Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind

by

Margaret Mitchell

Ellen O’Hara Character Analysis

Ellen O’Hara, originally Ellen Robillard, is Scarlett’s mother and Gerald’s wife. Before marrying Gerald, Ellen lived in Charleston and was in love with her cousin, Phillippe Robillard. When Phillippe died in a bar brawl, Ellen married Gerald and became the mistress of Tara. She is elegant, string, and compassionate, tending to the poor white Slattery family when they are ill and giving her family her whole attention. Though Gerald is the owner of Tara, it’s well known that Ellen is the one who actually makes the rules—enslaved people on the plantation only began to obey when she married Gerald. During the war she catches typhoid fever from Emmie Slattery and dies, calling Phillippe’s name on her deathbed. As far as Scarlett is concerned, Ellen is the picture of a great lady. However, during the war, Scarlett realizes that the things her mother taught her were most important, such as manners, compassion, and dignity, are useless when one is hungry and poor. Throughout the story, Scarlett strays from the example Ellen sets, marrying men for money and running a business in an unladylike manner. But Scarlett continues to idolize her mother, and still imagines that she’ll be a great lady like Ellen when she isn’t poor anymore.

Ellen O’Hara Quotes in Gone with the Wind

The Gone with the Wind quotes below are all either spoken by Ellen O’Hara or refer to Ellen O’Hara . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Gerald O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara , Frank Kennedy
Related Symbols: Tara
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy streets, lying among rolling red hills, something raw and crude that appealed to the rawness and crudeness underlying the fine veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her. She suddenly felt that this was where she belonged, not in serene and quiet old cities, flat beside yellow waters.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Mammy , Ellen O’Hara
Related Symbols: Atlanta, Tara
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

Something that was youth and beauty and potential tenderness had gone out of her face forever. What was past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return. […] There was no going back and she was going forward.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ashley Wilkes , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 407
Explanation and Analysis:

Nothing her mother had taught her was of any value whatsoever now and Scarlett’s heart was sore and puzzled. It did not occur to her that Ellen had could not have foreseen the collapse of the civilization in which she raised her daughters, […] that Ellen looked down a vista of placid future years, all like the uneventful years of her own life, when she had taught her to be gentle and gracious, honorable and kind, modest and truthful.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 413
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

No matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile—bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard. […] The old days had gone but these people would go their ways as if the old days still existed, charming, leisurely, determined not to rush and scramble for pennies as the Yankees did, determined to part with none of the old ways.

[…] It took money to be a lady. She knew Ellen would have fainted had she ever heard such words from her daughter.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 569
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 63 Quotes

“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. […] After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara (speaker), Rhett Butler , Ashley Wilkes , Ellen O’Hara , Johnnie Gallegher
Related Symbols: Tara
Page Number: 959
Explanation and Analysis:
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Ellen O’Hara Quotes in Gone with the Wind

The Gone with the Wind quotes below are all either spoken by Ellen O’Hara or refer to Ellen O’Hara . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Gerald O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara , Frank Kennedy
Related Symbols: Tara
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy streets, lying among rolling red hills, something raw and crude that appealed to the rawness and crudeness underlying the fine veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her. She suddenly felt that this was where she belonged, not in serene and quiet old cities, flat beside yellow waters.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Mammy , Ellen O’Hara
Related Symbols: Atlanta, Tara
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

Something that was youth and beauty and potential tenderness had gone out of her face forever. What was past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return. […] There was no going back and she was going forward.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ashley Wilkes , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 407
Explanation and Analysis:

Nothing her mother had taught her was of any value whatsoever now and Scarlett’s heart was sore and puzzled. It did not occur to her that Ellen had could not have foreseen the collapse of the civilization in which she raised her daughters, […] that Ellen looked down a vista of placid future years, all like the uneventful years of her own life, when she had taught her to be gentle and gracious, honorable and kind, modest and truthful.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 413
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

No matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile—bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard. […] The old days had gone but these people would go their ways as if the old days still existed, charming, leisurely, determined not to rush and scramble for pennies as the Yankees did, determined to part with none of the old ways.

[…] It took money to be a lady. She knew Ellen would have fainted had she ever heard such words from her daughter.

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara , Ellen O’Hara
Page Number: 569
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 63 Quotes

“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. […] After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Related Characters: Scarlett O’Hara (speaker), Rhett Butler , Ashley Wilkes , Ellen O’Hara , Johnnie Gallegher
Related Symbols: Tara
Page Number: 959
Explanation and Analysis: