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
The next afternoon, Scarlett and Mammy step from the train in Atlanta. The depot is a pile of ruins. Instinctively, Scarlett looks for Uncle Peter, but of course he isn’t here; Aunt Pitty doesn’t know Scarlett is coming. The quietness of the depot is so unlike the hustle and bustle of Atlanta when Scarlett arrived in 1862. A Black man drives by, offering them a ride for money. Mammy glares at him hatefully; doesn’t this “hired black” know that upstanding women don’t ride in hired carriages? The Black man says he’s not a “free issue nigger”; his mistress, Miss Talbot, sent him to earn money for the family. Since Scarlett doesn’t know Miss Talbot, Mammy insists they walk.
Atlanta has undergone a transformation since its pre-war days. Most notably, free Black people are out and about, and some are even offering services for pay. This scandalizes Mammy because she thinks of herself as of a higher class than the Black people who are, in her mind, taking advantage of their freedom. Mammy has always built up her own self-worth by thinking her enslavement makes her a better person, and now she continues to do this by looking down on free Blacks.
Themes
Scarlett is dismayed to see how devastated Atlanta is. The warehouses and hotels are gone. The warehouse Charles left her must also be destroyed; someday she’ll have to repay Uncle Henry for the taxes he covered on it. As they continue, Scarlett is sad to see Peachtree Street devoid of its old landmarks. However, she is cheered to see new buildings going up—some of them three stories high. They could burn Atlanta, but they can never beat it.
Although Atlanta was burned to the ground, it is already being rebuilt. Atlanta, as one of the South’s most modern cities, is able to adapt easily to the changing times, but also holds onto its spirit. This will come to represent the South as a whole; although the war has devastated and changed it for good, its spirit is undefeated.
Themes
Peachtree Street is as crowded and energetic as ever. However, the people Scarlett sees aren’t familiar. They are Black people who stare at them “insolently.” Mammy kicks “black trash” out of her way and declares she doesn’t like this town full of Yankees and “free issue country niggers.” They come to the place Scarlett had sat to catch her breath after looking for Dr. Meade while Melanie was having her baby. She’d thought she’d hit rock bottom that day. Now, Scarlett wonders how could she have been so silly as to be afraid of the siege when poverty is so much scarier?
Mammy thinks that Atlanta is nothing but a town full of all the enslaved persons who left plantations, people she sees as lesser. Scarlett also notices that Atlanta has changed. But more so, she recognizes that she has changed. When she was last in Atlanta, she feared taking care of herself alone and the Yankees. Now, she has confronted and killed a Yankee, only fears hunger, and is brave enough to survive on her own.
Themes
A carriage approaches and Scarlett looks to see if it’s a friend. The red-haired head of Belle Watling appears at the window. She looks at Scarlett with dislike. Mammy asks who she is. Scarlett replies that she is the town’s “bad woman.” Mammy’s jaw drops. It upsets Scarlett to think that, if her plan goes well, she will be like Belle. They pass the Elsings’ house and where the Meades’ and the Whitings’ houses had been. Scarlett is happy when she sees Aunt Pitty’s house. Uncle Peter runs out, smiling; Scarlett tells him to get Miss Pitty.
Belle seems to think she’s better than Scarlett, and Scarlett thinks she’s better than Belle. However, the two are very similar at this point in the story. Scarlett tries to look down on Belle as a “bad woman” and a sex worker, but she also believes that she’ll need to turn to sex work herself to get money from Rhett. But because class divisions are so important to Scarlett, she continues to feel superior to Belle.
Themes
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Miss Pitty serves “hominy” and dried peas for supper. Scarlett swears she’ll never eat these foods again once she has money and asks Pitty about her finances. Pitty explains that everything except the house is gone, and she’s living off Uncle Henry’s generosity. Scarlett knows Henry is struggling to save this property that belongs to Wade at his own expense. Scarlett changes the subject cheerfully to news of old friends. Pitty tells how Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle were selling pies to Yankees to make ends meet. Pitty understands, but she’d rather starve than deal with Yankees.
Miss Pitty thinks it despicable to earn money selling things to Yankees. From the perspective of the Old South, engaging in business and trade, especially with people who are considered traitors, is a disgrace. Scarlett doesn’t comment, but this is potentially because she thinks money is the most important thing and is willing to do anything to get it.
Themes
Miss Pitty says the Meades don’t want another home now that they have no children, so they are staying at the Elsings’; The Whitings are staying there too. Pitty says it’s a boarding house, which is so dreadful. Scarlett wishes everyone staying at Tara would pay her, but Pitty says Ellen would be horrified to hear that. Then, scandalized, she says everyone has resorted to manual labor to earn money. Scarlett pictures herself in the cotton fields and thinks Pitty is an ignorant fool. Pitty says Fanny Elsing is getting married tomorrow to a man of good birth, but with an ugly limp. Scarlett says women must marry someone. Pitty says she doesn’t know why Fanny must marry a man she doesn’t love when she is loyal to her dead beau the way Scarlett is loyal to Charles.
Miss Pitty reads as ignorant and ridiculous to Scarlett: Scarlett believes now that getting money and making sacrifices (such as settling for a man with a limp) are just what must happen now that the war has changed the South. So Miss Pitty represents the Old South’s perspective: she’s unwilling to change and thinks, for instance, that families should be able to host people generously and without taking money from guests, just like they used to in the old days.
Themes
Scarlett asks Pitty about everyone except Rhett. Pitty says the Republicans are putting ideas in the “poor darkies” heads. They want to let Black men vote! Uncle Peter, she says, is too “well-bred” to vote. Then, she says Rhett Butler is in jail for killing a Black man and he might be hanged. They haven’t proved his guilt, but the Yankees are upset the Ku Klux Klan has been riding around dressed like ghosts and killing so many Black people and Carpetbaggers. The Yankees want to set an example by hanging Rhett. Pitty goes on about how nobody knows where Rhett’s money is; he amassed a fortune blockading for the Confederacy and supposedly has money in overseas banks. Noticing that Scarlett looks faint, Pitty asks if she’s upset to hear about a former beau.
After the South loses the war, they continue to fight for their beliefs by organizing the Ku Klux Klan, a group known for brutally killed Black people and Northern supporters. This group defends the South’s racism and their fundamental belief in slavery. The fact that Rhett Butler murders a Black man in the fashion of the KKK shows that, although he has many anti-Southern qualities (such as being willing to make his own money), he is fundamentally Southern in that he does not consider Black people equals.
Themes
Scarlett says Rhett wasn’t her beau, then asks where he is. Pitty says he’s being held in the firehouse. While Pitty talks about Rhett’s bravery and his pride in being a Southerner, Scarlett thinks how wonderful it is that Rhett is richer than ever and in jail. If she can marry him while he’s in jail, she’ll get all his money after he’s hanged and will never have to deal with him. Mammy walks in, suspicious, and suggests Scarlett go to bed. Scarlett says she feels a cold coming on and asks to be excused from paying visits with Pitty tomorrow. Pitty says Mammy can come instead. Mammy escorts Scarlett to bed, where Scarlett thinks she hears cannons. It’s only thunder.
All Scarlett wants is Rhett Butler’s money, so much so that she hopes he dies and leaves her with it all. This shows how hard and practical she has become. Mammy seems to know what Scarlett is planning and disapproves. Like most Southerners, Mammy believes that Rhett is a “speculator” and a bad man. He goes against the whole world that Ellen had built, and so naturally Mammy thinks Scarlett shouldn’t marry him.
Themes
