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Chapter 1
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
Back at Tara, Scarlett is miserable. For the first time in her life, she isn’t getting her way. She can’t believe that Ashley Wilkes is going to marry the ugly, boring Melanie Hamilton when she knows that he really loves her. She hears Mammy, the O’Hara’s enslaved woman, approaching, and she quickly dries her eyes. If Mammy sees she’s upset, she will go to Ellen O’Hara who’ll get the secret out of Scarlett. Mammy is deeply devoted to the O’Haras and shows her love by chastening them. Mammy scolds Scarlett for not inviting Brent and Stuart to supper and asks why her voice sounds hoarse. Scarlett changes the subject and says she wants to watch the sunset.
Mammy is introduced as an omniscient presence at Tara who act like she has more ownership over the O’Haras than they do over her. As an enslaved woman, Mammy isn’t free to be proud of any of her own possessions or devoted to any of her own pursuits the way she is to the O’Haras. Although Mammy is portrayed as genuinely devoted to the O’Haras, it must be acknowledged that all the things that make a person proud of themselves have been taken away from her in her enslavement.
Themes
While Mammy gets Scarlett’s shawl, Scarlett decides to go down the drive to meet her father, Gerald O’Hara, on his way home. He’s been at the Wilkeses’ on business, and she wonders if he’s heard about the engagement. She sneaks down the drive, sits on a stump, and waits. She thinks of Ashley, feeling anxious and upset. Growing up, she’d never thought of Ashley as anything more than a friend. However, when he came back from Europe three years ago, she wanted him “simply and unreasoningly.” Ever since, they’ve seen each other weekly. Although he’s never said so, she knows he loves her.
Although Scarlett feels very strongly that Ashley loves her, there is a vagueness to their relationship. Scarlett grew up with Ashley as a playmate, and only decided he loved him when he returned from a long absence. Also, she loves him “unreasoningly,” meaning that she can’t put her finger on why she loves him. This vagueness is part of what draws her to him; because he is not obvious about his love, she is convinced that he loves her.
Themes
Ashley is courteous, but remote. He is good at riding and shooting like other men, but unlike them he’s interested in books and music. These things don’t interest Scarlett, but that doesn’t matter. She loves him, wants him, and doesn’t understand him. With Ashley, she’s up against a “complex nature” for the first time in her life. He lives in a dreamy world of the mind, and his mystery excites her. It can’t be true that he’s going to marry Melanie. Just the other day he said he had something important to tell her. His words seem tragic now. The sun sets over the land Scarlett loves, though she doesn’t know she loves it.
Essentially, Scarlett wants what’s unfamiliar and therefore feels exciting to her. Ashley is attractive because he’s not like other men, whom Scarlett seems to think she understands on some level. On the other hand, the novel presents it as fact that Scarlett loves the South but doesn’t know it. Taken together, this suggests that when it comes to love—whether of a place or a person—Scarlett is naïve and still figuring out how romance works.
Themes
Suddenly, Gerald comes up the drive at a gallop. Scarlett admires his riding as Gerald jumps his horse gracefully over the fence then comes to a halt. Scarlett laughs. Gerald notices her and scolds her affectionately for spying on him. He smells pleasantly of bourbon and tobacco. He’s a short man, but so muscular that he appears large. Although his hair is white, his face is youthful because he’s never worried about much besides poker. His gruff exterior poorly conceals his soft heart. Everyone on the plantation knows that Ellen is actually in charge—except for Gerald.
Like Scarlett, Gerald has an interior and an exterior self that don’t fully match. While Scarlett appears soft and youthful on the outside, she is strong and willful on the inside (per the novel’s opening lines). On the other hand, Gerald is masculine and gruff on the outside but has a soft heart. Scarlett admires this about her father, but it’s important to note that the novel implies that Gerald’s soft heart is what keeps him from actually controlling things at Tara.
Themes
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Scarlett and Gerald have a special bond because they keep secrets for each other from Mammy and Ellen. Gerald, for instance, isn’t supposed to be jumping his horse after injuring his knee, but Scarlett won’t tell anyone. Similarly, Gerald doesn’t say anything when he catches Scarlett climbing fences instead of using gates. Scarlett is comforted by Gerald’s “earthy” nature, not knowing that she possesses the same qualities. She teases Gerald for jumping the fence and fixing his cravat to conceal the evidence from Ellen.
Significantly, Scarlett seeks Gerald in her distress, and avoided confrontation with Mammy and Ellen, both women. She is drawn to Gerald’s “earthy” nature (by which the novel means he's down-to-earth and practical) because she is the same way. Indeed, the novel implies that Scarlett is much more like her father than her mother in terms of her personality, though the novel makes it clear that Scarlett isn’t yet aware of this.
Themes
Gerald explains that he bought Dilcey, the wife of their enslaved man Pork, from the Wilkeses where she’d been enslaved. He then starts to talk about the war, but Scarlett impatiently changes the subject to tomorrow’s barbecue. Gerald mentions that Melanie Hamilton, that “sweet little thing,” is visiting from Atlanta. Crestfallen, Scarlett asks about Ashley.
This passage reveals that slavery cruelly separated enslaved persons from their families. Then, the novel questions what Melanie Hamilton is really like. Scarlett, whose opinion is biased because of her feeling for Ashley, thinks Melanie is ugly and boring, but Gerald seems to of her.
Themes
Suspicious, Gerald asks Scarlett why she’s asking after Ashley; has he proposed to her? Scarlett answers no. Then, Gerald confirms that Ashley and Melanie are engaged and will announce it at the barbecue. Scarlett is visibly upset, and Gerald becomes angry. He accuses her of running after Ashley and tells her there’ll be plenty of other men. Scarlett despairs that he’s trying to placate her like a child. Gerald admits that he doesn’t think Ashley would make her happy anyway; marriages are only happy when like marries like.
Before, it was made clear that Scarlett loves Ashley because he is different from her, and she can’t understand him. Here, Gerald states that love only makes sense between two like people who do understand each other. This raises the question of whether Scarlett’s opinion is childish and naïve as Gerald suggests, or if Gerald’s opinion is old-fashioned.
Themes
Gerald goes on to say that the Wilkeses are “queer folk.” Scarlett starts to protest but Gerald insists that even a cheater or a drunk would make Scarlett happier than Ashley because he’s impossible to understand. She wouldn’t be able to change him, and he’d always be reading and thinking. He’s “moonstruck,” like all the Wilkeses. Gerald suggests Scarlett marry Cade Calvert and live at Tara after Gerald passes away. Scarlett says that she doesn’t want Cade or any plantation—she secretly believes that no land amounts to anything without the right man. Offended, Gerald insists that land is everything.
Gerald thinks the Wilkeses aren’t normal. Ashley is “moonstruck,” or is out of touch with reality. Because Gerald believes land is so important and wants to leave Tara to Scarlett when he dies, he doesn’t want her to marry someone who isn’t down to earth and only dreams all the time. But Scarlett feels that land is nothing without love. Their debate raises the question of whether love or land is more important to happiness.
Themes
Gerald says that women shouldn’t be allowed to choose their own husbands. All that matters is that the husband is Southern, prideful, and like-minded. For a woman, “love comes after marriage.” Scarlett says this is a tired idea. Gerald commands Scarlett to be prideful, and not reveal her misery to anyone. She dries her eyes and they head toward the house.
Gerald’s idea that love comes after marriage highlights one way that Southern society keeps women powerless: women, Gerald insists, shouldn’t have control over major aspects of their lives and should just learn to live with the decisions other people (presumably, men) make for them. Because she’s so independent, Scarlett finds this absurd.
Themes
Mrs. O’Hara and Mammy are standing on the porch. They’re headed to the Slatterys to baptize a newborn baby who’s on the verge of death. Mammy grumbles that they shouldn’t be giving so much help to “po’ w’ite trash” like the Slatterys. Gerald grumbles something similar. He heads into the house, having completely forgotten Scarlett’s heartbreak. As she follows, Scarlett wonders how a match between her and Ashley could be stranger than the match between her parents, who aren’t at all alike.
Mammy feels the same superiority over poor people that Jeems did, showing that she too is oppressed by the notion that her enslavement by the O’Haras dignifies her. Gerald’s classist disgust of the Slatterys contrasts with Ellen’s kindness towards them, leading Scarlett to believe more strongly that marriages between unlike people are actually the successful ones.
Themes
