Gone with the Wind: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Scarlett sits in Ellen’s place at the dinner table, preoccupied by thoughts about Ashley. She needs her mother and is upset that she is with the Slatterys. She won’t even consider telling her mother what’s wrong, but her mother’s presence would be comforting. Gerald talks about the war even though no one is interested.

Scarlett hears a carriage and rises in excitement, but the carriage goes around to the back. She hears Black voices. Pork comes into the dining room to introduce his wife Dilcey, who’s just arrived. Dilcey enters with her daughter Prissy, whom Gerald had also purchased. Dilcey thanks Gerald for his kindness in purchasing both her and her daughter, then offers Prissy to Scarlett as her personal maid. Scarlett declines, saying that Mammy has always been her maid. With dignity that surpasses even Mammy’s, Dilcey says that Mammy is getting old, and Scarlett should have a young maid. Scarlett says she’ll discuss it with Ellen when she returns.

Gerald resumes ranting about the war while the Scarlett, Carreen, and Suellen daydream. Scarlett can’t understand why her father keeps talking about the war when she’s so upset. She wants to go to Ellen’s office—her favorite room in the house—and cry on the sofa. Finally, though, Scarlett hears her mother’s carriage. Ellen enters soon after with Mammy close behind her. Ellen explains that the Slattery baby was both baptized and dead. Gerald starts to say it is a blessing that the “fatherless brat” is dead, but Ellen interrupts him. Scarlett wonders if Jonas Wilkerson, a Yankee bachelor and the O’Haras’ plantation overseer, fathered Emmie Slattery’s baby. She’s often seen the two walking at twilight.

Ellen goes to the mantle and takes out her rosary beads. Mammy insists on fixing Ellen a plate of food before she prays. She lumbers off to the kitchen growling audibly about the “po’ w’ite trash” Slatterys. Mammy always speaks her mind, knowing that her white enslavers won’t listen anyway. Pork enters with a plate for Ellen. An enslaved boy, Jack, waves a fly-brusher behind her as she eats. As soon as Ellen sits, Scarlett,  Suellen, and Carreen ask her questions about a ball, and Gerald starts to talk about the war.

After patiently answering the questions about the ball, Ellen asks Gerald more about the war. Scarlett knows Ellen isn’t interested in the war—it is man’s business—but it makes Gerald happy to talk about it. Ellen is too tired to eat, but Mammy insists Ellen eat anyway. When Ellen is finished, the lamp is lit above the table for prayers. The family gets on their knees around the table, and the enslaved staff kneel by the doorway. Although they understand little of the white family’s prayers, they are spiritually moved by them. Ellen prays for those at Tara, her family far and wide, and those in Purgatory. Despite her anguish, Scarlett is soothed. Scarlett only acts like she’s religious, but she is impressed with her mother’s spirituality.

Ellen always tells Scarlett to examine her conscience during prayer, but Scarlett is thinking about Ashley. How could he marry Melanie when he and Scarlett love each other? Suddenly, it occurs to her that Ashley might have no idea she loves him. She’s always acted aloof, and she flirts with others. Perhaps this discouraged him and led him to Melanie. She decides she must tell him before it’s too late. If Ashley knew that Scarlett loved him, surely he'd marry her instead.

Ellen begins a litany for the Virgin Mary. Scarlett has always pictured her mother’s face in place of the Virgin Mary’s during this litany. They say “amen,” and rise. Pork escorts them upstairs with candles. Soon after, Scarlett starts to enter her parents’ room with a dress she wants her mother to mend for tomorrow when she hears Ellen ask Gerald to dismiss Jonas Wilkerson. Scarlett deduces that it was Jonas who got Emmie Slattery pregnant. She waits for them to finish talking and then drops off the dress.

Once in bed, Scarlett decides how to tell Ashley she loves him. At the ball tomorrow, she’ll flirt with everyone to make him jealous. Then when they’re alone, she’ll confess that she likes him more than anyone else. She doesn’t know how to say this this, but things usually work out. Perhaps they’ll run off to be married that very afternoon. Tomorrow she might be Mrs. Ashley Wilkes! For a moment she considers that it might not happen this way, but she brushes this aside. Her life has been so pleasant that she doesn’t understand that desire and attainment are two different things.