Scarlett realizes that Melanie is not the
weak, cowardly girl she always assumed but the most courageous character in the
book and one who gets her means by influence and persuasion instead of
Scarlett's uncivil ways. It is Melly, not Scarlett, who could get anything she
desires and her heart is not her weakness but her greatest strength. Finally
Scarlett values the importance of love and sees that it does not make one weak
but deep to possess it. OK, I won't go that far. She's not intelligent enough
to analyze love, but she grows up enough to fall for it anyway, to realize she
needs people.
She
sees Ashley not as the strong, honorable character she had always esteemed but
the weakest and least honorable character in the book. Anyone who would tease
another woman with confessions of love just so he could keep her heart and
devotion at arm's length is not truly honoring his marriage vows. The greatest
gift he could give his wife was the knowledge that he loved her. And we all
know that like any pretty toy, once Scarlett had taken him, she would have
discarded him. The debasing knowledge that he is not fit for a rougher way of life
doesn't endear him. For all his intelligence, he could have picked himself up
by the bootstraps and made something of himself if he wanted to survive. He is
a representation of the Old South that had to die but many couldn't let go of,
even today. That's the sadness of the loss of the Southern way, still longing
for the past instead of moving forward.
