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 train takes Scarlett north in May of 1862. Scarlett hopes that Atlanta will be less boring than Charleston or Savannah. Gerald has always told Scarlett that she and Atlanta are the same age. Atlanta is actually nine years older than Scarlett, but it was officially christened Atlanta the year she was born. Atlanta is like her: crude, young, impetuous, and headstrong. It began as a railroad terminus. As the railroads expanded, Atlanta grew. During Scarlett’s life, Atlanta has developed into a bustling city.
Atlanta and Scarlett are comparable to one another. Unlike Charleston, Savannah, or even the County, Atlanta is an extremely new city, as young as Scarlett is. Instead of beginning in the old traditions of the South, it began as a place of commerce and visitors brought in by the railroad. Scarlett is attracted to Atlanta because it has the same modern, willful energy that makes her feel out of place in the traditional South.
Themes
When Scarlett arrives in Atlanta, rain has turned the streets into rivers of red mud. The traffic sends mud splashing everywhere. Scarlett stands on the train in her black veil, looking for Miss Pittypat. A thin Black man with grizzled hair approaches her, holding his hat. He introduces himself as Peter, Pittypat’s coachman. Despite his frailty, he picks her up and carries her to the carriage. He voices his disapproval when he sees that Scarlett has put young Prissy in charge of Wade. Scarlett recalls that Charles said Peter practically raised him and Melanie after their parents died. He is “the smartest old darky” Charles had ever known and he, Melanie and Miss Pittypat love and depend on him.
Peter is much like Mammy. He is described as having the same devotion to and ownership over Pittypat’s family that Mammy has over the O’Haras. Atlanta is a modern city, but it is still the South, and white families still depend on enslaved persons. Although Charles’s family loved Peter, thinking that he’s particularly smart for a Black person suggests that they view Black people as unintelligent in general. Believing Black people aren’t intelligent helps them justify why slavery should persist.
Themes
Peter settles Scarlett in the carriage and tells her to make sure Prissy doesn’t drop Wade. He’s right to worry; Prissy is indeed a poor nurse. But she’s the only person available to take care of Wade, since Ellen needs all the other enslaved women to labor at Tara. Prissy has never left Tara, and so she’s shocked by the bustling city and lets the baby cry. Scarlett misses Mammy. Even in Scarlett’s arms the baby cries. Irritated, Scarlett instructs Prissy to silence the baby with a sugar pacifier.
Scarlett arrives in Atlanta with Prissy—Dilcey’s young daughter—instead of Mammy, who’d been the O’Haras’ enslaved nursemaid for generations. While in Atlanta, Scarlett will have to do without Mammy, who represents the old ways and traditional values Scarlett grew up with. She has no one with her who will enforce Ellen’s teachings.
Themes
Scarlett’s spirits rise as she looks around Atlanta. The town had grown rapidly into a “sprawling giant” in the last year since she visited. Atlanta is the link between the Virginia and Tennessee Confederate armies, so it buzzes with activity. It has also transformed from an agricultural power into an industrial power to meet wartime demands by bringing in Europeans to operate machinery. The streets bustle with Yankee prisoners, Confederate soldiers, and sick people. Peter points out the different factories and war offices as he drives. Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, and Mrs. Whiting—the infamous “pillars of Atlanta” who’d heard Scarlett was coming—wave to her as she passes. They each run a church and know all the gossip. They’re inseparable, though they don’t trust one another.
Modern already, Atlanta is further modernized by the war. At the Wilkeses’ barbecue, Rhett Butler warned that the South would lose the war because it is an agricultural rather than an industrial power. However, Atlanta is unlike the rest of the South in that it isn’t booming with cotton; instead, it is booming with industry. Where the rest of the South is stuck in its ways, Atlanta is prepared to adapt to meet the needs of the changing world. However, Atlanta also has its own “pillars.” The fact that these “pillars” are women highlights how powerful women can be in Southern society.
Themes
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As Peter and Scarlett pass, Mrs. Merriwether makes Scarlett promise to work in her hospital instead of anyone else’s. As they continue, Scarlett spots a woman dressed in colorful skirts and with hair so red Scarlett knows it’s not natural. When she asks Peter who this is, he tells her its Belle Watling, and to mind her own business. Noticing the absence of a Miss or Mrs. before Belle Watling, Scarlett assumes she must be a “bad woman” and looks at her excitedly.
Peter implies that Belle Watling is a sex worker. In Atlanta, there is a greater variety of people, and a greater variety of female figures, than in the County where Scarlett would never see a sex worker. Scarlett is excited by Belle rather than appalled, just as she was excited to hear about Rhett Butler’s bad reputation.
Themes
Everyone seems to know Scarlett was coming. Dr. Meade appears from a house with his wife and son Phil to greet her. Dr. Meade says Miss Pittypat promised Scarlett will work at Mrs. Meade’s hospital. Scarlett confesses she’s already promised to work at other people’s hospitals and asks what hospital committees are. They explain that the hospitals take care of widows and wounded soldiers. Phil chatters about joining the army next year, but Mrs. Meade says no and pulls him close. She already has one son in the army.
Scarlett has continued to pay no attention to the war effort, as evidenced by her not knowing what a hospital committee is. Mrs. Meade is one of the few characters who dreads the war. Young Southerners like Brent and Stuart boast of their enthusiasm for war, but Mrs. Meade stifles this impulse in her son Phil, having the foresight and sense to know that war means death.
Themes
Peter and Scarlett say goodbye to the Meades and continue on. Scarlett already feels that Atlanta is less boring and lonely than Tara. Atlanta excites her because it isn’t covered by the thin veneer of politeness that Ellen and Mammy maintained. As they approach the end of town, Scarlett sees Miss Pittypat’s red-brick house. Plump Miss Pittypat and Melanie, both dressed in black, stand on the porch. Scarlett realizes that Melanie, with her face of loving welcome, will be the “fly in the ointment” of Atlanta.
This passage implies that Atlanta will allow Scarlett to make a clean break from her mother’s oppressive rules and values. However, the novel has also made it clear that Scarlett loves Tara without knowing it, and that she wants to be a great lady like Ellen one day. Therefore, Atlanta and Tara contrast and stand as two places Scarlett is drawn to. Tara represents the old days and values, while Atlanta represents freedom and modernity.
Themes
When Southerners visit each other, they rarely stay less than a month. Often, their visits extend indefinitely. This wasn’t a problem before the war, when people had large houses and endless food. Melanie and Miss Pittypat urge Scarlett to stay for good because they love her, and they insist her place is with her dead husband’s family. Peter also expects Scarlett to stay, wanting to raise Charles’s son himself. Scarlett evades these invites until she’s sure she likes Atlanta.
Scarlett’s one reservation about Atlanta is that Melanie is there. By contrast, Melanie loves Scarlett unconditionally. Without knowing her at all, she already loves her and considers her more than just a sister by marriage. At this point in the story, Melanie’s love for Scarlett seems as shortsighted as Scarlett hatred of Melanie is biased.
Themes
Charles’s Uncle Henry Hamilton also urges Scarlett to stay. He points out that Wade should grow up on the property he’ll one day inherit, which will eventually be extremely valuable. Uncle Henry likes Scarlett because she’s one of the few women he’s met who has sense. He and Miss Pittypat no longer speak because he once insulted her for wanting to invest money in a non-existent goldmine. He also believes she raised Charles to be a “sissy.”
Uncle Henry Hamilton is business-minded, conscience of money matters, assets, and inheritance. He likes Scarlett because she is also practical-minded when most women aren’t encouraged to be that way. Scarlett has never had to worry about money before, but the war is starting to affect the affluence of the South, and Scarlett’s practical mind might come in handy.
Themes
Living with Charles’s family helps Scarlett understand why Charles was so shy and delicate. His only role models had been Miss Pittypat and Melanie, who are both sweet and childlike. Miss Pittypat is always swooning due to her constantly fluttering heart. She loves gossip but never gets stories right; and although everyone loved her, no one listens to what she says. Melanie is kind and loving because she has never seen anything harsh or evil. She follows the Southern ideal that a woman’s life is more pleasant when she makes men feel good about themselves. Scarlett and Melanie both please men, but Melanie does this to make people happy whereas Scarlett does this to get her way.
Unlike Scarlett, Melanie fits to the Southern ideal that Ellen also embodies. In Scarlett’s relationships, she only pleases other people when it benefits her. Melanie, however, always tries to please everyone before she pleases herself, just like Ellen. Scarlett supposedly wants to be like Ellen one day, but her dislike of Melanie only makes this seem more unlikely. Scarlett thinks Melanie is kind because she hasn’t seen hardship, but Scarlett also hasn’t seen hardship. This suggests that Melanie selflessness is natural, just like Scarlett’s selfishness.
Themes
Scarlett misses the masculinity, fighting, and rowdiness of Tara. Here, everyone is polite and deferential. Scarlett soon discovers that Peter’s expectations about Scarlett’s behavior are even stricter than Mammy’s. Scarlett slowly regains her youthful energy. She’s jealous of Melanie and dislikes Miss Pittypat, but she’s happy. The enslaved staff even take Wade Hamilton off her hands. She’s only sad when Melanie mentions Ashley’s name or reads his letters aloud. All she wants is Ashley—or some beaus.
Scarlett feels out of place in Miss Pittypat’s house because only women live there. Scarlett has always felt that she doesn’t get along with women and is better suited to masculine company. She misses the manly, outdoor lifestyle at Tara, but Atlanta allows her to regain her youthfulness and shirk the oppressive responsibilities of motherhood.
Themes
Scarlett loathes working at the hospital. She is on both Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Meade’s committees. The war bores her and she has no “patriotic fervor.” The hospitals stink of gangrene and open wounds, and there are swarming mosquitoes. Melanie acts like this doesn’t bother her, though Scarlett finds her in a closet vomiting into a towel once. Melanie is called an “angel of mercy.” But Scarlett can’t stand touching the lice-ridden and diseased men. She can’t even flirt with them because she’s a widow. No one knows that her heart isn’t dead; it’s just with Ashley in Virginia.
The fact that Scarlett hates working at the hospital shows how little she’s able to empathize with others and with tragedies bigger than her own personal ones. The tragic sight of the wounded soldiers doesn’t make her take the war seriously or forget her selfish misery over losing her youth and Ashley. She wishes she could be called an angel like Melanie, but she is incapable of being merciful and selfless.
Themes
