Reputation

"Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is."
--Rhett Butler, while dancing with Scarlett at the charity ball

Rhett Butler is my hero. Even though he is a scoundrel only concerned with money, he always speaks the truth. It doesn't matter whether he will be accepted or not. It doesn't matter whether his ideas are scandalous and not generally liked. When he brought up the fact at the Wilkes' barbecue that there was not a single cannon factory in the south, everyone went berserk. However, he was only bringing up facts (although they fell on deaf ears, clearly).

Scarlett, on the other hand, always cares what people thinks about her. However, she has such an analytic mind, she finds a way to do what people think is acceptable while also looking out for herself. When she flirts with everyone at the barbecue, everyone sees Scarlett's personality when in fact she is trying to make a point to Ashley. She goes to Atlanta for what everyone thinks is her health, but her real motivation is so that she can be with Ashley's family. Then eventually she finagles the reasoning of dancing at the ball to be helping the cause when in fact she just wants to dance and have a good time, and does not feel an ounce of grief for Charles.

This reputation statement, though, shows that Scarlett is about to fall from the good graces of society, as Rhett Butler has done, for doing something socially unacceptable. What society doesn't realize is that Scarlett has already done something unacceptable by marrying someone not for love or practical reasons, but to get closer to another man. She is only in Atlanta for that reason, and wearing black for someone you are not truly mourning is disrespectful as well. However, the people (minus Butler, of course) are unable to see through Scarlett's facade. Basically, Mitchell paints the southern gentlemen, ladies, and belles as ignorant and rash and the character not even received by his own family as having any shard of intelligence. Probably the exception to this would be Ellen O'Hara, but she only shines because she was good at the life she led in the culture of the old south. The post-war climate will not suit her.

There are many other quotes that I have loved but as I am now currently 200 pages into the book it's hard to go back and find them, so from here on out I'll be a little better about updating.

Something I thought was interesting was the description of when Scarlett and Melanie turned in their wedding rings. Scarlett, first, was thankful that she did not have any beautiful jewelry on because then she would have had to follow the norms and donate them to the cause. In essence her "mourning" was a blessing in disguise. However, she did notice that her wedding ring was jewelry and then took it from her finger and threw it onto the pile. Melanie then did the same thing, telling Scarlett that she was so brave (ha! If you only had a brain...). Anyway, Melanie really has to pull the ring off her finger, which shows the kind of attachment she has to her husband that she cannot pull her husband (symbolically through the ring) from her finger, while Scarlett has no problem casting him aside. And you can tell she wants to, because mourning would have given her an out to not donating anything, but she clearly chose to do it.

So, without the thought of Charles lingering around her, and her clear insubordination with the norms of mourning, I'm guessing Scarlett just casts her reputation off and continues her life without regard as to the townspeople's thoughts of her.

Wow. Long tangent. Getting back to the quote though, It's definitely true that reputation can be both a blessing and a curse. If you have a bad reputation, it lingers and there's not much you can do to change it no matter how hard you try. If you have a good reputation, you feel expected to live up to it no matter what you feel like doing. Personally, my reputation (i think, at least) is that I am quiet and I follow the rules, and it's definitely hard to break out of that when so many people know that about me. And once someone has a reputation it's hard to see them outside of that. Lucky for Scarlett, she had a way to break out and ruin her reputation, and win her freedom, as Rhett Butler puts it. Now that it's ruined, Scarlett can do whatsoever she pleases and is no longer confined by the ideas of others. I'll be looking to see whether she speaks her mind a little more too.

Additionally, Scarlett and Atlanta were Christened in the same year, which is, to me at least, as good as Margaret Mitchell screaming from the book "PAY ATTENTION!! SCARLETT AND ATLANTA ARE FOILS!" Anyway, Scarlett visited Atlanta when she was small, back when it was a new town, just developing. It grew quickly and was now the center of trade for the south, connected with many other cities. It is bustling and always busy, but because it is so new it is rough around the edges. Scarlett even says about it when she first arrives, "I'm going to like it here! It's so alive and exciting!" And if that statement doesn't describe the both of them, then lock me up!

I'm only one fifth of the way into this book. At least is it not as tedious for me as Lord of the Rings