Did scarlet o'hara get rhett back in the end of Gone With the Wind?

Answer 1

GWTW is a novel about Scarlett O'Hara and her relationship with Tara and the men in her life. Notice that the men, even Ashley and Rhett, seem to take a back seat to the plantation that gives her "strength"...It is the "only thing that matters...the only thing that lasts". In the closing scene Scarlett recognizes this and acknowledges that she must return to her roots . . . Tara, to regain the power that she needs to figure out what she'll do without Rhett and how to get him back. My strong belief is that she will prevail...she always has. Throughout the book we hear Scarlett's lament, "I can't think about that today, I'll think about that tomorrow." But finally, on the steps of the empty mansion she avows "I must think about it...I'll get him back...Afterall, tomorrow is another day." When this woman sets her mind to something, she gets it.

And Rhett's statement "I don't give a damn", rings hollow when he has spent years loving this flawed woman. He is depressed and forlorn...He has just lost his beloved daughter and upon Melanie's death he feels he has also lost his wife to Ashley. In his rejection of Scarlett, I think he also recognizes that even though she proclaims her love, that due to the war she doesn't have the capacity for this selfless emotion. He acknowledges that what he really sought in Scarlett was her pre-war self... naive, headstrong and spoiled. His decision to leave and make a new life, makes sense ...just as when he left for London. He is running away from painful memories and devastating personal loss. (This is a classically psychological reaction in such circumstances. We all feel like escaping from time to time and Rhett has the means to do so. Grief has stages and Rhett has

Although this is conjecture about Mitchell, I feel she meant the reader of GWTW to use their own common sense to figure out that Scarlett would eventually get Rhett back. Does anyone believe Rhett would NEVER return to see Scarlett? Let's just say that he finds the peace and grace he's seeking. Isn't it logical that he would then come back to see Scarlett, even if his intent is not to love her again.? (And if one knows anything about the years following the Civil War, it is unlikely that Rhett would find what he is looking for since the South will spend decades recovering it's distintive characteristics of its antibellum state.) So, lets conjecture that he DOESN"T find his ideals. Again I believe he'd return to reexamine his relationship with Scarlett after recognizing that others too have reacted as she to the destruction of their way of life.

Of course this is written in all good fun...but from Mitchell's characterization of Scarlett, a woman scarred by war, hunger and loss, she may well have meant us to realize that a female can exist and be happy without a man if she discovers a higher purpose in life. With Scarlett, it's Tara. From birth, she is invested in this land that has formed and molded the essence of her being. A return to this "red earth" becomes the catalyst that saves her soul and allows her psyche to heal in the presence of the security that Tara represents.

OR

Within the cocoon of Scarlett's Tara, she morphs from a shallow, vane, greedy victim of war into a loving, caring woman with the ability to open her heart to committment and giving. Can anyone doubt that if these qualities evolve in this complicated assertive woman that she can get any man she sets her sights on?

Rhett would be putty....

Answer 2

No, he frankly didn't give a damn.