(And I've been gone for even longer than that! Apologies to all, and thanks for sticking with me. You guys are amazing.)
Gone With the Wind is largely a straightforward, linear story. It's deceptively plain, a basic story about a woman living in Georgia before, during and after the Civil War, and the story and the setting are so dramatic Mitchell didn't need to rely on literary tricks to build tension or suspense. I've been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately, and I'm always surprised by how much The Bard depends on dreams and mystics and foreshadowing and fate and other ballyhoo to pull his stories toward their conclusions. But MM forgoes most of those devices in GWTW. But here, very late in the game, she begins a chapter with some very nice, understated foreshadowing.
Rhett is gone in Chapter 55.
He has taken Bonnie with him and he has essentially disappeared off the face of the earth, and his absence is felt very keenly by all interested parties--and especially by the reader, I think. Rhett has been a mystery-man since he married Scarlett, but he's been present in Atlanta nonetheless. Scarlett hasn't interacted with him much over the past several chapters, but he's there. He's always there. Jocular and jealous and laughing and rude most of the time, but he's there. Dependably--almost pathetically--inhabiting the background of the novel, as real and necessary as Peachtree Street (and perhaps twice as marginalized in Scarlett's eyes).
But he's gone now.
Shockingly.
The first time I read GWTW I was frightened by the distinct possibility that Rhett would never return, for one reason or another. Rhett is the mainstay of the novel (along with Melly, of course), but GWTW is littered with the graves of characters we always assumed would play a permanent part in Scarlett's life, isn't it? Ellen, Gerald, the Tarleton boys, Charles Hamilton, Frank Kennedy.....each of them were important to the plot and each of them could have existed until the final page of the novel if circumstances and MM's plotting had decided otherwise. As written, GWTW forms a nice square of four essential characters with everyone else dropping off as so very much window dressing during the last ten percent of the novel, but there's no real reason (barring literary themes and other ideals I'll address once my journey through the story comes to a conclusion) that Rhett and Ashley have survived while everyone else is dead and buried. That's the beauty of GWTW I think, that's the appeal of the darker elements in the story: the seemingly random ways in which MM introduces characters--and then kills them off--is reminiscent of the ways in which people live and die in real life. I still like to believe that people and things come in and out of our lives for a reason, but I'm becoming a bit nihilistic in my old age. The order of my American, Mid-western youth has given way to chaos, and I'm afraid I'm a bit like Ashley and I'm not cut out for these times. I saw The Second Best Marigold Exotic Marigold Hotel this afternoon and I despised it, the same way I despise all novels and movies filled with cliche and obviousness and easily anticipated plot twists. And yet...
They certainly make life easier, don't they?
Most novels (my own included!) plod toward an easy ending, but GWTW veers off into unprecedented territory in this final act, doesn't it? This is a story full of tragedy and odd little twists of fate, but the shifts that occur during these final pages are quite astonishing in my humble. I think that's because all of the things that happen happen internally. The events that have impacted or killed off the characters thus far have all been things that happened far outside of almost anyone's control: the assault on Fort Sumter, the failure of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Siege of Atlanta, the Blockcade, Sherman, Reconstruction, the KKK...all of these are huge historical events that swept up Scarlett and the rest of the gang and rearranged their lives even though none of the four major characters in the novel had much of anything to do with anything that occurred. The County Boys might have supported the agitators in Charleston back in 1861 and the entire Wilkes BBQ whoops it up with excitement when they learn that the Civil War has started and that they're finally going to get the chance to whip some Yankees, but it's not as though Ashley and Charles Hamilton and the Tarleton boys played an essential part in it.
But now....
Now that everybody in GWTW is (relatively) rich and (relatively) safe, they can use all their time and energy worrying about their internal lives and sorting out their feelings. It's sort of like the Wars of the Roses. Or the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Or the Season 2 premiere of Southern Charm where everybody got drunk and started complaining about what everybody else was doing.
Like that.
So we open with Rhett Butler and Bonnie having gone MIA, leaving Scarlett alone with only Melly and Ashley, her two children from her previous marriages, and her millions of dollars. And so, in true Scarlett form, she starts picking on people as an outlet for her manifold frustration. She picks on Ashley ("his helplessness in the face of the present situation irked her...") she picks on Ella ("a silly child...") and Wade ("he looked at her with Charles' soft brown eyes and squirmed and twisted his feet in embarrassment..."). Of course it's important to note that Melly alone escapes Scarlett's cutting analysis in this section, but Scarlett has been so scornful and sarcastic about Melly throughout the novel you barely notice the absence of Melly hate here.
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By contrast, the reader can't help but notice Scarlett's confusion about Rhett. She doesn't know how he feels about her, and she therefore doesn't know how she feels about him, which...the two things are related, of course. But Scarlett has spent the past thousand pages pining after Ashley who is married to another woman and who denies any attraction to her at every turn, so it's not as though she is exactly a realist in this regard. So why is she waiting to know Rhett's feelings for her before she resolves and defines her feelings for him?
Yet perhaps you could argue that Scarlett's ambivalence about Rhett in this section is a reflection of her increased maturity? After all, Scarlett begins the novel with a childish, idealized perspective on Ashley Wilkes. To steal one of Al Franken's best comedic bits, Scarlett loves Ashley in GWTW the way a three year old loves her mommy: She loves him absolutely, she loves everything about him, she thinks he's the best, the most handsome, the most daring, the most courageous, the most wonderful, etc. But now that she's maturing, she begins to see that there's more to life than bright line rules, and she's learning to understand that hardly anybody is all good or all bad and that almost everybody is somewhere in the middle. Ashley hasn't changed much given all that that happened around him and to him over the course of GWTW, but the bloom is coming off the rose now. The cracks are beginning to show. And even Scarlett is starting to notice his incompetence.
But because Scarlett is Scarlett, Ashley gets a raw deal in this chapter because Scarlett starts comparing him to Rhett and....well, everybody on earth pales compared to Rhett Butler. It's not fair, really. Scarlett is mad at Ashley for not taking control of the situation, but it's not realistic to expect that Ashley would be able to solve any of these problems all by himself. He's not quick witted, he's not clever, he's not experienced, and he knows very little about the world; that's what makes him Ashley.
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I re-watched The Lion In Winter (1968) on Friday night. It's a great movie, filled with amazing performances and amazing dialogue and it's got Anthony Hopkins and Kate Hepburn and Timothy Dalton and Peter O'Toole and...you should watch it, is what I'm saying. It's different from GWTW, but it's very similar on a lot of levels. Like, for instance, it features a husband and wife duo that hates each other almost as much as they love each other, a couple that won't stop poking and prodding until they leave us all in a puddle of despair and tears.
Tears!
There are parts of GWTW that make me roar with laughter, but the last 10% of the book is one long weep-a-thon for me. I've read GWTW hundreds of times, but all the cruel words and horrible threats and slights and hidden emotions in these last parts still make me blubber. They still make me sad. I wouldn't trade the twists and turns in these final chapters for anything in the world, but there's still part of me that always hopes it won't all go so sour so quickly.
And yet, here we are. Chugging toward the unbearably heavy ending. As a matter of fact, MM uses gravity to great effect in the scene where Rhett and Bonnie return from their wonderful trip abroad and encounter Scarlett who has "hurried from her room to the top of the stairs," while Bonnie is "stretching her short plump legs in an effort to climb the steps." So Scarlett is at the top, Bonnie is climbing upward, and Rhett is at the bottom of the stairs. Lurking. Like a panther. Or the devil. Or something.
*Sigh*
Why can't they just be nice here, y'all? Why does this all have to end this way? Why can't they just be blandly civil and save us all a lot of heartache?
But they can't, of course. They are who they are, and we are who we are, and none of us can change no matter what. And so, instead of disengaging and peeling away from the situation, they both fly straight into danger with guns blazing like Hans Solo flying into the Death Star.
Interestingly enough, Rhett shoots first. Let's rate their insults on a scale of 1 to 10, shall we?
- "You are looking pale, Mrs. Butler. Is there a rouge shortage?" 3/10. This isn't the worst thing he could have said, but it's not great either. You haven't seen her in three months and you can't think of one nice thing to say?
- "Can this wanness mean that you've been missing me?" 4/10. Same insult, but I'm going to give it an extra point because he repeated his dig a second time. So now he's mean and annoying. C'mon, Rhett. I love you, but come on.
- "If I'm pale it's your fault and not because I've missed you, you conceited thing." 1/10. Scarlett's momma raised her better than that, but he's definitely asking for it. Besides, Rhett is conceited. So it's not like she's exaggerating here.
- "Indeed! Well, who' the happy father? Ashley?" 8/10. This is cold, you guys. Especially given everything that happened before he left town. He's only telling the truth, but not every truth needs to be told.
- "Damn you....no woman would want the children of a cad like you....I wish it was anybody's baby but yours!" 9/10. Burn, burn, burn. She got him good, didn't she?
- "Cheer up...maybe you'll have a miscarriage." 10/10. Congratulations, Rhett. You won!
The two of them keep trying to best each other, but to no avail. What did he hope to accomplish by saying something mean like that? Rhett Butler is usually so strategic and calm, but he's unraveling now and it's shocking to see. Scarlett is pushing him and goading him, but we don't expect him to push her right back, do we? And when he does it's....ugly. It's an ugly mess.
We've seen him be base and mean before, on the fateful night of Ashley party. But you know what? He was drunk that night. So that was our excuse and our explanation. But he doesn't seem to be drunk now. He's sober as a judge there on the stairs, but he can't control himself anymore. She's humiliating him and insulting him, but it still hurts to see him sink so low in this chapter. And then---
Scarlett falls down the stairs and miscarries.
And again, consider the positioning of the two of them there on the stairs. The movie does a great job of spacing and pacing in this scene, and there's so much drama in this moment. Scarlett is on top of the stairs when they begin arguing and Rhett comes up to her level, but then she takes a swing at him. But instead of connecting she falls.
All.
The.
Way.
To.
The.
Bottom.
She tumbles so quickly even the all powerful, all wonderful Rhett Butler can't break her fall. He lunges backward to protect himself from her claws, and then Scarlett breaks a rib "and, too dazed to catch herself, she rolled over and over to the bottom of the flight."
All.
The.
Way.
To.
The.
Bottom.
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And then the characters begin to float in space.
GWTW is a hardcore realist book, but everything becomes unglued in the latter half of this chapter, mostly as a reflection of Scarlett's delirium. These pages are filled with heavy, heavy material and ideas and things that are pulling Scarlett and Rhett apart at the seams. It's like...well, you know how black holes are the heaviest things in the universe? Black holes are heavy gravity and their trying to pull us all into their orbit and they look scary, but you know what will happen to you if you actually do find yourself at the edge of a singularity like the one at the center of the Milkyway Galaxy?
You'll float.
The person inside of a blackhole believes they pass through the blackhole instantaneously, but to an outside observer it would look like you'd just stopped. As though you were just floating there at the edge of a blackhole for all of eternity.
And this is kind of what happens here in this part of chapter 56. Scarlett and Rhett have reached their own black holes individually and alone. There's no day, there's no night, there's no before, there's no after. There's only this grotesquely massive, outrageously dangerous thing they'll both have to circle around until the end of time. And, what's much worse, black holes grow. They get larger. They eat more stuff. The accumulate mass. And they swallow everyone and everything and every thought and every idea and they are so big and black and dense that not even light can escape from their grasp.
This miscarriage is their black hole. Scarlett is cold and confused and Rhett is jealous and confused and neither of them is big enough or confident enough or courageous enough to admit that they are very sorry and that they have no idea what in the hell they're doing. And so Scarlett doesn't call for Rhett even though she wants him. And instead of barging into Scarlett's room and sitting with her, Rhett stays in his room across the hall. Alone.
This breaks my heart every time, you guys.
Seriously.
That's why it has taken me so long to write this blog post. How in the world am I supposed to analyze my feelings on what I consider to be the most wonderfully devastating pages in all the literature that's ever been written in the English speaking world? You can have your Mr. Darcy's, your Kilgore Trout's, your Sam Starret's, your Rick Blaine's, your Cross Sugarman's, your TeaCakes, your Henry's IV, V, and VI's. But I say to you here and now, that nothing holds a candle to Rhett Butler on his knees, weeping, with his head in Melly's lap.
Isn't it interesting that Melly's kindness is the thing that actually breaks him?
Rhett has been sitting across the hall from Scarlett's room, watching the door and smoking cigars and not asking questions because the events have shocked him into silence. Rhett has had a silver tongue for a thousand pages, but Scarlett's miscarriage has rendered him a deaf mute.
But while he's being oh so quiet, MM gives us enough clues to let us know that it's loud as hell inside his brain. This is a classic study in show don't tell, isn't it? Up to this point Rhett has always been smooth and polished but now? He's a mess:
- "The room was untidy, littered with cigar butts and dishes of untouched food." Not eating.
- "The bed was tumbled and unmade and he sat on it." Not sleeping.
- He was "unhsaven and suddenly gaunt." Filthy.
- "He looked so like a damned soul waiting judgment--so like a child in a suddenly hostile world." Scared.
Anyway, so...Rhett starts drinking whiskey. We don't know how long Scarlett has been teetering between life and death, but surely days have gone by. But as I said earlier, our characters are floating in space and it's not clear if it's been 48 hours or five days or whatever else. But we know Rhett hasn't slept or ate or drank anything but whiskey over the past few days, and we can tell that he's about to melt down. I once stayed up 72 hours straight during finals back at college and I was damn near hysterical by the end of it all. But I was eating and drinking normally all the time, so I can't imagine Rhett's state of mind in this section.
But it can't be good.
Melly tells him that Scarlett is better. But Rhett either doesn't hear her or doesn't understand her or has just been pushed so far past his breaking point that nothing Melly said was going to make any sense to him anyway. So instead of reacting calmly or with happiness, he starts to really melt down.
He cries, but because he's Rhett Butler and he's larger than life, he doesn't simply weep. No, our beloved goes into a full-body, shoulder shaking, desperately choking sob that scares the daylights out of Melly. Rhett carries himself so lightly most of the time, that we never suspect that he's ever felt guilty or miserable about anything he's done. But now we see that we've been wrong. He's full of sorrows.
And he's vulnerable.
Very, very vulnerable.
Scarlett believes that Rhett doesn't display his emotions because he doesn't have any emotions, but now we see that she's wrong. Now we learn that Rhett has a lot of feelings about everything, and it's been eating away at him for God knows how long; and we begin to wonder about how hard he's had to work to keep all of this so deep below his surface. And, more to the point, now that he's had this explosion, how in the world will he be able to reel himself back from the abyss?
Even Melly is shocked when she hears Rhett's snide remarks about Scarlett's miscarriage. And you'll notice that at no time during their conversation does Melly even attempt to give Rhett advice. She simply sits there and listens to him, but she never tells him what to do to get back in Scarlett's good graces. She never tells him how to fix what has gone so horribly wrong.
Because it can't be fixed.
*Sigh*
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