I read that book when I was 15 , but even the romantic soul that I was , I didn't think much of Rhett or Scarlett. Never re read it . Only watched the movie because my whole family was watching it.

But I end up on Erin's side of the story. Not only did scarlet not have the voice to say yes -- in MM's time ( 1936) woman still had the lack of vocabulary to say yes. And love was surrender. So from an historical perspective , it was the culture.

and I am guessing if Scarlett and Rhett ended up happily every after I might have bought it at 15 . I think even then I assumed mutual surrender.

(coming in late) Also, considering the culture Scarlett was from, it was considered totally inappropriate for a woman to want sex ... it was inappropriate for a woman to actually WANT things, serious things.

But, yes, the scene skeeves me (from the book ... I've never actually seen the entire movie).

I have never liked Scarlett. But the older I get, the more sympathetic I feel for her. But I still don't like her.

I don't like Rhett. But I find him appealing -- character flaws and all, which has a large part to do with me envisioning Clark Gable as Rhett, and NSM the literary character.

Well, the thing about Scarlett, and I am not saying she is a feminist ideal by any means, is that she had sort of a fire burning in her that she didn't know how to reconcile with how she was supposed to act. I think she was certainly (at least in the movie) at her best when she was picking cotton and running the household at Tara post war. Even though she desperately wanted to get out of it, she was able to be almost a good person at the time. I think the movie, while admiring her, portrayed the fire to be her ultimate downfall and things could have been very different for her if the idea was for her to accept and embrace her difference from the social mores of her day, where she was pretty much reduced to her machinations and manipulations of the men around her.

I can no longer watch the movie, though, because of the slaves and the carpetbagger portrayals. It makes me too sad.

I don't really have much to say about the Gone With the Wind debate except that when I first read the passage Hil posted for the first few sentences I thought it was about Twilight...which was confusing

Also when I first read Gone With the Wind I only liked Rhett and Melanie and would have rather read about them together than chuck Scarlett.

I am not saying she is a feminist ideal by any means, is that she had sort of a fire burning in her that she didn't know how to reconcile with how she was supposed to act.

This. I actually think that there are a lot of parallels between her and Betty Draper in this respect.

Huhn. I remember being a young teen completely enamoured by Scarlett's beauty and power and ability to take damn near anything in stride and come out on top of the situation. At that time, I just thought that if Scarlett hadn't wanted Rhett, she would have bitten his ear and made him drop her.

Later, of course, I came to question all those old timey social mores down there in the land of Dixie. I remember seeing GWTW at the Castro Theatre and becoming annoyed with all the PC types whistling at the screen during offensive content. And I remember wishing heartily that all those self righteous people would shut up and enjoy the movie as a time traveler from a place and time society has managed to improve upon.

If I could have met any character in GWTW, it would have been Miss Melly.

Also when I first read Gone With the Wind I only liked Rhett and Melanie and would have rather read about them together than chuck Scarlett.

The book would have been better if Ashley had come back as a zombie. I still hold this to be true.

Ashley Wilkes was kinda zombielike as a living man. He kind of stayed inert while great things happened all around him.

That wasn't enough for my 11 year old, horror-reading self. I wanted monsters and the shambling undead. (I've mentioned that I was forced to read GWTW, right? To say I didn't like it is a bit of an understatement.)