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Gone With The Wind
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The Story (continued)
one of the film's best scenes, in the golden-filtered, late-afternoon light
of Aunt Pittypat's parlor following the funeral of Scarlett's second husband
Frank, Rhett arrives to speak to a slightly-drunk and depressed widow.
Scarlett gargles with eau de cologne to unsuccessfully mask her brandy-breath.
Mammy announces the arrival of Rhett to Scarlett: &I told him you was prostrate with grief.&
Rhett admonishes: &Don't drink alone, Scarlett. People always find out, and
it ruins the reputation.& With a hint of humanity, Scarlett is truly afraid
for once in her life: &I'm afraid now. I'm afraid of dying and going to hell.&
She reflects sadly, feeling genuinely sorry for the disaster that she created
and her responsibility for Frank's death. Rhetts suggests she dry her eyes
but doubts her sincerity: &Dry your eyes. If you had it to do all over again,
you'd do no differently. You're like the thief who isn't the least bit sorry
he stole, but he's terribly terribly sorry he's going to jail.&
Scarlett is relieved that her mother is dead and can't see
what she has become in order to survive - she bawls real tears and reveals
an introspective vulnerability - a key aspect of her character's personality: &I
always wanted to be like her [her own mother], calm and kind. I certainly
have turned out disappointing.&
With romantic bravado in the style of a prestigious Southern gentleman,
Rhett proposes to twice-widowed Scarlett with mock sincerity. He goes down
on his hands and knees in front of the desirable woman, but conceals the real
depth of his feelings for her:
Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments,
my dear Scarlett - I mean, my dear Mrs. Kennedy. But it cannot have escaped
your notice that for some time past, the friendship I have felt for you has
ripened into a deeper feeling. A feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred
- Dare I name it? Can it be - love?... This is an honorable proposal of marriage,
made at what I consider a most opportune moment. I can't go all my life waiting
to catch you between husbands.
Antagonistically, but with a hint of sexual seductiveness,
a virile Rhett suggests marrying him for fun: &You've been married to a boy and an old man.
Why not try a husband of the right age, with a way with women?& She taunts
him: &You're a fool, Rhett Butler, when you know I shall always love another
man.& Scarlett is bullied into kissing him and then agrees to marry him without
any real love for him - she marries him mostly for his money: &Money does
help and of course I am fond of you...If I said I was madly in love with you,
you'd know I was lying.& Rhett honestly reveals the real nature of their
complex relationship over many years, secretly harboring a hope that she
will love him in time:
I'm not in love with you any more than you are with me. Heaven
help the man who ever really loves you.
Rhett promises to pamper Scarlett with a &vulgar& diamond
ring, an expensive New Orleans honeymoon, and new clothes.
On their honeymoon after their marriage, after all Scarlett's years of skimping
and conniving, she is finally able to luxuriate in nouveau riche grandeur.
A picture postcard scene reflects their world of pleasure: in the moonlight,
a Mississippi riverboat takes Rhett and Scarlett to their honeymoon in New
Orleans. Lying back in her riverboat cabin, the thrice-married bride smiles
and asks: &I'm thinking about how rich we are. Rhett - I can keep the lumber
business too, can't I?& Cancan dancers entertain them in a New Orleans restaurant,
but that night, she experiences troubling dreams of insecurity and being
lost in the mist.
Rhett returns with her to Tara, understanding that Scarlett
finds her strength there: &You get your strength from this red earth of Tara, Scarlett. You're
a part of it. It's a part of you.& To satisfy her, Rhett promises to rebuild
the plantation to all its pre-war splendor, and also purchases a magnificent,
ostentatious mansion for them in Atlanta. When her older sister marries Rhett,
Suellen grumbles about her &hateful& sister. Melanie offers a conciliatory
reminder: &She's made it possible for us to keep Tara, always.& Suellen gripes:
&She's had three husbands, and I'll be an old maid.&
House servants Prissy, Pork, and Mammy are over-awed by
Scarlett's and Rhett's post-war Atlanta house. Mammy sneers unimpressed: &Humph. T'ain't quality.&
After the birth of their daughter named Bonnie Blue Butler (Cammie King),
Mammy assumes the blame for the baby being a girl: &I'd like to apologize,
Mr. Rhett, for it's not bein' a boy.& Rhett pours the usually abstemious Mammy
a glass of Scotch - a drink to toast the birth - he offers to have her share
in the joy. Rhett assures her that he is not displeased with a baby girl:
&Boys aren't any use to anybody. Don't you think I'm proof of that?& Melanie
rejoices with Mammy about the birth of their baby girl: &The happiest days
are when babies come.& At Melanie Wilkes' suggestion, the child was named
for the Confederate flag.
But in the measurement scene (Scarlett holds on to the bedpost,
recalling one of the film's earliest scenes), Scarlett discovers that motherhood
and childbirth have robbed her of her trim waistline. Mammy shakes her
head when Scarlett (with a 20 inch waistline) can't get into an old gown: &You ain't
never gonna be no eighteen-and-a-half inches again!& Scarlett fears that she
has sold herself out to the more powerful Rhett who provides security - she
also fears that childbearing will destroy her beauty. Striking back and feeling
unromantic and sexually cold, she informs Rhett of her vow of abstinence.
Realizing that she still holds a lasting, romantic flame for Ashley, Rhett
accepts her sanctity and hints at visiting more regularly with Belle: &The
world is full of many things and many people. And I shan't be lonely. I will
find comfort elsewhere.& Scarlett intends to lock her bedroom door to bar
Rhett - refusing to sleep and have sexual relations with him and to avoid
another pregnancy. Rhett breaks down her locked bedroom door from the inside:
&Why bother? If I wanted to come in, no lock could keep me out.& Angered,
he throws his whiskey glass at a full-size portrait of Scarlett.
Their daughter is the only link keeping Rhett and Scarlett
together. Rhett is a doting, adoring father, not unnoticed by the two gossipy
ladies, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Meade, who discuss Rhett's love for his
daughter: &There
must be a great deal of good in a man who would love a child so much.& Rhett
finds in the young girl the love that he cannot get from his wife. Proud Rhett
has young Bonnie sit astride her own little pony as he preens her to be &the
greatest horsewoman in the South.& He also declares that he is going to spoil
Bonnie by buying her a blue velvet riding habit. Mammy disapproves of the
doting father: &it just ain't fittin'.&
In a surprise visit to the lumber sawmill, Scarlett looks
back with Ashley on how their lives have altered since the war. Ashley
reflects back on the past, showing both nostalgia for gentility and despondency
over his lost past:
&Yes, we've traveled a long road since the old days, haven't we, Scarlett?...the
golden warmth and security of those days.& She tries to bring him back to
the present, simultaneously giving advice to herself: &Don't look back Ashley,
don't look back. It'll drag at your heart until you can't do anything but
look back.& He embraces her compassionately. Their embrace is witnessed by
India Wilkes and reported back to Rhett, who quickly misinterprets Scarlett's
gesture. Their insecure marriage begins to disintegrate after the scandalizing
The night of the celebration of Ashley's birthday party,
Rhett confronts Scarlett - who is feigning sickness to avoid attending
the party and seeing Melanie, the hostess: &What a white, livid little coward you are!& He pulls
her out of bed and forces her to make an appearance and face the guests alone.
He selects a burgundy red, low-cut, figure-hugging non-matronly dress for
her to wear, and suggests she put on a lot of rouge: &to look your part tonight.&
Rhett drops Scarlett off at Melanie's door in her flashy, brazen outfit: &You
go into the arena alone. The lions are hungry for you.& Always forgiving
and loving toward her sister-in-law, Melanie generously invites Scarlett
to help greet guests as if nothing had happened with Ashley.
In one of the most famous, pivotal scenes of the film, Scarlett
comes downstairs in their home in the middle of the night after the party.
She discovers Rhett in the candle-lit dining room - viewing him through
the half-open double doors. Angered by her contact with Ashley, Rhett has
been drinking by himself - slumped at the long table on a chair. Rhett
compels her to sit down and listen to him. Suspecting that she drinks brandy
on the sly, he forces her to join him - aware that they have like natures.
Rhett knows Melanie &stood by& Scarlett
in public at the party and asks: &How does it feel to have the woman you wronged
cloak your sins for you?& He defends Melanie's character: &Miss Melly's a
fool, but not the kind you think. It's just that there's too much honor in
her to ever conceive of dishonor in anyone she loves. And she loves you -
though just why she does, I'm sure I don't know.&
Rhett rages to her about his romantic rival, Ashley: &Of course, the comic
figure in all this is the long-suffering Mr. Wilkes! - Mr. Wilkes who can't
be mentally faithful to his wife - and won't be unfaithful to her technically.
Why doesn't he make up his mind?& Aggressive and confrontational, Rhett menaces
Scarlett by putting his powerful hands on both sides of her head as if between
a vise in order to squeeze Ashley's image out of her head:
Observe my hands, my dear. I could tear you to pieces with them,
and I'd do it if it'd take Ashley out of your mind forever. But it wouldn't.
So I'll remove him from your mind forever this way. I'll put my hands so -
one on each side of your head - and I'll smash your skull between them like
a walnut, and that'll block him out.
In a drunken fit of jealousy, Rhett thinks he has her cornered, but she
challenges him, stands up, and rejects his physical dominance:
Scarlett: I'm not cornered. You'll never corner me Rhett Butler
or frighten me. You've lived in dirt so long you can't understand anything
else and you're jealous of something you can't understand.
Rhett: Jealous, am I? Yes, I suppose I am - even though I know you've been
faithful to me all along. How do I know? Because I know Ashley Wilkes and
his honorable breed. They're gentlemen! That's more than I can say for you
or for me. We're not gentlemen, and we have no honor, have we?
Frustrated, lonely and angry, appealing to her and threatening her, he suddenly
and fiercely kisses her, and then carries her protestingly up a long flight
of stairs to the bedroom, two steps at a time. In this, the film's infamous
conjugal rape scene - a night of forced passion, Rhett frankly asserts:
It's not that easy, Scarlett. You've turned me out while you chased
Ashley Wilkes, while you dreamed of Ashley Wilkes. This is one night you're
not turning me out.
At the time she is furious, although she has clearly enjoyed
their previous night's sexual experience. Her smiling, purring, happy face
when she awakens the morning after betrays her pleasure. Bonnie has left
a breakfast tray on Scarlett's bed and as she leaves the room (edited out
of the finished version of the film), the faithful Mammy enters to complain
of her aches and pains to an oblivious Scarlett. Scarlett is ready to be
reconciled with Rhett when he enters her bedroom, but he is still bitter
and announces that he is considering a divorce: &There's no point in our holding on, is there.& Their own bad timing,
a marriage built on power struggles, communication difficulties and personality
clashes between two fiercely independent and frustrated individuals foreshadow
the inevitable break-up. Each of them reaches out for the other at the wrong
time. Rhett also informs her that he is leaving the next day on an extended
trip to London - and he intends on taking Bonnie with him. He insists that
Scarlett get their daughter's things packed for their trip: &I've always
thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely.&
A number of strains, calamities and tragedies befall them
in the remaining scenes. In England, Bonnie suffers nightmares and begs
to return home. After their homecoming return, Rhett finds Scarlett's face
pale and inquires about it. Scarlett is pregnant again (from the night
of the conjugal rape) and Rhett cynically asks: &Indeed. And who is the happy father?& She insults his fatherhood:
&You know it's yours. I don't want it any more than you do. No woman would
want a child of a cad like you...I wish for anybody's child but yours.& Rhett
consoles her, also cynically: &Cheer up, maybe you'll have an accident.&
[Originally the word in the script was 'miscarriage,' but it was not allowed
by the Hays Office censors.] Reaching out to strike him, Scarlett misses
and accidentally falls down the long flight of stairs, indeed aborting the
child she is carrying.
Against a blue-tinged, rain-washed window at night, a sympathetic
Melanie comforts Rhett who cries remorsefully in front of her: &She doesn't (want
children). Not my children. She told me she didn't want any more children.
I wanted to hurt her because she hurt me. I wanted to and I did...If she'd
only forgive me. Forget this ever happened.& Melanie proposes that they have
another child, and then minimizes the hazards of having children for even
herself: &Children are life renewing itself, Captain Butler. And when life
does that, danger seems very unimportant.& Rhett thanks Melanie from the
bottom of his heart for all she has done for them.
After Scarlett recovers, Rhett proposes a reconciliation
and asks for forgiveness in their garden: &I've always loved you. But you've never given me a chance
to show it.& Thinking that the mill takes her away from him, he proposes that
it be sold (or given to Ashley), allowing them to go away together. Just then,
Bonnie Blue defies her father and stubbornly insists on an impossible horse
jump: &I will so jump. I can jump better than ever because I've grown. And
I moved the bar higher.& Scarlett has a foreboding thought: &Just like Pa,&
and then is shocked when Bonnie's neck is broken and she is killed in a tragic
horse-riding accident. The death is devastating to everyone - it almost destroys
In a memorable tracking shot as they climb the staircase,
a bereaved Mammy tells Melanie of Rhett's overwhelming grief and the deep
depression in the Butler household since the death of Bonnie Blue and the
couple's strained exchanges and relationship: &I never seen no man, black or white, set such
store in any child...It's like to turn my blood cold - the things they say
to one another.& Rhett takes Bonnie's body into the nursery - sitting by
the deathbed and refusing to relinquish it for a funeral and burial until
Melanie, not Scarlett, gently persuades him to.
Weakened and ailing, Melanie collapses in labor outside
the nursery due to complications that have developed from her own pregnancy.
The adults try to take her young son Beau (Mickey Kuhn) away from the deathbed
scene, but he objects, not understanding that she is dying: &Where is my mother going
away to, and why can't I go along, please?... Why do I have to go back to
bed? It's morning...& Melanie's sister-in-law India Wilkes begs Dr. Meade
to see Melanie on her deathbed to apologize for the vicious rumors she spread
earlier: &I've been waiting here two whole days. And I've got to tell her
that I was wrong about something.&
Before passing away, Melanie bids Scarlett goodbye. With kind and gentle
words, Melanie advises that Scarlett take care of her son, Ashley, and Rhett:
Look after him for me, just as you looked after me for him. Look
after him, but never let him know...Promise?...Captain Butler, be kind to
him...He loves you so.
Scarlett finally sees that Melanie has always been her best
friend - and the kind of great lady that Scarlett had always wanted to
be. Ashley distractedly clutches one of his dying wife's gloves: &I don't know where the mate for
this is - she must have put it away.& Scarlett witnesses the broken, helpless,
and pitiable real grief that Ashley suffers with the loss of Melanie. Revealing
his indifference toward Scarlett, Ashley clings to her skirts and sobs - admitting
that without Melanie he is nothing. He speaks lovingly of Melanie: &I can't
live without her. I can't. Everything I ever had is going with her...She's
the only dream I ever had that didn't die in the face of reality.& Scarlett
finally realizes that her infatuation with Ashley was childish, that she
has wasted her life on a fantasy, that her romantic idol had always loved
Melanie and not her, and that her advances had been in vain. She finally
understands that she never really loved Ashley either and is freed from her
life-long obsession and girlish dream:
Ashley, you should have told me years ago that you loved her and
not me, and not left me dangling with your talk of honor. But you had to wait
till now, now when Melly's dying. To show me that I could never be any more
to you than, than this Watling woman does to Rhett ..And I've loved something
that doesn't really exist. Somehow, I don't care. Somehow, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter one bit.
Scarlett encourages Ashley to put on a brave front before
his deathbed talk with Melanie: &Don't cry. She mustn't see you've been crying.& She rushes
out of the house, hurrying back in the fog to search for Rhett, her real love,
calling out: &Wait for me.& But it is already too late for Scarlett and Rhett.
In their chillingly empty house, she calls out for him,
but there is no answer. She finds him upstairs, sitting morosely in a chair
in his bedroom. He is truly sorry to see Melanie, &a very great lady,& die. A long-suffering,
exhausted Rhett, tired and worn out from Scarlett's constant rejections, manipulations,
and selfishness, can no longer tolerate being with her. He tells Scarlett
that all he wants to do is escape from the pain of their many years of struggle,
especially now that Ashley is available. In this final scene with his bags
packed, he tells 28 year-old Scarlett what he will do: &I'm leaving you my
dear. All you need now is a divorce and your dreams of Ashley can come true.&
With a tear-stained, bewildered face, Scarlett pleads with Rhett to listen
to her claims that she truly loves him:
Scarlett: I must have loved you for years, only I'm such a stupid
fool I didn't know it. Please believe me. You must care. Melly said you did.
Rhett: I believe you. And what about Ashley Wilkes?
Scarlett: I never really loved Ashley.
Rhett: You certainly gave a good imitation of it up to this morning. No, Scarlett.
I've tried everything. If you'd only met me halfway, even when I came back
from London.
Scarlett: I was so glad to see you. I was Rhett. But you were so nasty.
Rhett: And then when you were sick and it was all my fault. I hoped against
hope that you'd call for me, but you didn't.
Scarlett: I wanted you. I wanted you desperately, but I didn't think you wanted
Rhett: It seems we've been at cross purposes, doesn't it? But it's no use
now. As long as there was Bonnie, there was a chance we might be happy. I
liked to think that Bonnie was you, a little girl again, before the war and
poverty had done things to you. She was so like you, and I could pet her and
spoil her - as I wanted to spoil you. But when she went, she took everything.
Scarlett: Oh, Rhett, Rhett. Please don't say that. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry
for everything.
Rhett: My darling. You're such a child. You think that by saying: 'I'm sorry,'
all the past can be corrected.
He reacts insensitively to another one of her fits of crying,
handing a weeping Scarlett a parting gift: &Here, take my handkerchief. Never at any
crisis of your life have I known you to have a handkerchief.& Before he walks
down the stairs, she begs: &Rhett, Rhett. Where are you going?& He tells
her about his plans for the future in the Old South where he will pursue
a lost dream:
Rhett: I'm going to Charleston, back where I belong.
Scarlett: Please, please take me with you.
Rhett: No, I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if
somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace. Do you know
what I'm talking about?
Scarlett: No. I only know that I love you.
Rhett: That's your misfortune.
He parts from her at the front door. Scarlett asks: &Rhett, if you go, where
shall I go? What shall I do?& Without sentimentality, he cooly responds for
the last time:
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
[The daring line with a blasphemous taboo word at the time
was a line of dialogue lifted directly from Margaret Mitchell's novel (&My dear, I
don't give a damn&). It was also forbidden by the infamous Hays Office
code, under Section V (1). Producer Selznick was technically fined $5,000
for the infraction of the code.]
As he closes the front door behind him and exits into the foggy mist, she
is stunned and crushed, realizing she really loved Rhett all along, and has
now lost a second, unrealizable passion. Resolutely, she still believes she
can get him back, but it is really too late. In a big closeup shot, Scarlett
addresses a soliloquy to the camera:
I can't let him go. I can't. There must be some way to bring him
back. Oh I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll
think about it tomorrow. (She closes the door.) But I must
think about it. I must think about it. What is there to do? (She
falls forward onto the ascending stairs.) What is there that matters?
Crestfallen, she stops and then resourcefully and determinedly
finds her true direction in the final lines of the film. She was never
the type to admit defeat - so she refuses to acknowledge defeat in Rhett's
rejection of her. Ghost-like voices of important men from her past remind
her of the source of her strength in the soil of Tara. She hears her father
Gerald: &Land's
the only thing that matters, it's the only thing that lasts.& Ashley: &Something
you love better than me, though you may not know it. Tara.& And Rhett: &It's
from this you get your strength, the red earth of Tara.& Each speech is repeated
with increasing tempo and volume. Scarlett realizes that even if she doesn't
get Rhett back, she can always return to the land - to Tara, to soak up its
...Tara!...Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way
to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!
The camera close-up of her tear-stained face slowly dissolves into an earlier
shot, a long view of Scarlett standing alone under the gnarled tree with Tara
in the background - a heroic silhouette not admitting defeat.