**CONTAINS SPOILERS**

In my opinion: Yes. I’ve read this book 11 times and have seen the movie more times than I can count. I’ve been a “Windy” since I was 10, I am 42 now and still adore everything GWTW.

Rhett leaving Scarlett was necessary. For him, this relationship was toxic, painful. He was very much in love with Scarlett, and willing to do almost anything to prove that. However, proving that doesn’t make one wake up and realize they also love you.

Scarlett’s “habit” of being “in love” with Ashley Wilkes was a never-ending cycle. Really, Scarlett’s issues were wanting something she could not have and obsessing over that fact- mistaking this (in the case of Ashley) for love.

In the beginning of the book, Ashley and Scarlett’s relationship is described as them spending time together (which, I guess Scarlett considered him as courting her, but Ashley did not) It was not a romantic time spent, but merely a deep friendship/admiration) Which is the type of love Ashley felt for Scarlett throughout. His attraction to her was more in a physical sense, as opposed to Melanie (his cousin and later wife) was true love. Scarlett was everything Ashley was not: despite her obvious beauty (although the first line of the book is “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful. Though men seldom realized this when caught by her charm…”) Scarlett was fiercely determined, passionate, brave, strong and willing to fight for whatever she believed was hers until the death. He admired her more than anything else because he lacked these qualities within himself. Because of their extreme “opposites attract” Ashley was mature enough (and knew Scarlett well enough) to know a true relationship between them would never work. He kept Scarlett at arms-length and this is what fueled her attraction to him. Scarlett was used to getting whatever she wanted, however Ashley was the one thing she couldn’t seem to have. Driving her throughout most of her life into believing that Ashley was somehow her only means of finding peace, love and happiness, when all along she had that in Rhett Butler, had she only allowed herself to let go of the “fantasy” of Ashley.

Sometimes, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. That was true for Scarlett. For her, when Melanie passes, and she sees how truly lost Ashley is without her, she realizes then what love really is. She also realizes that she has loved something that “never really existed.”

Scarlett’s recurring nightmare, throughout both the book and the movie, of running through the mist and being unable to find what she’s looking for is, in fact, Rhett. This is beautifully done in the movie when her realization of her love for Rhett hits her like a bucket of ice water in her face. She runs (through the mist) from Ashley and Melanie’s home to she and Rhett’s to find him packing it in and leaving after he saw the two embrace after Melanie passed away.

I always felt Rhett’s decision at this point was a bit hasty. Yes, Scarlett did hold animosity towards Melanie, but she honestly did love her, and was genuinely grieving in her death. When seeing Ashley was, as well, and being as the two have been friends since childhood, it was only natural for her to come to Ashley’s side.

Rhett was standing in a defensive posture, not at all looking sad (which surprised me, as he too, adored Melanie for her gentle ways and kind heart. Everything Scarlett was not)

When Rhett makes his decision to leave it is out of pain he believes will never end, especially now that Melanie has passed away. He believes he has lost Scarlett forever and her “dreams of Ashley can come true.” However, Rhett doesn’t know Scarlett just had an epiphany of her lifetime: Realizing that everything, always, had led to Rhett. That he was who she had truly loved all along.

Though even while explaining this to Rhett, it is too difficult for him trust Scarlett at this point, with his heart. She has hurt him, unfortunately, in ways that were mistaken by the general public and led to nasty gossip.

Scarlett was NEVER physically unfaithful to Rhett. However, in her mind she may have wondered what her life would’ve been like had she ended up with Ashley, and she would still keep that fantasy of him alive, never allowing herself to give herself completely to Rhett.

This was something Rhett could no longer stand for and the threat of Ashley, now being a widower, was far too much for him to handle. He had waited long enough for Scarlett, and too much was at stake now. He simply loved her too much, and could not take the pain of losing her to another. Why not leave her first?

By leaving Scarlett, this is the best lesson he could’ve taught her (if that was what he was trying to do) I believe this would open Scarlett’s eyes to the person she was. How she was behaving during her marriage to Rhett, how much he really did put up with throughout all of it, and still approached her waiting to begin again. Up until the death of their child. Where Rhett became unhinged. He believed if Bonnie had lived “there was a chance they could be happy. But when she went, she took everything.” The death of his only daughter, whom he adored more than life, happening only days before Melanie’s death did not help this situation. I believe it clouded a lot of Rhett’s judgement and that he may have just needed to escape from the pain.

However, for Scarlett, this is the worst and best thing that could happen to her. It could teach her not to take people for granted (as she did Melanie, as well) to treat them as you would like to be treated.

My hope for Scarlett was that she changed, dramatically. Learned from her mistakes. And as everyone wishes: She got Rhett back!

Because Rhett thought Scarlett would get over Ashley eventually, and ultimately realize that she loved him. Unfortunately, Rhett was also a coward, emotionally, so he never told he loved her after they got married. Thus, all his hints went right over Scarlett’s head. He grew resentful of her, becoming needlessly cruel, bruising her, cheating on her, forcing himself on her/raping her, and running away. Even before that, he was often emotionally manipulative, verbally abusive, and somewhat predatory in his behavior and intentions towards Scarlett, such as proposing to her when she was drunk and miserable.

Granted, Scarlett wasn’t great either. She kept openly pining over Ashley Wilkes, even after she married Rhett, and Ashley had married Melanie Hamilton, which was a fool’s endeavor. She physically assaulted Rhett a couple of times. She attempted to use Rhett’s feelings for her when she needed money for Tara by offering herself up as his mistress to try to get his money, even though she knew he wanted more. She was needlessly cruel to Rhett about Bonnie’s death, too.

However, even when Scarlett did try to reach out to Rhett after that violent pre-sex staircase scene, Rhett just coldly left with Bonnie. Then, when he came back a few months later to find out she was pregnant with the child that he knew was his, he tries to pretend that he had nothing to do with it, and says “Maybe, you’ll have a miscarriage” right before she falls down the stairs after he dodges her attempt to physically assault him in response.

Rhett was such a coward that he couldn’t even bring himself to go to Scarlett’s room to check on her, tell her that he was sorry for hurting her, and tell her that he loved her after her nearly fatal miscarriage from her fall down the stairs, even though she literally begs for him to come to her in suffering. Instead, he just sat outside her room drunkenly suffering alone in his guilt and grief, hoping that she’d call for him to come to her side.

Rhett’s “My dear, I don’t give a damn” speech to Scarlett in the film starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh has become a cinematic meme to display the “empowering” idea of an exhausted man in a romantic relationship with a toxic woman choosing to leave her behind and tell her off for being a bitch. However, that idea completely ignores the recurring trait of Rhett also being the cause of many of his own problems in his destructive relationship with Scarlett throughout Gone With The Wind.

People often ignore the fact that Rhett was a coward. At least, he was a coward in the emotional sense of being too afraid to open his heart to love. Rhett resorted to pursuing Scarlett when he knew she was convinced she was in love with someone else. Then, he ended up abusing, cheating on, and isolating her because he grew to resent her when his hints went over her head. He expected her to do all the work to win his affections alone, even when he refused to let her in or pushed her away.

At the end of the novel, Rhett tells Scarlett that he “won’t risk his heart a third time” when he leaves her, but he never really risked it at all by being honest with her about his true feelings for her when it mattered most because he was too afraid of her rejection. Instead, he punished her for not loving him in return, and expected for her to catch on to increasingly rare hints that he cared. To be honest, I don’t think Rhett ever really loved Scarlett at all. He loved the thrill that came with the challenge of the chase in trying to win the heart of a woman who was seemingly unattainable. The only difference between him and Scarlett is that he finally grew tired of the chase, while she realized she loved it.

Scarlett didn’t truly love Ashley. She was caught in the childish fantasy of her own making centered around something she couldn’t have, Ashley Wilkes. She was a spoiled, vain, self-centered, and immature but beautiful and captivating Southern belle who believed the world and all who lived in it were there for her pleasure and whims. She was completely infatuated with the Ashley of her imagination and was too stubborn to let go of that.

Towards the end of the novel, Margaret Mitchell wrote, “Now she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.”

At this point, Scarlett had taken an enormous step towards adulthood because of Melanie and Bonnie’s deaths. It was too late to stop Rhett from leaving however. His pride had been wounded one too many times.

Rhett also had some misconceptions about Ashley and Scarlett and tended to make hard and fast decisions with little information. He tended to be impulsive, rash, manipulative and violent. He also drank too much. He and Scarlett had much in common.

As an added note, despite Scarlett’s considerable personality faults, when there was no one else to save the day, her friends and family, or Tara, Scarlett did whatever had to be done.

Scarlett O’ Hara is a very direct person. In a time where everyone in the antebellum south beat around the bush and used subtle hints and meandering manoeuvres to get or say what they want she was always open and direct about it. Rhett realises his early on when he overheard her love confession to Ashley. He liked this and what he liked more was her reaction when she was rebuffed. A slap on the face and breaking an ornament. She was fiery and passionate. Something not common in women at the time.

Before the war she held his interest as a young fiery woman a possible girlfriend or dalliance. After the war after two marriages and enough gumption to start her own business and succeeding more than most men he grew to appreciate her for the strong woman she had become. Being an alpha male with questionable morals he regarded her as his equal even loaning money to her knowing she would succeed in her business and be able to pay him back. At this stage the only way he could be with her was to marry her … he truly loved her and waited for him to love him back.he wanted to make up for all the physical and mental hardships she endured during the war. It was a pity her stubborn fixation with Ashley was a hindrance to what could’ve been a brilliant relationship.

For starters, she was stunningly attractive - literally, the belle of the ball.

Yet, he also discerned in her a likeness to himself: She was a scrapper who was fully capable of looking after herself. And when everything fell apart, the people around her, all of whom were weak and who could not adjust to the demands of the new post-bellum social order or compromise their social conventions and moral principles simply to survive, turned to her out of sheer desperation.

Rhett Butler was a rugged individualist and realist who looked out for himself and forthrightly shared his reasons for refusing to sign on with the Southern Cause. He perceived it as a futile struggle in the long run and preferred to keep it at arm's length, struggling instead to become rich as a smuggler

Yet, as Atlanta burned, Bulter resolved to fight for the Confederacy, even though he realized that it was a lost cause. This is revealing, implying that he had a measure of moral scrupples and sense of wider loyalty while Scarlet didn't at all.

Rhett's essentially decent character is also reflected in his abiding love for his daughter, Bonnie, his respect for Melanie, whom he reveres for her inherent decency and devotion to others, and his unusually complicated relationship with Belle Wating, the Atlanta madam in whom he also discerns a scrappy nature similar to his own but also an inherent decency.

What we learn from all of this is that Scarlet and Rhett's temperaments were ultimately irreconcilable.

In the end, Butler finally perceives the inherent self-serving narcissism of Scarlet, whose pathology had always been complicated by her bizarre fixation with the essentially decent but nonetheless weak and feckless Ashleigh Wilkes, Butler's polar opposite in many respects.

What drove Scarlet's fixation with Wilkes? Likely, the fact that he was perceived by the other women in her social circle as the most desirable man of any and, consequently, the man to which she, as the belle of the ball, was entitled.

The conclusion of “Gone with the Wind” was exceptional in terms of illustrating the epiphany that some experience after dealing for years with someone with deep moral or psychological shortcomings.

Butler finally experienced this psychological epiphany, whereupon he packed his bags and departed for his beloved Charleston, presumably to start life over and with the determination never to cross paths with her again.

I've thought long and hard about this.

As you read the book, it's easy to try and make Scarlett out to be the villian in the relationship, but if you pay close attention they've both treated each other horribly.

Rhett admits that if he had been honest with Scarlett about his love for her, she would've used it against him. That may or may not have turned out to be true, but his pride kept him from letting her know he loved her. I think this might have softened her heart. Every time he flippantly mentioned loving her, she seems to become excited almost jovial at the thought. But, then he retracts and her chance of excitment and possibility of change of heart retract too. Everyone drones on about Scarlett being closed off and cold, but lets be honest Rhett does it too. They both have their guards up, unfortunately.

He actually and admittedly has an affair (with Belle), where as she only has an affair of the heart.

He had a faint glimmer in his eyes and admiration for her during the closing moments of the novel. Hinting at the fact that there is an inkling of hope left.

Also, he had just lost a baby (the miscarriage), Bonnie, and Melanie.

He is worn out mentally, physically, emotionally. I don't think he had the mental capacity to reciprocate Scarletts confession of love. He seems quite done at the end, but He's also in the fog of extreme loss and hurt.

I’d like to think he went away, and she went to Tara. Maybe they spent time thinking over the deaths, their relationship, and considering that they weren't rushing for a divorce .. come together one last time out of mutual respect for each others strength through time and reflection. They both messed up. Hopefully true love can conquer all :)

Rhett was wealthy, Ashley was not.

Had the Civil War never happened, Ashley would have married his cousin Melanie Hamilton, inherited Twelve Oaks, his family’s plantation, and settled down to raise cotton. But while he did marry Melanie, the war irrevocably altered his future.

Although it’s never explicitly stated, we can assume that since he had no money after the war, he lost Twelve Oaks because he couldn’t pay the taxes on it. Scarlett kept a roof over Ashley’s and Melanie’s heads by putting him to work, first at Tara and then in her lumber mill. But he couldn’t even do those jobs well, and Rhett irritated Scarlett by mocking Ashley as a weakling unable to survive in a changed world.

Only after Melanie died could Scarlett realize that Ashley married Melanie because he genuinely loved her, not because as cousins they were expected to marry; that what Scarlett believed was Ashley’s love for her was only physical attraction; and that Rhett loved her. She ran home to Rhett to explain her new insight. But he cruelly replied that he’d grown tired of waiting for her Ashley obsession to fade, and since the death of their daughter Bonnie had broken the last tie between them, he was leaving her.

Because Rhett knows that Scarlett scorns men she can win easily.

Scarlett O’hara and Rhett Butler in ‘Gone With the Wind’.

Rhett refuses to show her she was won him. He mocks her, argues with her, and eventually resorts to cruelty and indifference in order to win her.

Rhett loved Scarlett the first time he saw her at the barbecue at Twelve Oaks. He admired her high spirit, and she amused him, especially after the scene in the library.

Rhett waited a long time for her, while she was married and widowed twice. He wanted to take care of her, spoil her, and try to wipe away all the suffering she experienced during the war. He knew Ashley would never make her happy, and that she would never even understand him. He thought he could make her realize this, and as time went by, she would come to love him.

By the time Bonnie and then Melanie died, Rhett had given up on Scarlett and their marriage. He had been through too much. Scarlett had been so mean and cruel to him and refused to share a bedroom after Bonnie was born. She constantly made him aware that it was Ashley that she truly loved.

Minutes before Melanie died, Scarlett went to Ashley, held him and tried to comfort him. Rhett saw it all, and he knew that Ashley would soon be free and Scarlett could have her precious Ashley. Rhett had no intention of staying in Atlanta to see that. He had had all he could take, so he left.

Scarlett’s thoughts about Ashley at the moment she realizes she was infatuated with an illusion are very revealing. She was infatuated with him first at the age of fourteen:

It seemed strange now that when she was growing up Ashley had 
never seemed so very attractive to her.  In childhood days, she 
had seen him come and go and never given him a thought.  But since 
that day two years ago when Ashley, newly home from his three 
years' Grand Tour in Europe, had called to pay his respects, she 
had loved him.  It was as simple as that. 
 
She had been on the front porch and he had ridden up the long 
avenue, dressed in gray broadcloth with a wide black cravat 
setting off his frilled shirt to perfection.  Even now, she could 
recall each detail of his dress, how brightly his boots shone, the 
head of a Medusa in cameo on his cravat pin, the wide Panama hat 
that was instantly in his hand when he saw her.  He had alighted 
and tossed his bridle reins to a pickaninny and stood looking up 
at her, his drowsy gray eyes wide with a smile and the sun so 
bright on his blond hair that it seemed like a cap of shining 
silver.  And he said, "So you've grown up, Scarlett."  And, coming 
lightly up the steps, he had kissed her hand.  And his voice!  She 
would never forget the leap of her heart as she heard it, as if 
for the first time, drawling, resonant, musical. 
 
She had wanted him, in that first instant, wanted him as simply 
and unreasoningly as she wanted food to eat, horses to ride and a 
soft bed on which to lay herself. 
 
For two years he had squired her about the County, to balls, fish 
fries, picnics and court days, never so often as the Tarleton 
twins or Cade Calvert, never so importunate as the younger 
Fontaine boys, but, still, never the week went by that Ashley did 
not come calling at Tara. 
 
True, he never made love to her, nor did the clear gray eyes ever 
glow with that hot light Scarlett knew so well in other men.  And 
yet--and yet--she knew he loved her.  She could not be mistaken 
about it.  Instinct stronger than reason and knowledge born of 
experience told her that he loved her.  Too often she had 
surprised him when his eyes were neither drowsy nor remote, when 
he looked at her with a yearning and a sadness which puzzled her. 
She KNEW he loved her.  Why did he not tell her so?  That she 
could not understand.  But there were so many things about him 
that she did not understand. 

Scarlett lacks emotional intelligence here due to immaturity. She gets the hots for him at this time due to her own hormonal surges. He’s the perfect picture of a first-born son who inherits everything and he has the social position and social skills she would need in a husband. However, she is too immature to recognize that the two of them are temperamentally unsuitable for each other. Her father knows this and says so in the opening chapter, but she doesn’t listen.

There is also the thing that he is the only man whose heart she didn’t capture and roast on a spit to suit her ego. She declared that there wasn’t a man she couldn’t get, but he was that man.

She didn’t give up her delusion about him during bad times, either. She also failed to appreciate that he wasn’t adjusting well to the changes in the world around them. While he never lost respect for her despite her thumbing her nose at society by running a business he would never have survived the verbal slings and arrows that would have been flung at his male pride if he had been married to her right after the war. Nor could he live in the social isolation that could have been the consequence.

Rhett had no problem with any of that about Scarlett; nobody would ever have questioned his masculinity.

Instead, it takes many losses for Scarlett to see that Ashley wasn’t what she wanted him to be and that Rhett was whom she needed to be happy.

Scarlett only loved the idea that Ashley represented.Ashley was the only man who had ever spurned her advances.The only man who rejected her .This could have put him at higher worth in her eyes. As human beings,we attribute higher value to things we cant have.This is in fact what happened to Scarlett as well. She was unable to recognize that Ashley did not possess any of the qualities that she found attractive in a man. Scarlett was by nature a survivor,somebody who moved ahead with times,somebody who seized opportunities ,she was unscrupulous and did not care much for the values and principles that her southern counterparts held dear.Ashley on the other hand was weak willed and a stickler for the old ways.She did not recognize this up till the end , until Melanie’s death.She could not understand that Ashley was merely attracted to her physically and that if Ashley actually possessed real courage and insight,he would have valued Melanie more. Rhett recognized this and tried to show Scarlett the truth,but she refused to until of course it was too late. In the end scarlet muses”If I had really known Ashley,I would have never loved him and if I had better understood Rhett I would have never lost him”This ending statement explains her fixation on Ashley and her feeling of loss about Rhett Butler,

You’ve completely misinterpreted Rhett’s character and his motivations. Rhett was an intelligent man and he would often communicate how he felt about Scarlet, very clearly too. He told her so many times how much he loves her and how much he wanted to express his love for her. The only difference between Rhett and Ashley, is that Ashley was too honourable and gentlemanly to tell Scarlet the truth about herself, which Rhett always did. He saw all of Scarlet’s flaws, her vanity, conniving nature, ruthlessness and her bad temper. However he loved her either way because of all her flaws Scartlet was an intelligent, capable and ambitious woman who took control and never waited for anyone to improve her circumstances, she did so with her own capability. Rhett admired her for it, she was never inclined to play the damsel in distress and he saw through her pretence of being a perfect lady and southern bell. However Rhett was foolishly blinded by his love for Scarlet and miscalculated her ruthlessness. He thought that she might reciprocate his love, once she saw how absolutely devoted and accepting of her, he was. However Scarlet was too selfish and infatuated with Ashley to even take proper notice of Rhett. See Scarlet has been spoiled and entitled her whole life before the civil war. She had never been denied anything or starved of any Male attention, and when Ashley had repeatedly rejected her she was in denial as it had never occurred to her before. That was Rhett’s biggest mistake he readily gave Scarlet everything she wanted and more, he gave her all his affection and attention and all his fortune, but Scarlet has had these things before, she didn’t appreciate them and she discarded them. The audience may have been able to deduce the fact that Ashley would never make Scarlet happy in the scene when him and Melanie were at the barbecue celebration of their engagement and they were declaring their love for one another. We can clearly notice the terms the used, Melanie has said that no matter how the war would turn out her love for Ashley would over come it, such figurative speech holds no use or power in the face of gunfire. This is what Scarlet should have noticed from the start, she being a practical and headstrong woman would have never been happy with Ashley, who was a daydreamer and hopeless romantic. Rhett had been the perfect match for her but in the end he was tired of being tossed aside and ruthlessly looked over by Scarlet who proved time and time again she had no feelings towards him whatsoever. So no to answer your questions, Rhett did not unceremoniously dump Scarlet, it was very much understandable and long overdue.

I think she did. They were made for each other. But it wasn't easy.

Throughout Scarlett and Rhett's relationship, as she pined for Ashley, we are made to believe that Rhett loves Scarlett more than she loves Rhett, and maybe that's true.

But she doesn't really love Ashley. She wants Ashley to love her, which is different.

When Melanie dies and Scarlett sees how undone Ashley is by his loss, the light bulb goes on for Scarlett and she realizes that she has been chasing after an ideal that didn't exist and never existed, that Ashley did not and could not love her (Scarlett), and most importantly, that she loves Rhett more than she ever realized. But Rhett, ever the cynic, fails to observe Scarlett's epiphany, and wounded by her bitterness after the loss of Bonnie, decides to leave so that she and Ashley can be together (not realizing that that outcome will never be, no matter what he does).

So ... the thing about Scarlett O'Hara is, she is relentless. As she observes, there's never been a man she couldn't get, if she put her mind to it (just ask India Wilkes and Suellen O'Hara if you don't believe me). And in Reconstruction era America she has a huge advantage in that she is legally married to Rhett. He has to see her, deal with her, and she will use every tool in her toolbox, every womanly wile, every blunt word, to persuade him to come back to her.

Don't ever bet against Scarlett O'Hara.

PS I've never read any of the sequels. I just don't think I could bear it.

No one told Rhett that Scarlett called for him because no one heard her. Mammy was in the room but not close enough to hear. Scarlett was delirious with a very high fever and talking under her breath. She probably said many things that no one heard.

If Rhett had found out that Scarlett called for him, I’m sure it would have meant something to him, but Scarlett would not remember saying it, and she would have the same nasty attitude toward Rhett when she got well. She would have been just as mean and stubborn and gotten just as angry when Rhett mentioned selling the lumber business or giving it to Ashley. Once Scarlett made up her mind about something, there was no changing it

There are so many instances in the movie that people question what would have happened if this or that had been different. I accept Margaret Mitchell’s story just as it is. She created Scarlett and Rhett. They are her characters in her story. The book is a masterpiece, and it ends exactly as it should have, the way Margaret Mitchell chose to end it. The relationship, story, and future of Scarlett and Rhett will be speculated on for as long as people continue to read the book and see the movie.

Rhett loved Scarlett desperately. He wanted to spoil her and make up for all the deprivation and hardships she had suffered during the war. Scarlett suffered from PTSD, in our terms. She had recurring nightmares about starving. She had murdered a soldier who came to her home and tried to pillage their meager food and belongings.

But Scarlett, like any threatened animal, could be cruel and volatile. Rhett once said, “heaven help the man who really loves you, you’re like a cat that is so confident she doesn’t bother to sheathe her claws.”

But, as usual, he joked to cover up his true feelings. Scarlett hurt him over and over, and eventually he had to turn away from her.

Why Rhett teased Scarlett - Rhett had to keep his emotional distance. People who are afraid to show simple direct emotions (especially love) turn everything into a joke as deference mechanism. He was thrown out of his family home. That had to affect him and create emotional barriers. Also create a deep insecurity, something like “I am not lovable".

What kind of relationship they had:

1. Mutually beneficial - Rhett liked Scarlett's old French heritage, she was his entrance ticket to high society. Scarlett wanted his manliness and money.
2. Unstable - I think Scarlett could've been bipolar. Rhett pulled back every time he showed too much emotion thus being unstable.
3. Comfortable - they didn't have you pretend to be “high society" people with each other
4. Passionate - Scarlett was hot even though not beautiful. Rhett was handsome and hot as hell. He was also about 15 years older with vast experience and desire to please a woman. Combine it with their chemistry and Scarlett's Irish explosive personality and you get passionate we could dream of.

I believe it’s because Rhett spent years pining over Scarlett. She was always in love (infatuated) with Ashley but Rhett believed he could change her. After years of flirtation, he finally convinces Scarlett to marry him, they have a daughter that he adores, and yet with the life he always wanted, he loses it all. Rhett lost his daughter to an accident, he lost his unborn child to a miscarriage, and he realized on top of that, he’d never had Scarlett’s love. By the time Scarlett realized Ashley wasn’t the strong, capable man she’d always imagined him to be, Rhett was done.

I think the big picture is that they mirrored each other … Rhett was chasing Scarlet the same way Scarlett was chasing Ashley. It’s unfortunate that the scales fell from their eyes at the same time. What’s even more unfortunate is that they were so similar, so passionate about life, that they could’ve had an amazing life together. It’s a Greek tragedy, really. Well, a Greek tragedy with rampant, unchecked racism.

PS - Don’t even get me STARTED about Melanie …

The other kind responder makes a good point: Rhett Butler changed over the course of GWTW. At the beginning of the novel he is the black sheep of his family who is socially stigmatized for an incident involving a young woman who went with him alone on a carriage ride. Although nothing happened, society demanded that he marry the girl. He refused and was therefore “not received” by socially-proper families in his area. He may have been struck by the hypocrisy and shallowness of his society as regards marriage, and that may have soured him on the institution.

When he meets Scarlett, however, he is intrigued from the first because, although she is definitely a hypocrite in some ways, she is like him: “a mule in horse harness.” She may pretend to play by society’s rules, but deep down she is practical and isn’t afraid to flaunt social convention when the rubber meets the road. In fact, she too despises the shallowness and silliness that often characterizes aspects of her culture. She is, of course, the “New South,” nouveau riche, garish, money-hungry, and practical, with only the thinnest veneer of gentility and morality for covering.

Rhett truly does long for companionship and a family. He has deep respect for the “great ladies” of the Old South (like Scarlett’s mother or her sister-in-law, Melanie): truly pious, maternal, modest, charitable, stoic, hard working and refined. In fact, he may love Melanie. However, he recognizes that he and Scarlett are more alike in character. He believes that he can make her happy (and she was NOT happy with her first two husbands) and win her away from her own obsession with the over-refined Ashley Wilkes, yet in the end he (Rhett) is forced to admit defeat.

Scarlett stole away Suellen’s sweetheart, Frank Kennedy, and without even the excuse that she had fallen head over heels in love with him. Scarlett wanted Kennedy’s money and lied to him that Suellen had married someone else because she was tired of waiting for Kennedy to formally propose and set a wedding date.

But Scarlett was always more attractive than Suellen and had more men swooning over her. And immediately after the war, Scarlett became the boss of Tara by default because the girls’ father was senile. In that position she forced Suellen and youngest sister Carreen to pick cotton, work that they considered beneath them.

I recall, in the book which I read about 30 years ago, Rhett was a wannabee and Scarlet was an “is” - as was Ashley.
As an “is”, appearances, especially in the South of 1860’s , was all important. Recall that she was marrying Ashley for who he is and not for himself, and for love. She and Rhett were already playing lusty bouncie in their minds, but could do nothing about it because of the Napoleonic Code ethic of betrothal was in play; recall that the south was still predominantly French background.
This same ethic is the reason Ashley charged-off to the fun of war while Rhett stayed in the background making money from the same war’s stupidity.
From what I recall, from the book, Scarlet played hard and loose and actually never loved Ashley…the name itself denoting femininity and weakness whereas her name Scarlet was fiery and as it turned out, bloody. Rhett, on the other hand, the one syllable fist-smash on the table type name, was all man and even too much man to be the average man. Although his surname was Butler, he was in service to no one but himself, and grabbed the rewards that come with that attitude.

When he finally came into his own and lived through the misery of a losing a child, and with Scarlet continuing with her head-games, he finally came to realize he had lost two children—Scarlet being the first one. and then their daughter; and the loss of Scarlet was actually in never gaining her full love to begin with.

It wasn’t until Rhet was totally fed up and humiliated and was leaving Scarlet that she realized he was the only man that she ever really loved, and who actually loved her even with all her faults, and the realization that she caused him to leave her for good, and the apathy displayed by him in leaving,was the full reflection of the loss of the French south and the pain of the war.

Her part in the book/movie was so well written that as you follow the story you could either hate her or feel sorry for her.

To me she represented the “egotistical Southern Gentry of the time.”

Spoiled beyond belief she was also beautiful and cunning.

She knew she was and used it. Able to have what she wanted from everyone. Especially the males in her group that adored her and worked so hard to gain her affections.

She would also step on or over even her own family(sisters) to achieve what she wanted.

Her “spoiled” makeup would truly show when she was denied what she wanted. That would be in her relentless pursuit of Ashley Wilkes.

Even when he married his cousin Melanie Hamilton she continued on. So undeterred she at that time even (using her female prowess)to trick Melanie clueless brother Charles to marry her then and now.

So this would set the pattern for her behavior in all the movie.

Unlikeable yes but more to feel sad for. She would at end of movie have all she would need but did not see it.

Rhett Butler was as good to her as anyone, had the money she needed and brought respectability back to her family.

She was still stupid enough to keep on chasing that one thing she could not ever have. As Rhett so well put it “that wooden headed Ashley Wilkes.”

So finally he had had enough and left her too.

Was her remorse truly felt? I don’t think so because the tears/act dried up quickly and she gave the great line “ after all tomorrow is another day.”

She loved something more than them all. She loved “Tara” more than any man or person.

Once she had returned to home she was in dire straits to keep it. Now on the “poor” end of the community. She had no money to pay the taxes. But her one time overseer was now capable of paying them and taking Tara from her. She would not let this happen.

She would not allow this. So off she went to Atlanta to first ask Rhett. Being held in a union jail. He however had no way to give her any money.

Seeing then that Frank Kennedy had a very prosperous store in town she would now turn her charms on him. This ending in getting him to marry her.

She now had the money available to pay the taxes and save her one “true” love-Tara.

Rhett Butler’s love for Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” is complex and multifaceted. At the beginning of their relationship, Rhett is attracted to Scarlett’s beauty, charm, and wit. He finds her intriguing and enjoys her spirited nature. However, as their relationship develops, Rhett’s love for Scarlett deepens beyond mere physical attraction.

One reason Rhett loves Scarlett is her strength and resilience. Despite facing numerous hardships and setbacks, Scarlett remains determined and refuses to be defeated. Rhett admires her tenacity and sees her as a survivor in a harsh world. He respects her ability to adapt and thrive in difficult circumstances.

Additionally, Rhett is drawn to Scarlett’s fiery personality and independent spirit. Unlike many women of her time, Scarlett refuses to conform to society’s expectations for women. She is fiercely independent and refuses to be confined by traditional gender roles. Rhett admires her boldness and admires her willingness to challenge societal norms.

Furthermore, Rhett sees a kindred spirit in Scarlett. Like him, she is ambitious and desires wealth and social status. They both share a sense of pragmatism and a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Despite their flaws and the tumultuous nature of their relationship, Rhett sees Scarlett as his equal and respects her as such.

Overall, Rhett’s love for Scarlett is complex and multifaceted, rooted in admiration for her strength, resilience, independence, and ambition, as well as a deep emotional connection that develops between them over the course of the novel.