Rhett and Ashley serve as foils for each other throughout the novel, with Ashley’s idealistic, dreamy, and impractical manner offering a sharp contrast to Rhett’s cynical pragmatism. In a pivotal scene, Ashley speaks frankly with Scarlett about the traits he shares with Rhett: 

We came of the same kind of people, we were raised in the same pattern, brought up to think the same things. And somewhere along the road we took different turnings. We still think alike but we react differently. As, for instance, neither of us believed in war but I enlisted and fought and he stayed out till nearly the end. We both knew the war was all wrong. We both knew it was a losing fight. I was willing to fight a losing fight. He wasn’t. Sometimes I think he was right and then, again—

Though Rhett and Ashley are distinct in many important ways, both men are, in their own ways, unusual figures in Southern society as depicted in the novel. Like Rhett, Ashley quickly understood the difficult predicament of the Confederate States in the Civil War. Both men “came of the same kind of people,” Ashley claims, and were “brought up to think the same things.” Here, however, Ashley acknowledges that he and Rhett have made different choices despite their similar backgrounds. While both men knew “the war was all wrong,” Ashley was “willing to fight a losing fight” where Rhett was willing to play both sides of the war for personal profit. These two men, foils throughout the novel and unwitting rivals for Scarlett’s affection, were able to see what other Southerners refused to acknowledge.