isn't it? We've been told over and over again that Rhett goes to New Orleans to party and play, but it turns out that none of that is true.  I suppose being the legal guardian for a child doesn't necessarily preclude the option of sporting around the town, but--but still.

This is nuts, you guys.

This is huge.

It comes out of nowhere the first time you read it, like a bolt from the blue.  But MM is a very good, very careful author, so there's still a degree of realism around even this ridiculously shocking turn of events.  Rhett spends a lot of time in New Orleans and he goes there frequently, but Scarlett and her gang in Atlanta have misdirected us into believing that Rhett only goes to New Orleans because he wants to get hammered and go on a permanent Mardis Gras.  That's part of the foundation in his characterization, isn't it? He's supposed to be an irresponsible rogue who doesn't give a whit for anybody's feelings and is selfish down to the bone.  But a selfish guy wouldn't act as legal guardian for a kid, full-stop.  Especially given that all the evidence points to the conclusion that Rhett is not the father of the unnamed boy.

Yeah, that's right.  I said it.  I'm taking a stand right now and throwing down the gauntlet and drawing a little line in the sand.  Rhett Butler is not this kid's father.  If this was actually Rhett's kid, well...

I think if this unknown boy was actually Rhett Butler's actual child, Rhett would be forthright about the whole thing.  He's not keeping his out-of-wedlock child a secret to uphold his reputation because he doesn't have a reputation to uphold.  And even if he did have a reputation to uphold, the latter part of GWTW shows us that Rhett would never abandon any child of his to a New Orleans boarding school.  True he says he visits the boy frequently, but given his devotion to Bonnie (and even Wade and Ella), I seriously doubt he would want to be more than fifty miles away from his kid if he could help it.  So--no.

This is not Rhett's boy.  There are context clues to indicate that he's talking about Belle's son, and I don't doubt that for a moment.  And I also don't doubt for a moment that Rhett would go above and beyond the call of duty to take care of his friend Belle's son, especially since Belle's notoriety makes it impossible for her to personally take care of her son on her own.  She can send money and toys or whatever, but she can't just show up at the boarding school since that would lead to humiliation for everyone present.  As a matter of fact, given the evasive way both Rhett and Belle speak about this child, there's more than a good chance that the boy doesn't even know his mother's a prostitute at all, let alone the famous Belle.  Right?

This is Belle's son, but not Rhett's son.  So who's the boy's father? We don't know.  And we'll never know.  I'm 99% sure it's not Rhett or any of his kin, but it's clearly the child of somebody Rhett either loves or loved or someone he respects and quite possibly owes a debt of gratitude (which may be what we're all thinking about when we say "love" anyway).  In any case, this small bit of information flushes out Rhett Butler's back story and shows us so much about his character and the lengths he will go through to fulfill his responsibilities to the important people in his social circle.  I have this theory that Romance Novels are really just mysteries with more kissing and less death, mysteries where the question is not who but why and the answer is always because he's in love with the heroine.  So, why does Mr. Darcy act so aloof whenever he sees Elizabeth? And why does he go through such great lengths to avoid her? And why does he work so hard to help the Bennett sisters when he's tried so hard to hate them all?  Because he's in love with Elizabeth Bennett. 

But in Gone With the Wind, the answer to Rhett Butler isn't so simple, is it? Why does Rhett Butler save Scarlett's bacon so many times? Because he's in love with her.  But unlike Mr. Darcy, Rhett's love extinguishes well before the last page of the novel.  And yet he sticks around for some time after Bonnie's death. True he's disagreeable and an alcoholic mess by the end of it, but he still pays the bills.  He doesn't abandon Scarlett right away.  Why?

Because Rhett Butler is a fundamentally decent, highly responsible person.  

I'll come back to this idea down the road, but I think it's an important concept to nibble on for now.

Anyway, as if to reinforce my earlier point, notice that Rhett doesn't explain how he's been even when he begins discussing his father's death.  In a different novel with different characters, their conversation would have gone something like this:

"How have you been, Rhett?" 
"Not great, thanks for asking. My father died, so that sucks. I'm glad he's dead since I hated him, but still it's not exactly a freaking carnival when you lose one of your parents." 

But instead of a straight answer, his responses start spinning off in a variety of different, almost contradictory directions.  He's not sorry his father died and his father wasn't sorry to die, and Rhett tries to shrug it all off but there's a huge block of text smack in the middle of this conversation that includes a lot of tangled vines that I still don't even know how to begin unraveling.  Suffice it to say, I try not to spend much time thinking or talking about the people I hate, but Rhett goes on for some time here in this section, doesn't he? I just read this section out loud to myself, and it took me a solid 5 minutes to get through this whole thing.  That's not very long, but it's incredibly long given that GWTW's speaking sections are usually so very brief.  He's trying to give Scarlett a breakdown of everything his father was about, but instead the things he says and doesn't say illuminate his character more than they reflect any particular attributes about his father, his mother, Charleston or the southern post-war mindset.  Rhett is trying to pretend he rejected Southern society before it rejected him ("All the things father wanted me to do and be were such boring things."), but I'm not convinced.  Especially since in the end (SPOILER) Rhett claims that he's leaving Atlanta and returning to his Charleston roots.  So even as he's racing around the world, gambling and disgracing his family and whatever, there still must be a part of him deep down that wonders about what might have been. And perhaps sometime during his marriage to Scarlett the "might have been" turns into the "should have been?"




Anyway, this post has gone on long enough.  But before we go I'd like to point out a few of my favorite things from this chapter:

• "Dulce et decorum est--" I had never heard this phrase before I read GWTW for the first time. I don't think I read Wilfred Owen's marvelous poem until I was in college. Now obviously this latin quote didn't originate with the British WWI writer, but I'm sure MM at least had the poem in mind when she had Rhett drop the phrase. Or maybe not.  Anyway, John Green from Crash Course (and "The Fault in Our Stars") theorizes that modern cynicism grows directly out of the confusing, seemingly pointless battles of WWI, so Rhett is all the more interesting because he embraces cynicism and sarcasm a full fifty years before the rest of us caught on.  
• "And I've heard the dead are happy.  Do you suppose Ashley Wilkes is happy?" How's that for foreshadowing? Rhett is being deliberately flippant about death here, isn't he? Although I suppose (in fact, I know for sure) that it's easy to be rational about death when you're not faced with the death of someone you love. His nonchalant, pithy remarks about life and death undoubtedly echo back at him after Bonnie dies. After all, if he was convinced that the dead are happy, he wouldn't have gone so completely off the rails after his daughter's death.  Of course he'd be sad because he misses her, but surely he wouldn't be so fixated on not putting her into the dark ground if he truly thought there was nothing after death or believed that the dead are happy. 
• "My pet, I've been to the devil and he's a very dull fellow." I have no idea what he's referring to here, but it sounds good doesn't it? The Devil vs. Rhett Butler is a great idea for a short story.