Gone with the Wind: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

A week later, Scarlett comes home from a shift at the hospital tired and annoyed. She excuses herself from paying calls with Melanie and Pittypat, and when the sound of their carriage dies away, she sneaks quietly into Melanie’s room. It is neat and spare, with an altar for Charles in the corner. Scarlett goes right to Melanie’s letterbox and takes out the letters from Ashley. She’s been doing this for a while now. She knows it would upset Ellen, but the temptation to read the letters and find out if Ashley really loves Melanie is too strong.

Scarlett opens a letter, addressed “My dear wife.” She’s relieved that Ashley doesn’t use a more passionate term of endearment. She panics when she reads that Ashley wants to reveal his true feelings to Melanie—is Ashley going to tell Melanie about Scarlett? But as she reads on, Ashley reveals that he’s been questioning what he’s fighting for. The catch phrases of the South—Slavery, Damn Yankees, King Cotton—don’t resonate with him. He thinks only of Twelve Oaks and the beloved old days. He isn’t afraid to die but is afraid of losing the past. Whether they win or lose, the old days will never return because everything will be different. He recalls what Rhett Butler said at the barbecue about the South’s weakness and confesses that that was true. 

Scarlett stops reading, bored by the war talk. She has no interest in Ashley’s ideas; she just wants to know if he loves Melanie. Judging from the brotherly affectionate tone of his letters, Ashley only loves Melanie as a friend. How does Melanie not see this? It seems like Ashley is trying to ignore the war and draw a magic circle around him and Melanie by recalling the old days.

Scarlett wonders what Ashley fears, if he’s not afraid of death. He’s afraid of things that disturb him, like he was afraid of marrying her because her passion disturbed his calm. Maybe if she’d understood this before he would’ve married her. She loves Ashley as much as ever; she still doesn’t understand him, but she deeply admires him. She still feels as if she’s never been married; Charles’s timid passion hadn’t touched her deeply. To her, marriage was only servitude. She is done with marriage but still loves Ashley—an emotion that grows every day.

Scarlett replaces the letters, still trying to understand what she’s missing about Ashley. Then she thinks how strange it is that Ashley mentioned Rhett Butler and his ridiculous words at the barbecue. She looks in the mirror and her reflection makes her happy—Ashley always loved her dimples. Reassured of Ashley’s love, she leaves the room singing “When This Cruel War Is Over.”