Gone with the Wind: Chapter 41 Summary & Analysis

After the guests leave, Scarlett goes into Ellen’s office and calls Pork in after her. She asks if he remembers the day she caught him stealing chickens when she’d promised him a watch. She hands him Gerald’s opulent gold watch. Pork says it should belong to Wade. Scarlett says Wade never did anything for Gerald and asks if Pork would like her to engrave the watch. Pork refuses at first, but Scarlett insists. He says Scarlett is nicer to “niggers” than to white folks. She asks him to send Ashley to her.

When Ashley enters the office, Scarlett offers him a job at the mill. Ashley says nothing. Scarlett brings up her pregnancy to impress on him her need for his help. He stops her, and she asks if her pregnancy is why he won’t look at her. He says she always looks beautiful. He says he is ashamed for letting her marry Frank. Because of him, Ashley says, Scarlett went and married a man she didn’t love. Scarlett knows Ashley still loves her, but she reminds herself not to throw herself at him. She says he can’t go to New York and work in a bank with Yankees—and she says she’ll accommodate his inexperience at the mill. Ashley says he doesn’t want her accommodations anymore. He needs to learn to stand on his own.

Scarlett asks what happened to Ashley, and why he’s become so bitter. Ashley says he realized he was acting like a woman instead of a man. If he goes to Atlanta to work for Scarlett, he’ll be “lost forever.” Scarlett worries that by “lost” he means the Yankees are after him. Ashley smiles at her literalness and explains that if he goes to Atlanta he’ll lose all self-respect. Then he looks at her and says there are other reasons. Scarlett says she’ll never throw herself at him again. He insists it won’t work, and that he’s going to New York. He walks towards the door.

Scarlett flings herself on the sofa and cries. Melanie bursts in, worried that Scarlett is having her baby. Scarlett says Ashley is mean and hateful. Melanie throws herself on the sofa and embraces Scarlett, scolding Ashley for upsetting Scarlett. Ashley explains what Scarlett offered. Scarlett wails that she’ll lose money and starve because Ashley won’t help her. Melanie reproaches Ashley, asking how he can refuse Scarlett when she’d been so kind to them. Melanie notes that she would have died if it wasn’t for Scarlett. And she’d love to be back home in Atlanta; she only agreed to New York because she thought there was no work in Atlanta. Ashley says “Scarlett” and she looks up at him. He says he’ll come to Atlanta because he cannot fight both her and Melanie. He leaves the room with a look in his eyes that scares her.

After Suellen and Will marry and Carreen goes to the convent, Ashley, Melanie, and Beau move to Atlanta, bringing Dilcey with them. They move into a house with a backyard that connects to Pitty’s. The top story of the house was destroyed during the siege, and the previous owner built a flat roof over the first story. It’s squat with a large set of stairs and an unkempt lawn. Scarlett thinks it’s ugly, but Melanie loves it; it’s her first home. India comes from Macon to live with them when Honey marries. India looks obviously like a “spinster” now that she’s 25.

Melanie and Ashley furnish their house with the cheapest goods from Frank’s store. They buy it on credit and refuse anything nicer, and Melanie is proud of her home even though it is so ill-furnished. She is happy, but she still isn’t well. She’s so thin she looks like a child, with no breasts or hips. However, her huge eyes have a sweet tranquility that never disappears. Her house is always full of people. The old days come to life under her roof; she refuses to change in a changing world, remaining kind and loyal to tradition.

The old ladies of Atlanta say Melanie is a role model who will lead young people away from traitorous actions. The traitors are the people who went to the Yankees or made money in dishonest ways. Rhett Butler is in the latter group. The worst traitors are girls who were too young during the war to understand the Cause, and now are marrying Yankee officers. Melanie becomes the leader of a new society. She starts and manages several associations and organizations.

Melanie is also secretary for a sewing circle and a group that beautifies Confederate graves. A debate breaks out between the two clubs as to whether weeds should be removed from Yankee as well as Confederate graves. Melanie raises her soft voice and says they should put flowers on Yankee graves. She says that if Charles had been buried on enemy ground, she’d want a nice Yankee woman to put flowers on his grave. She threatens to withdraw from both clubs and plant the flowers herself.

On summer nights, Melanie’s house is always full. Many prominent Confederates often attend. Scarlett won’t host such guests until she has fine wine to offer again, but everyone rallies around Melanie like they did around the Cause. Dr. Meade speaks one night of “building back” the South as if the Glorious Cause still stands. 

Scarlett goes to the parties until her stomach is too big. At the parties, she sits in the shadows and watches Ashley. Everyone discusses hard times, politics, and the war, and it bores her. People lie and say good times will return. They spoke of the impudence of free Blacks and wonder when Reconstruction will end. Scarlett hates that they only talk of the war. Even children talk about it. She hates when Melanie talks about Scarlett’s bravery at Tara, because she feels no pride in what she did. Scarlett wonders why everyone else can’t look forward instead of looking back. Eventually, she begins to use her pregnancy as an excuse to stop attending. Melanie, who wants another baby but can’t have one, understands. Scarlett is secretly aware that Ashley and Melanie can’t be truly intimate with each other.

Scarlett sees Ashley often but never alone. If she wasn’t pregnant, she’d drive out to the mill with him every day—she’ll never talk to him again about love, but maybe they could be friends. Scarlett resents her pregnancy because she wants to be running the mills. Hugh is incompetent, his Black labor crews often don’t show up for work, and Scarlett is anxious because she’s losing money. Scarlett tells Frank one night that she’s going to lease convicts to work at the mills. Then she won’t have to answer to the Freedman’s Bureau. Frank is appalled. Among his friends, it’s considered an atrocity that the state leases convicts as laborers because they can’t pay to feed them. Frank thinks this traffic of human bodies is like “prostitution” and is far worse than slavery. Frank forbids Scarlett to lease convicts. Shocked, she reluctantly drops the idea.

To Scarlett’s surprise, Ashley is as incompetent as Hugh. He’s smart and well-read, but he can’t make quick estimates and often loses money and customers. Scarlett makes excuses for him because she loves him, telling herself he was just new to business. But there’s a dead look in his eyes that scares and confuses her. She’s excited to get back to the mills herself and hire Johnnie Gallegher to run one of them. Scarlett decides that her baby is a total inconvenience, and that she’ll never have another.