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
Scarlett becomes a wife two weeks later and a widow two months after that. The weeks before her marriage are a blur. When she hears Ashley’s wedding will be in May, she schedules her own for the day before his. Ellen tries to persuade her to wait, but Scarlett insists on marrying at once. Powerful forces are sweeping the County. Everyone is intoxicated with excitement over the war. There are fast weddings and preparations for war; the troops are half-armed and half-outfitted in homespun uniforms.
The start of the Civil War has a huge effect on society. Everyone tries to squeeze all of life in before the men leave to fight. Significantly, the emotion everyone feels is excitement rather than dread or fear, even though the South isn’t fully prepared; the troops are only half-equipped for battle, suggesting that Rhett Butler was right when he said the South is arrogant but unprepared.
Themes
Before she knows it, Scarlett is wearing a wedding dress and walking down the steps on Gerald’s arm into a crowd of guests. She remembers Ellen’s bewildered face and Ashley standing with Melanie on his arm. It feels like a nightmare. She remembers Charles’s stammering voice and her own responses. After the wedding, Ashley kisses her cheek and Melanie says she was glad they were sisters. Her trance shatters later that night when Charles approaches their bed in his nightshirt. Realizing she just married a man she doesn’t want to share a bed with, she screams. Charles spends the night in an armchair.
Scarlett got married for the same reason she flirted with all the boys at the Wilkeses’ barbecue: she wanted to make Ashley jealous. However, her wedding feels likes a nightmare—the opposite of the fantasies she’d had about marrying Ashley. After her wedding, the full force of what she’s done hits her. In all her fantasies about marriage, she never stopped to consider what it would really entail.
Themes
Ashley’s wedding is more nightmarish than Scarlett’s own. Ashley had said he loved Scarlett, so why isn’t he hers? Now Scarlett is married to a man she hates. She regrets her choice and wishes she’d listened to Ellen. That night, Charles again approaches the bed. This time, Scarlett breaks down and cries in his arms. A week later, he leaves to fight. When Scarlett sees Ashley, Melanie makes him kiss her and invites Scarlett to visit in Atlanta. Then, Ashley leaves as well. For five weeks, letters come from Charles and then a letter from Charles’ colonel, Wade Hampton, arrives. It says Charles is dead.
After the Wilkeses’ barbecue when Scarlett says yes to Charles’s proposal, rapid changes take place. The world is quickly changing around Scarlett; first, she loses Ashley to Melanie, then she marries a man she hates, then all the men leave to war, and suddenly, she is a widow. This sequence of events is unlike the slow, leisurely life Scarlett led before she heard Ashley was engaged, and before the war began.
Themes
Months later, Scarlett gives birth to Charles’s son and names him Wade Hampton. The birth is surprisingly easy on her, but Scarlett still feels low and depressed. Everyone assumes she’s grieving, but she’s actually just bored. She doesn’t want to be a mother, she still longs for Ashley, and the County is no fun with all the young men gone to war. Because she’s now a widow, Scarlett is expected to act like her heart is “in the grave.” Ellen stresses the importance of behaving like a widow whenever she catches Scarlett having fun. This means wearing ugly black dresses and veils, and never laughing or acting happy. Scarlett also can’t act interested in men. Most people say that Wade should be a comfort to her, but Scarlett doesn’t care about Wade. She just wants Ashley.
In Southern society, widows are supposed to act like they are buried with their dead husbands. Scarlett finds this horribly oppressive; she is still young, and she barely knew Charles, so she’s not actually sad he’s gone. However, she is particularly unchanged by marriage, motherhood, and bereavement. In fact, she is the same as she always was; she likes excitement, only cares about herself, and still pines after Ashley. Her lack of interest in the monumental things that have happened to her shows that she’s still young and selfish.
Themes
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Ellen and Mammy worry about Scarlett’s state and send her to visit family. But James and Andrew are boring and Ellen’s sister Pauline and her husband live in isolation. Eulalie, Ellen’s other sister, subtly looks down on Scarlett because she doesn’t approve of Ellen and Gerald’s marriage. Scarlett hates their accents and the constant talk of war. When Scarlett comes home from these visits thin and snappy, Ellen decided to send her and Wade to Atlanta. There, Melanie has been staying with her and Charles’s aunt, Miss Pittypat Hamilton. Scarlett hates the thought of staying with Ashley’s wife, but the County and the memories it holds are now unbearable.
Scarlett is bored by all the places familiar to her because they hold nothing new. She has nothing to engage in when all the men are gone, and everyone talking of nothing but war. It is surprising that she agrees to go to Atlanta even though she detests Melanie so much. Melanie may be as close to Ashley as Scarlett can get—but also, Scarlett has been known to take pleasure in spiting those she dislikes.
Themes
