Rhett's Statement on Returning to Good Old "Values"

[[deleted user]]

One of my favorite lines from moment from Gone With the Wind was when Rhett Butler stated he might be returning to Charleston to make peace with his people. Scarlett alerted Rhett that is out-of-character of him and he responded:

“I still laugh--but I’ve reached the end of roaming, Scarlett. I’m forty-five--the age when a man begins to value some of the things he’s thrown away so lightly in youth, the clannishness of families, honor and security, roots that go deep-- Oh, no! I’m not recanting, I’m not regretting anything I’ve ever done. I’ve had a hell of a good time--such a hell of a good time that it’s begun to pall and now I want something different. No, I never intend to change more than my spots. But I want the outer semblance of the things I used to know, the utter boredom of respectability--other people’s respectability, my pet, not my own--the calm dignity life can have when it’s lived by gentle folks, the genial grace of days that are gone. When I lived those days I didn’t realize the slow charm of them--”

After some more words exchanged between Rhett and Scarlett, Rhett said that goes hand-in-hand with the above quote.

“Scarlett, when you are forty-five, perhaps you will know what I’m talking about and then perhaps you, too, will be tired of imitation gentry and shoddy manners and cheap emotions. But I doubt it. I think you’ll always be more attracted by glister than by gold. Anyway, I can’t wait that long to see.And I have no desire to wait. It just doesn’t interest me. I’m goingto hunt in old towns and old countries where some of the old times must still linger. I’m that sentimental. Atlanta’s too raw for me, too new.”

I really do LOVE this scene. My interpretation is that Rhett is beginning to realize the value of honor and society particularly the importance of family and social conventions. Rhett was outcasted when he was young for being such a nasty scoundrel and he would cheat and swindle his way throughout the story as he built his wealth. But finally after raising Bonnie and especially after seeing some of the worst in humanity through Scarlett's self-centeredness, he is starting to realize why the concept of morality and social norms exist.

At this point in the story he is considering trying to live through accepted morality and social convention both as a way to find peace after being injured by Scarlett and because he's already getting old and is considering how different life would be if he had decided to live as a Gentleman. That maybe all the pains he sufferred such as ostracization by Southern society and Bonnie's death would never had happened had he lived the life of a good man instead.

I can identify. For most of my life I hated social norms and I was such an immoral rascal. However as I look back in my life especially all the things I've suffered through and the damage I caused I can't help but think had I tried to sincerely lived through the Ten Commandments and the Bible, much of the stuff in my life would never have happened. Had I been an honest man instead of the cowardly scoundrel I've been all my life, my current state wouldn't be so miserably pathetic.

I am beginning to understand that social norms and morals exist for a reason as I believe Rhett has started to at this point. They exist in my opinion to prevent damage and needless suffering.

What do you think?How do you interpret Rhett's speech?

[Paula]

I actually wrote my master's thesis on GWTW, which was largely written in the 1920s when women had first gotten the vote. Margaret Mitchell herself had a fairly wild youth that led her into a disastrous first marriage. Even after her hard-won divorce and subsequent happy remarriage, she slept with a loaded pistol in her nightstand clear up until she heard her former husband was dead. She lived a sort of Janus life, torn between her mother's fiery feminism and the social expectations placed on the traditional southern belle, and as such she had a front row seat to the consequences of both sides. It is no accident that she created Scarlet and Melanie, progress and tradition, each needing the other. Without Scarlet, Melanie could not have survived the war, but without comprehending the importance of Melanie, Scarlet has nothing but the pyrite trappings of success.

I agree, Mitchell is urging caution before we go calling all our ancestors fools.

[Jettcatt]

Just fininished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John green, there is plenty of discussion in this books about our actions and the impact these have on those around us. "The marks humans leave are too often scars" The older I get the more I realise that every action has a consequence and if we think more deeply about what we do we could in fact lesson the amount of scars we inflict on others. This thinking also makes me think of Wuthering Heights and the impact that Catherine's choices had on many generations to come.