Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gone with the Wind, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Looking Forward vs. Looking Back
Classism and Racism
Practicality, Tenacity, and Selfishness
Women and Power
Summary
Analysis
At Christmas, Ashley comes back on furlough. Scarlett thought her feelings for him couldn’t get stronger, but seeing him now after two years, her feelings are intense. Ashley looks like a true soldier in a faded uniform with a long mustache and tanned skin. His once relaxed face is now alert as a cat’s. The Wilkeses come from Twelve Oaks, and Ashley brings Cade Calvert, two of the Munroe boys, and Alex and Tony Fontaine.
After two years, Ashley has changed. Before the war, he lived a comfortable life at Twelve Oaks and his face was relaxed; now, having been fighting for two years, his face is tense. Scarlett is too focused on how handsome he looks to think of how he’s changed and what the changes might mean. Distance has only made her like him even more.
Themes
Scarlett is so happy to be in the same room with Ashley again. She thinks he is more attractive than ever. He sits between Melanie and India, and Scarlett wishes she could sit beside him. After hugging everyone, he’d finally kissed Scarlett. She touches her cheek where he kissed her and imagines how much more passionately he would’ve kissed her if they’d been alone. She wants to get him alone so they can reminisce about the days before he married Melanie. After all, what does Melanie know of love?
Although Scarlett is mostly a future thinking person (she hates the system of mourning because it forces her to live in the past), she is nostalgic when it comes to Ashley. She wants to reminisce with him about the old days, even though she’s been living free of the past in Atlanta. She decides that Melanie must not know about love because Melanie is so different from her.
Themes
Melanie worries about Ashley’s ragged appearance, but Ashley says he’s lucky. His boots had been wearing out, but he took a pair from a Yankee scout he shot. The Fontaine boys argue over their tattered boots. Ashley leaves to bring the boys to the train, and Melanie says she can’t wait to give Ashley her present. It is a coat made of grey wool. Wool is scarce these days, but Melanie had been given some from a bereaved mother at the hospital. Scarlett has made Ashley a sewing kit full of materials Rhett had gotten for her, but she wishes she could give him something personal. She decides to ask Rhett for one of his hats to give to Ashley.
Scarlett has repurposed gifts that Rhett has gotten her into gifts for Ashley. She doesn’t consider the possibility that it might upset Rhett that she gives his gifts to her to another man. Since Rhett doesn’t do the obvious things most men do when they like a girl—like kiss her or propose—she assumes he has no feelings about her. Rhett’s generosity seems gratuitous to Scarlett right now, but only because she can’t figure him out and doesn’t know the reason behind his actions.
Themes
Scarlett doesn’t see Ashley alone that day because he is visiting with everyone. At supper, he chats on and on, trying to keep everyone from asking him questions he doesn’t want to answer. Scarlett is so happy to see him that she doesn’t think much about the sadness that he’s hiding. Her happiness disappears later when Ashley goes into the bedroom with Melanie, shutting the door on Scarlett.
Ashley tries keep up a cheerful front so as not to worry anyone, but Scarlett knows he is hiding sadness. It likely has something to do with the war, but Scarlett only cares about her personal concerns, such as her despair when Ashley goes to bed with Melanie at the end of the day.
Themes
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A week later, Ashley prepares to return to Virginia. Scarlett sits holding her goodbye present for him, waiting for him to come downstairs after saying goodbye to Melanie. She thinks of everything she wants to say to Ashley. She wants to know he loves her. She’s had no time alone with him, and every night he’s closed himself in the bedroom with Melanie.
Scarlett wants to get another confession of love out of Ashley. More than she wants to tell him her own feelings, she wants him to admit his. With both Ashley and Rhett, she desires that they confess their love to her—it makes her feel triumphant.
Themes
At last, Scarlett hears Ashley’s steps on the stairs. She is happy he’s alone and decides that Melanie must be too upset to leave her room. He appears in his mismatched uniform, but Scarlett thinks he looks like a “shining knight.” She hands him her present shyly. Over the week, she’s made him a sash out of a silk scarf from Rhett. She says it’s a token for him to remember her by. He says she shouldn’t have, and she says she’d do anything for him.
Scarlett’s feelings for Ashley transform him into something he’s not. Even though he looks like the war has been hard on him, she thinks he looks like a “shining knight.” When he returns to the war, he wears a jacket from Melanie and a sash from Scarlett, sustaining connections with both women.
Themes
Ashley asks Scarlett to take care of Melanie. Scarlett is angry that Ashley asks her this in their last moment together. Ashley says Melanie is frail, and he worries that there’ll be no one to care for her when he dies. Scarlett trembles and her mind fills with images of Ashley’s dead body. Ashley says when the war ends, he’ll be far away, whether he’s alive or dead. He says he lied all week, not wanting to scare Melanie, but the truth is that the Yankees have basically won. They are recruiting foreigners, and the South can’t fight the whole world.
Ashley foreshadows the same end to the war that Rhett has been foreshadowing. The women at home all believe that the Confederates are doing well because the men lie and tell them so, but the truth, according to Ashley, is that the South is losing. Ashley is willing to tell Scarlett this because he thinks she can handle the news—unlike with Melanie, he doesn’t feel like he ha to protect Scarlett. He also has a vague fear about what will happen after the war, but it doesn’t involve his death.
Themes
Scarlett promises to take care of Melanie, willing to do anything for Ashley. He kisses her forehead, saying she is strong and good in body, mind, and soul. Scarlett waits breathlessly for him to say he loves her, but he doesn’t. She sits down and cries. Ashley looks conflicted, then says goodbye. She calls after him to kiss her. They kiss passionately before he pulls away. Scarlett says she loves him over and over. He looks at her with love in his eyes but also shame and despair. He says goodbye and leaves.
It is strange that Ashley binds Scarlett to Melanie with a promise since he knows that Scarlett has feelings for him and is likely jealous of Melanie. Ashley clearly still returns Scarlett’s feelings, but his feelings aren’t as straightforward as hers; his look of love is also a look of shame and despair which suggests that his feelings are not as “beautiful” as Scarlett feels hers are.
Themes
