The Character of Scarlet in Gone With the Wind Essay -- Gone With the

The Character of Scarlet in Gone With the Wind  Ã‚     "My Dear, I don't give a damn," (718) Rhett Butler says this infamous quote to Scarlet O'Hara at the end of Gone With the Wind (1934), when the woman has finally poured her soul to him. The novel Gone with the Wind (1934) by Margaret Mitchell is a classic about the hard times suffered during and after the Civil War. Scarlet lives in the Confederacy and everyone there is for fighting for his or her noble Cause. The young southern belle Scarlet O'Hara is forced to do things she never thought a girl of her class and nature would have to do. All throughout the novel, she is faced with serious problems. Scarlet plainly states, I'll not think of that today, I'll think of it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day, which of course she never does. It is this thought however, that makes her character stay strong, although sometimes living in a daydream. Without telling herself this, Scarlet would have broken down in the very beginning after the war had started. Scarlet lives for the future and not the past. It's this about her that makes her character admirable and noble At first the reader would think Scarlet's character is snobbish and helpless. Through her determination, she forces others to change their opinion of her. In the beginning, she is a young, beautiful sixteen -year old, with a seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in the county. At parties, she never has less than a dozen young men surrounding her, all of whom she never lets know whom she truly loves. The other girls find Scarlet heartless, the way she leads all those boys on, but Scarlet pays no mind to them. She knows they are just bitter with jealousy. She does truly love Ashley Wilkes, but he is to announce his enga... ...d a cause of her own. While many characters in the book fought and died for the great Cause, she cared more about her own. Scarlet had to care for Tara and her family. Although many see her as repulsive, by looking at her acts, she made herself strong with words. The once young and carefree girl was forced to marry for money, not for love, twice. When Scarlet finally let her only true love in life, Rhett Butler, know how she felt about him, she realizes all too late how horrid she's acted, he finally puts Scarlet in her place by stating "My dear, I don't give a damn." At these words, Scarlet still does not break down. After all she has been through she knows what to do. She tells her self that tomorrow is another day, and tomorrow she will get Rhett back.   Works Cited Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. NewYork: The Macmillan Company,1994