![]() Tara, Scarlett believes, is the only thing she has in the world that will always be there for her-if she loses it, she’ll lose the one thing, aside from money, that makes her feel powerful. Some of what Scarlett must do to support Tara, such as run Frank’s mills and use her sexuality to try to manipulate men into helping her, aren’t considered ladylike in post-Civil War Southern society-but to Scarlett, stepping outside the confines of traditional gender roles in service of her family’s plantation is necessary. Returning Tara to a functional state both helps Scarlett survive (by enabling the property to make money through farming) and gives Scarlett a reason to keep trying to do more to ensure her family’s continued ownership of the land. When Scarlett is at her lowest point and Ashley hands her a lump of Tara’s red clay, Scarlett is inspired to keep going: the plantation is all she has left, and if she means to survive, she must revive it and make it into a moneymaking enterprise once again. By this point, Ellen has died, Gerald has gone mad with grief, and Ashley is married to Melanie and they have a child together. At that point, she’s too upset that Ashley is going to marry Melanie to believe him-but when she returns to Tara near the end of the Civil War, she realizes he’s right. Scarlett’s sheltered, indulgent life first gets hit by the news that Ashley Wilkes, the man she is in love with, is to marry another. ![]() ![]() ![]() Before the war, in an attempt to comfort a heartsick Scarlett, Gerald tells Scarlett that land (rather than love) is the only thing that lasts. 'Gone with The Wind' by Margaret Mitchell chronicles the life of sixteen-year-old Scarlett O’Hara, rife with teenage exuberance and accustomed to getting everything and every man she wants. The O’Haras’ plantation, Tara, represents survival. ![]()
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