CHAPTER 10

Summary 

Scarlett faces the repercussions of her night of dancing. Although Aunt Pittypat thinks her behavior utterly scandalous, Melanie, to Scarlett’s chagrin, defends her and says that perhaps they have been selfish in their grief and ought to begin getting out more.

A little slave boy brings Melanie a package, which Pittypat at first interprets as a note that Ashley is dead. Instead it is Melanie’s wedding ring, redeemed for ten times its value by Rhett Butler and returned to her with a note complimenting her for her courage. The gesture wins Melanie’s heart and convinces her that Rhett is a gentleman after all and must be invited to Sunday dinner. Scarlett thinks that an invitation to dinner was his primary motive for redeeming the ring.

Scarlett receives a severe letter from her mother followed by a visit from her father who is supposed to return with her to Tara. He intends to have a talk with Butler first, and ends up getting drunk and gambling away $500. Butler brings him home and helps Scarlett get him into the house and onto a settee in the parlor. The next morning, she taunts her father with his "disgraceful behavior" and promises not to tell her mother about it if he will leave her in Atlanta and tell Ellen that the stories of Scarlett’s behavior were nothing but the gossip of a couple of old biddies. 

CHAPTER 9

Summary 

Atlanta holds a bizarre/picnic as a means of raising money for the hospitals. Scarlett mopes for half the day because as a widow of barely a year, it isn’t considered proper for her to attend gala events. However, her hopes are revived when Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing come by looking for help to manage the McClure booth as the McClure girls have had to go to Virginia to fetch their wounded brother, and the Bonnell children have measles, which eliminates their mother. Miss Pittypat and Melanie decline, but Scarlett speaks up, saying they ought to help the cause of the hospital, and anyway, Charles would want it that way. Everyone is shocked, but they all see the gesture as one of supreme sacrifice on Scarlett’s part.

Scarlett is sitting in her booth reveling in the music and dancing, in spite of the fact that she cannot participate in the dance, when Rhett Butler, known in the area as "Captain Butler" appears. He exchanges repartee with the two girls, his comments for Melanie kindly and gentlemanly, but his words and looks for Scarlett both sarcastic and laden with an undercurrent of secret knowledge. He taunts her about her marriage to Charles and about her "sacrifice" in appearing at the bizarre as he knows she never loved Charles in the first place. He promises, however, that her secret is safe with him.

During the evening festivities, Dr. Meade makes a speech, thanking Captain Butler for his courageous blockade running and asking for a sacrifice from all present. Rene Picard, a Louisiana Zouve and beau to Maybelle Merriwether carries around a basket for all to toss their jewelry and gold coins into. Scarlett tosses in her wedding ring, and in a moment of intense emotion, Melanie takes off hers also and tosses it into the basket. Rhett Butler notices the look of agony on Melanie’s face as she parts with Ashley’s ring as well as the defiance on Scarlett’s. Scarlett and Rhett argue again as she accuses him of being less than a gentleman and he challenges her for her true thoughts about the "cause." Rhett himself has been running Yankee blockades to bring supplies to the south, but he has been doing it for the money, not for belief in any cause, and he makes no secret of the fact.

The final event of the evening is a dance. Then gentlemen are asked to bid for the lady they would like as a partner. Rhett bids for Scarlett. Dr. Meade tries to refuse the offer, but Scarlett speaks up and says she will take the dance. She tosses public expectation along with her reputation to the wind and dances "for the cause." She and Rhett discuss the ongoing war briefly. Rhett expects the south to lose, but he intends to become a millionaire himself in the process. 

PART TWO CHAPTER 8

Summary 

Scarlett arrives in Atlanta and is met by Peter, Miss Pittypat’s slave who drives the carriage and does just about anything else Pittypat needs. She also meets Mrs. Merriwether and hears of Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Whiting. Mrs. Merriwether speaks of a hospital, but Scarlett has no idea what she is talking about. In the distance she spots Belle Watling, the town prostitute. Upon arriving at her aunt’s house, she is greeted by Dr. Meade and his wife and thirteen year old son, Phil.

In spite of her distaste for the idea, Scarlett has no choice but to assist in one of the hospitals with all the other women. Her spirits improve in spite of that duty. Her only real complaint is that the women treat her deferentially, out of regard for her widowhood. It is expected that she is still in mourning, but in reality, her heart is in Virginia with Ashley. 

CHAPTER 7

Summary 

Scarlett marries Charles and is a widow within two months. Trying to steal the show from Melanie, she sets her wedding for the day before that of Melanie and Ashley. On her wedding night, however, she refuses to allow Charles to sleep with her as that part of marriage had not occurred to her. She spends two weeks hoping for a word alone with Ashley, but without success. Ashley and Charles both leave to join the troops, and five weeks later Scarlett receives word that Charles has died of an illness. Before a year is out, Scarlett gives birth to Charles’ son, Wade Hampton Hamilton. Although she has an easy birth, she becomes despondent and ill which those around her attribute to her grief over the loss of Charles. Actually, it is boredom, confusion over her sudden motherhood and continued anguish over the absence of Ashley.

Finally the family decides to send her to Savannah to visit relatives, but she returns after only a month of absence. Then she receives a letter from Aunt Pittypat asking her to come and stay with them in Atlanta, as the two women are alone Scarlett decides to go in spite of a lack of affection for either Aunt Pittypat or Melanie. Any change from Tara and the memories associated with the neighborhood seems welcome. 

CHAPTER 6

Summary

The barbecue takes place at the Wilkes’ Twelve Oaks Plantation. Everyone from miles around is in attendance. Scarlett notices with a scorn that her sister Suellen has singled out Frank Kennedy to flirt with. India Wilkes is nowhere to be seen, but Scarlett knows that she in interested in Stuart Tarleton who has appeared to prefer Scarlett. She compares herself with many of the other girls. The Wilkes girls, particularly, she considers "plain." Frank Kennedy is nearly 40 and not particularly handsome, but Scarlett smiles flirtatiously at him anyway as part of her plan to make Ashley jealous. Before descending the stairs to touch up her hair, she greets Charles Hamilton, calling him a "handsome old thing." He blushes, as he is not used to girls speaking so to him.

Scarlett notices a strange, dark man and soon finds out that he is Rhett Butler, a man with a "terrible reputation" whose own folks won’t even talk to him. Supposedly his reputation was compromised when he took a girl out buggy riding and kept her out nearly all night due to an accident with the buggy. Since he hadn’t done anything to her, he refused to marry her. The girl’s brother called him out in a duel, and Rhett shot the boy.

During the barbecue, Scarlett purposely sits apart from the other people, the better to draw all the boys around her. Charles Hamilton ignores Honey Wilkes who is ready to cry. Frank Kennedy fusses over Scarlett, ignoring Suellen, and the Munroe girls try to hide their frustration over the Fontaine boys who are supposed to be their beaux. Meanwhile, Scarlett tries to draw Ashley into the circle around her, but he has eyes only for Melanie. The custom is for the girls to retire to the bedrooms and take an afternoon nap between the noon barbecue and the evening dance, but first the guests enter a discussion on the possibility of war and on who will sign up to fight. At one point Rhett Butler antagonizes the men by reminding them that there are no cannon factories south of the Mason Dixon line, just one detail of many in a lack of southern preparation. He says the Yankees would beat them in a month. Stuart Tarleton confronts Rhett, but Rhett rebukes him and excuses himself for some business he has to tend to with John Wilkes.

After making sure that Melanie is lying down along with the other girls, Scarlett sneaks downstairs and searches for a place to waylay Ashley. Finally she takes refuge in the library where Ashley accidentally spots her. There she tells him that she loves him and tries to convince him to abandon Melanie. He refuses, insisting that although he has always been fond of Scarlett, he believes they are too different for a marriage to ever work. Unable to change his mind, she finally slaps him. He leaves her fuming in the library. In a temper, she picks up a small bowl and hurls it across the room only to find that Rhett Butler has been lying on the sofa and has heard the entire exchange between herself and Ashley. In a fury, she leaves the library, hoping she will be able to slip into one of the dressing rooms and then onto one of the beds beside the other girls. Her plans are disrupted by the sound of female voices. Scarlett hears the other girls talking about her, and, to her chagrin, Melanie is defending her. Scarlett considers it just Melanie’s way of flaunting her success with Ashley.

In a desperate attempt to show her competitors that they can’t hurt her, Scarlett agrees to marry Charlie. She finds that war has been declared and Charlie will join up, but she is going to marry him before he leaves.

CHAPTER 5

Summary 

Scarlett begins the day of the party by searching for a dress. Her best dress has a stain on it which she fears Melanie may notice even if she pins a brooch over it. Thus she chooses a sleeveless dress with a low-cut neckline; this and her refusal to eat a tray of food brings about a confrontation with Mammy. It is inappropriate to show one’s arms and bosom before 3:00, and according to Mammy, girls are supposed to stuff themselves with food prior to going to a party so they will be unable to eat more than a mouthful or two at the party. The sentiment of the day is that only girls who eat like a bird will catch a husband.

On the way to the party we are introduced to Mrs. Tarleton and her daughters as their carriage meets up with the O’Hara carriage. They engage in friendly informal banter, the girls teasing their mother for flirting with Mr. O’Hara. Scarlett is shocked at the freedom with which the Tarletons act; yet it is obvious that they adore each other. She envies the assuredness with which the Tarleton girls conduct themselves. Gerald and Mrs. Tarleton discuss horses for a bit, then the conversations shifts to Ashley’s engagement to Melanie. Mrs. Tarleton disapproves of marriage among cousins, as she believes it "weakens the strain." Gerald begins to get embarrassed as such frank conversation would be considered most improper if Ellen were to hear about it. Finally Hetty Tarleton urges them to move on to the party. Gerald manages to detain them long enough to ask Mrs. Tarleton if she has reconsidered her unwillingness to sell her horses to the Troop when they go to war. She says she will do no such thing, but then suggests that perhaps there will be no war anyway. 

CHAPTER 4

Summary 

During supper, Pork arrives with the new slave Dilcey and her daughter Prissy who will be given to Scarlett for her personal maid. Then Ellen arrives home with the news that the Slattery baby is dead. The family undertakes their usual ritual of evening prayers, directed by Ellen who is a devout Catholic. During the prayers, Scarlett’s mind wanders to Ashley. It occurs to her that the only reason Ashley has proposed to Melanie is because he doesn’t know that she is in love with him herself. She plots for some way to tell him during the upcoming barbecue. In her imagination, she convinces herself that if Ashley only knows of her love, he will abandon Melanie and beg her to run away with him.

After prayers, Scarlett overhears her mother tell Gerald that he must fire Jonas Wilkerson, his overseer, as Jonas is the father of the dead Slattery baby. Jonas is a "Yankee man." 

CHAPTER 3

Summary 

hapter three is the background of Ellen and Gerald O’Hara. Ellen had been a Savannah girl who had not been permitted to marry the boy she loved. He had later been killed in a barroom brawl. Ellen was angry and desperate to get away from the people she blamed for Philippe Robillard’s death. When Gerald appeared in Savannah and asked to marry her, she quietly agreed to go with him.

As for Gerald, he was a hot-tempered Irishman forced to leave his homeland after killing his landlord’s rent agent. He followed the way of his brother James and Andrew and worked in their store in Savannah for a while. One night he wins the Tara homestead in a gambling match. The original house had burned and the fields are untended, but Gerald is happy to get it nonetheless. He clears the fields and plants cotton, and the house is built by slave labor. At the age of 43, after building and developing Tara for ten years, he decides he needs a wife. With his slave Pork, he goes to Savannah, intending to propose to Ellen Robillard. He never finds out that the only reason Ellen’s father gives in to her is because she swears that she will either marry Gerald O’Hara or go into a convent.

The following year, Scarlett is born. A year later, Susan Elinor - called Suellen -comes along, and finally Carreen, whose name is short for "Caroline Irene." Ellen gives birth to three little boys as well, but none of them live. Because of her graciousness, Ellen is soon the best-loved neighbor in the county. She tries to teach her own manners and breeding to Scarlett, but although Scarlett behaves appropriately in sight of her mother, she teaching has little impact.

Scarlett adores her mother and hopes to be like her someday, but believes that she will miss out on too much of life if she tries to practice the same gentility, tenderness and justice while she is young. 

CHAPTER 2

Summary

Scarlett allows herself to react to the Tarleton twins’ news. She is unable to believe that Ashley could be marrying Melanie as she has had a crush on him herself for years.

We meet Mammy, the black woman who had been mammy to Scarlett’s mother Ellen and has led a life devoted to the O’Hara family. She oversees all the household servants and watches over the health and behavior of the O’Hara girls. Scarlett takes advantage of a moment when Mammy goes after a shawl for her to run down the long mansion drive where she can meet her father. He had been at the Wilkes making deals for another slave, and Scarlett thinks she can get him to talk about the supposed engagement without being suspicious of her motives.

Scarlett waits at the fence, musing on the blond Ashley whom she wants even though she must admit that she doesn’t understand him. Finally her father comes racing through the fields, recklessly jumping a fence, an action he knows his wife would not approve of. Scarlett deliberately laughs to let him know she has seen him. She will not tell on him, however, as the two of them have quite a few mutual secrets involving behavior that would be considered inappropriate for either a gentleman or a lady. Gerald O’Hara tells his daughter of the slave he has bought. He has purchased Dilcey and her daughter Prissy from John Wilkes. He intends to give Prissy to Scarlett.

When Scarlett asks after Ashley, Gerald confirms the news that Ashley is about to marry Melanie Hamilton. Scarlett pretends she is not really interested, but Gerald sees through her and scolds her for wanting someone whose interests are in books, poetry, music and paintings, topics that do not interest Scarlett at all. Gerald tries to console her by telling her that she will have Tara one day, but she is feeling sorry for herself and says that land doesn’t amount to anything. Gerald is momentarily angry with her, but he drops the issue. They arrive at home in time to see Ellen on her way out. She has received a call from the Slatterys, a "white trash" family near by who have a new, and dying, baby. Mammy objects to Ellen going to take care of the "white trash," but she cannot stop her. 

GONE WITH THE WIND

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Summary 

Scarlett O’Hara is seated on the porch of the O’Hara plantation. She flirts with Stuart and Brent Tarleton, two among many young men of the area who seem to be attracted to her. The boys are at the O’Hara home in order to prolong going to their own, as they have just been expelled from the fourth university in two years. The three of them think the expulsion quite amusing although the boys excuse their behavior by saying they would have had to come home as soon as war broke out anyway. Scarlett scoffs at the idea, refusing to believe that there will ever be a war.

During the conversation, Stuart and Brent remind Scarlett of a barbecue being held the following evening. They want her to promise them plenty of dances. They inform Scarlett that they have heard that Ashley Wilkes will announce his engagement to Melanie Hamilton at the barbecue. Although Scarlett retains her poise, the news is a shock to her, and she suddenly becomes distant from the young men, forgetting even to ask them to stay to supper.

After leaving Scarlett, Brent and Stuart introduce, by way of discussion about them, several other characters such as India Wilkes and Letty Monroe, both rivals of Scarlett’s. They have two more brothers named Tom and Boyd, and a black slave named Jeems. They decide to visit the Calverts for supper. They finally dismiss that idea because they dread another lecture at the hands of a Yankee stepmother. They finally decide to go to the Wynders.

The end of the chapter describes an assembly of upper class boys turned soldiers, called the Troop. They are a group of Calvary that had been organized on the day Georgia seceded from the Union. They are completely inexperienced and have selected officers merely by voting among themselves. Initially they recruited only among the rich planters, but for lack of numbers they also recruited from the families of small farmers, hunters and other "poor whites." The wealthier families purchased their horses and their weapons were a varied array of whatever could be gathered. The Troop meets twice a week to drill in Jonesboro, always ending up in saloons and in fights.