Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler
Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler
I read GONE WITH THE WIND when I was in 8th grade. I sobbed when the book ended. “Please, please,” I begged my mother, “please tell me that Scarlett somehow manages to win Rhett back.” My mother, ever the cynic, simply shrugged and said, “Oh course she doesn’t. She trashed their relationship, made a mockery of him and of their marriage. He was done with her. He’d never take her back.”
I am such a romantic. My mother’s words came as a crushing blow. How could Scarlett not win Rhett back? Scarlett was a strong, determined woman, and through the entire novel, she was always able to get what she wanted. Rhett Butler was a strong character, too. No wonder the two of them had such difficulties! But through it all, he believed in Scarlett. He immediately recognized and loved her for what she was: a bold beautiful woman, struggling against the confines and dictates of the primping and proper society in which they lived. They were both renegades. That was part of the problem: Rhett knew it, and Scarlett didn’t. Rhett saw her for the strong savvy woman she was, while Scarlett had another image of herself in mind… if only she could mold herself to be the woman Ashley Wilkes desired. If only she could be like Melanie. If only…
How many of us live our lives wishing and waiting for that ‘if only…’ to come? Scarlett (fortunately or unfortunately) never had the chance.
vivien-leigh-gone-with-the-windThe beauty of Scarlett’s character was that she WAS who she was. As the war years descended upon the nation, with north and south struggling to survive, Scarlett was forced to confront her true character. She had no choice. She lost her parents. She struggled with poverty, despair, hunger. People grew to depend on her. She could no longer afford to be the simpering vamp. Scarlett did what she had to do. She had to be strong. She had to be tough. And when the day came that Rhett finally was able to convince her to marry him, it was as if the very thing he had loved most about her had somehow been set aside. Scarlett was no longer the young beautiful girl who he’d wanted to spoil and pamper. She had been through so much, and she was forever changed. But so was Rhett. The time they lived in, the beautiful sweeping setting of the genteel south and a way of life they’d known forever had been blown away by the civil war. The things that Scarlett always deemed so important vanished… and in the end, so did Rhett.
We all know how the book ends. But I am no longer that 13 year old girl sobbing my eyes out, believing that Scarlett’s dreams of a happily-ever-after died when Rhett walked out of her life. I am a woman now, and I know that things don’t always turn out the way you assume they will. People make mistakes. Scarlett made mistakes, and so did Rhett. When those two lost their beautiful Bonnie in a tragic accident, Rhett’s heart was shattered. He was bowed and broken, and he needed time to heal. He turned away from everything that was his past… including Scarlett. frankly_my_dear “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
But did he? Does he? Because in my heart of heart, I do believe Scarlett and Rhett end up together. Scarlett had grown up enough, and learned enough, to grant Rhett the time and the space he needed. She had learned her lessons, and learned through her mistakes how to allow her heart to be open and vulnerable.
What do YOU think? Do you, like my mother, believe that the romance between Scarlet and Rhett is dead… or are you like me? For I believe, in the end, that theirs is not a happily-ever-after tale. Rather, the sequel for Scarlett and Rhett lives on in my heart, and it is a beautiful we-survived-and-we-love-each-other-all-the-more-for-it tale.
