Taking care of Family or Taking Care of Self: What was Scarlett's real motivation?

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2012)

I am currently a student taking a course in The Art of Film at a community college in Dayton, Ohio. One of the assignments is to write a post or add to a post of a movie of our choice. I chose Gone with the Wind because it has to be one of my favorite movies. Katie "Scarlett" O'Hara-Hamilton-Kennedy-Butler has to be one of the best female roles in film to me. When she is depicted before the Civil War, she is immediately shown with two beaus at her house on a beautiful summer's day. When the two young men start speaking of war she explains that talk of war bores her. As the two beaus continue to ask about war, Scarlett begins to retreat into the house. The men suddenly come to their senses and apologize, while saying they will not talk about war anymore. It is here we see Scarlett does get her way. As they change the subject to the barbecue at the Wilkes', a neighbor's plantation, she is stunned to find out that the love of life is marrying his cousin (just have to add that I am glad people do not do that anymore)! Scarlett immediately storms off in anger and confusion, wondering how that could be if Ashley, her crush, loves her. While storming off she is told by her "Mammy" that it was rude to leave the company standing there without asking them to stay for dinner and that she needs a shawl on her shoulders if she is going to be out in the evening. Scarlett yells back that she is waiting for her father to get home from the Wilkes', to get the inside information on what is really going on. The movie takes place in the south, before, during, and after the Civil War era, when slavery was the largest problem of the United States. To Scarlett, war was a stupid problem that she never wanted to talk about; she was happy having every beau in the county sit next to her at a barbecue and drool all over her. Even though her love for Ashley never wavered, she married three men throughout her life as a means to survive. I do not think she was just trying to survive for herself, I think she showed that she had heart and truly cared for her family when she married Frank Kennedy. Knowing that Frank was Suellen's beau, I think she figured once Suellen and Frank were married that they would leave and would no longer have to worry about Tara and the rest of the family. Therefore, Scarlett married Frank and paid the taxes on Tara so the family would have a home. A selfish person would not have done that, a person with no morals might have.
Really looking at Katie Scarlett O'Hara-Hamilton-Kennedy-Butler, she married her first husband as a tactic to make Ashley jealous. It did not work, and as a result, she ended up being a young widow. Scarlett did not love Charles Hamilton, she took advantage of his love for her, when he asks her to marry him all the while Scarlett is looking out the large window at Ashley and Melanie kissing goodbye. Though it was sad that Charles died, it feels like Scarlett was getting what she deserved. Marrying her second husband Frank, she guaranteed the home and land for her family to live on. Even though Frank was Scarlett's sister Suellen's beau, she lied to him, as well. Scarlett told Frank that her sister was tired of waiting for him, that Suellen thought she would be an "old maid", so she married a boy in the county they lived in. Telling this awful lie on her sister, caused Frank to marry Scarlett, which allowed her to use his money and pay the taxes on Tara. With her final marriage to Rhett Butler, it seemed like she married him for his money. I think that Scarlett did not want to be alone. The last scene before the intermission, Scarlett has made it home with Melanie, her baby, and Prissy, her "simple-minded" slave, to find that the day before her mother had died, which pushed her into the role of the head of the household. Having nothing to eat and nothing of value, she finds herself in the garden outside. Having nothing in it but radishes, Scarlett grabs one and starts to eat it, she immediately gets sick and falls to the ground, crying. When she collects herself, she stands and makes a pledge that she will never go hungry again, nor any of her folks; if she has to lie, steal, cheat, or kill as God as her witness she will never be hungry again. That promise, to me, sounds like she is a woman who has seen and been defeated by outside forces that she had no control over. I admire Scarlett because she was in fact a woman, living in a world of a great revolution. Even though the Civil War was fighting for the freedom of the slavery, women were still seen as dainty things, of little to no importance to men. She proved to be a smart woman, with a mind for business and the strong will to handle personal problems when they arose, as seen with the shooting of the Union soldier who doubled-back after the army had left Tara. I think she was always protecting her family, even though she did not see the true love that Rhett had for her until Melanie died, when he left her, Scarlett went home to Tara to solve her problems. Back home to her family.