منتديات المُنى والأرب - GONE WITH THE WIND- by Margaret Mitchell

GONE WITH THE WIND
Plot Summary
Part 1

Before & during the War

AsGone With The Windbegins, Scarlett O’Hara is shown with two men flirting with her. This is nothing unusual -- Scarlett makes men act like this all the time. There is talk of a Barbecue the next day at neighboring Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes’ plantation down the road from Tara. Gerald O’Hara is coming back from Twelve Oaks, and Scarlett meets him on the road to ask if the rumor Mammy, her slave, had told her is true. That Ashley Wilkes is going to ask his cousin Melanie to marry him. Gerald tells Scarlett the same, and she is heartbroken. As Scarlett is getting ready for the party, she and Mammy fight over Ashley Wilkes.

When they arrive at Twelve Oaks, Scarlett is the center of attention, all of the men, even those who have girlfriends, talk to Scarlett. She is the most popular girl there. All of the other girls resent her except for Melanie. Melanie and Ashley talk of their marriage as they overlook the garden. Scarlett is sitting beneath a tree with all the men surrounding her, at her beck and call. She is enjoying this until she spies Ashley and Melanie together. The girls all have to go take a nap, but once they are all asleep Scarlett sneaks out and listens in on the conversation the men are having about the upcoming war.
Everyone is sure the war will be short and glorious. After all, "southern gentlemen are worth any ten Yankees. Everyone knows that." Everyone, that is, except Rhett Butler -- he thinks the war will be hard fought. After Rhett and all the men get into a confrontation, he leaves. Shortly after, Ashley follows him. Scarlett intercepts Ashley, and she gets him alone in the library to confess her love for him. Ashley says he loves her too, but they are too different and cannot be together. After Ashley leaves, Rhett Butler shows himself, he was in the room the whole time. Scarlett comes out of the room and she hears all of the other girls talking about her, but Melanie sticks up for her.
The war started! All the men are going to enlist. Charles Hamilton asks Scarlett to marry him. She says yes to try to make Ashley jealous. In a double wedding, Ashley and Melanie and Charles and Scarlett get married.
The men go off to war and Charles dies shortly after of pneumonia (1862). Scarlett is widowed. Ellen O’Hara gives Scarlett permission to go to Atlanta and stay with Melanie and her Aunt Pittypat. They are at a charity dance for the Rebel army, when Scarlett runs into Rhett again. He bids $150 to dance with her. All of the people at the dance were scandalized by this since she was just recently widowed. Scarlett and Rhett become close and she spends time with him, because he is the only man around to take her out. Rhett says that Scarlett should be, "kissed and often, by someone who knows how."
At Christmas time (1863), the soldiers get three days leave. Ashley asks Scarlett to look after Melanie. Scarlett and Melanie volunteer at the hospital for the wounded from the war. Belle Whatling donates money to the hospital, but no one but Melanie will take it because she runs a brothel. Scarlett recognizes the handkerchief that the donation comes in, it is Rhett Butler’s. Scarlett, nursing at the hospital, helps to show how gruesome the injuries were and how desperate the conditions were. In the summer of 1864, Sherman starts to attack Atlanta and everyone is fleeing the city. Scarlett sees Big Sam, her slave and he gives her word that her mother is sick. Scarlett is caught up in the refugee traffic and Rhett comes by and saves her. Then he asks Scarlett to run away to Mexico with him. Scarlett says that she wants to go back to Tara, but Dr. Mead convinces her that it wouldn’t be the best thing to do, because Melanie is pregnant and she cannot make the journey.
The siege of Atlanta is on in earnest, the Yankees are coming! Melanie goes into labor. Scarlett goes to find Dr. Mead, but he cannot help her because there are so many dying soldiers that need his help. Scarlett has to deliver the baby herself.
The baby is a boy, and Melanie names it Beau. Scarlett sends Prissy to get Rhett and ask him to bring his horse and carriage. Rhett, Scarlett, Melanie, Prissy, and Beau start on their journey to Tara. They have to cross through the fires set by the retreating Confederates in downtown Atlanta. Brigands try to steal the horse and carriage from Rhett, but he escapes. Rhett acts very heroic, and then he leaves them at the road to Tara, and he goes to join the war.
The journey was long and hard, but Scarlett gets them through it. They get back to Twelve Oaks, but it is demolished. So they head to Tara, and miraculously, it’s still there, dirty and damaged, but standing. Scarlett leaves the carriage, and runs towards the house. Her father greets her at the door, but he is changed. His mind has gone. Their house has been looted, but it's still standing because it was used as a Yankee headquarters. Scarlett finds out that her mother died, she is very upset. Scarlett’s father still thinks that her mother is alive. Scarlett is the only one that the family can depend on. She vows her famous line, "As God as my witness I will never be hungry again."

Plot Summary
Part 2

After the War

As Part 2 opens, Scarlett is shown picking cotton in the fields at Tara. Later, when she goes inside, a Yankee straggler comes in and tries to steal what’s left of their money, but Scarlett kills him and takes all of his looted money.

The war is finally over!! (1865) Frank Kennedy wants Suellen to marry him, and Ashley comes home to Tara. But there is trouble, the Yankee carpetbaggers and southern scalawags have raised the taxes on Tara. Now they are $300 -- an unreachable amount of money. Ashley and Scarlett talk at the barn. Scarlett confesses her love for him again He says that he admires her fearlessness. They kiss, and then Scarlett asks Ashley to run away, then he says that she can’t go because she has too much honor to leave Tara. Emmy Slattery and Mr. Wilkinson come to Tara and offer to buy it from them. Scarlett tells them to leave. Gerald gets on his horse to chases them away, but he falls off and dies from a fall while he is jumping.
Scarlett decides that she’ll go see Rhett in Atlanta and ask him for the $300. She dresses up in a dress that she made out of curtains. Rhett is in jail, and he says that he can’t get his money out because it is hidden in Europe. After this Scarlett runs into Frank Kennedy. She marries him for the $300 , and then she starts a lumber business with Ashley. As Scarlett is on her way to the mill, she is attacked by hobos, but Big Sam saves her life.
Later that night, the women are all together, and India tells off Scarlett for all of the things that she has done. The husbands have gone to the woods to attack the men who attacked Scarlett. Rhett tries to save them from doing it but it is too late, Ashley was shot and Frank Kennedy was killed. (Poor Scarlett, widowed again!) Rhett makes up a lie to tell the Yankees of them being at Belle Whatley’s house, so that they can get back inside without Ashley getting arrested. Melanie invites Belle to her house to thank her for saving Ashley’s life.
Scarlett and Rhett are talking and he again asks her to marry him, and this time she says yes. They go on a grand honeymoon to New Orleans. Scarlett wants to go back to Tara. They go back, and build a mansion in Atlanta. They have a baby girl named 'Bonnie Blue' Butler. Scarlett doesn’t want to have anymore children because she is still in love with Ashley. They separate, and Rhett goes to see Belle and she convinces him to go back, because the Bonnie needs him. Rhett gets drunk one night after Melanie’s party and he wants to rid Ashley in Scarlett’s mind forever. This is the famous ‘carry her (to bed) up the Grand Staircase’ scene.
The next morning he apologizes then says he is going to London and taking Bonnie with him. Bonnie hates it there and says that she wants to go home and see her mother. Rhett takes Bonnie home, and then says he’s leaving. Scarlett tells him that she is pregnant, they both say that they don’t want the baby and Rhett says maybe Scarlett will have an accident. As he says this she falls down the stairs. Scarlett lost the baby. After some time, Mellie tells Rhett that Scarlett is better. They are on the patio talking and watching Bonnie, when Bonnie decides that she will jump. But she does not make it and dies, just like Gerald.
Mammy calls on Mellie to help her, because Scarlett and Rhett are both distraught. But Mellie is very ill, and falls when she is at their house and never recovers. Mellie dies shortly after. Scarlett realizes as Mellie dies that her love for Ashley never existed, and that she really loves Rhett. She rushes home to tell him, but it is too late. He has already made up his mind to go to Charleston. Scarlett begs him not to go, "where shall I go .... what shall I do?" But Rhett says," Frankly my dear,I don't give a damn. "
Scarlett believes that she needs to get him back so she says she’ll go to Tara to think, to the place that gives her strength. "After all," Scarlett says, "tomorrow is another day."