Gone with the Wind – Part Two

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Gone With The Wind – Part Two

Margaret Mitchell suspecting she has a hidden agenda. When he sees her broken nails, he confirms she has been lying and she is made to confess to him the real purpose of her visit. Scarlett tells him that she is willing to be his lover for three hundred dollars but, to her astonishment, he turns her down. Chapters 4–6: In Chapter 4, Scarlett is devastated after realising that Rhett will not help her. As she leaves the prison, she runs into Frank Kennedy in his new carriage. They talk for a while and he tells her how well his new business is doing. Scarlett thinks of borrowing the three hundred dollars she needs but she soon recalls his being engaged to Suellen. Scarlett lies to Frank persuading him that her sister, tired of waiting for him, is going to Summary marry Tony Fontaine. So Scarlett and Frank get married. Gone with the Wind, set against the background of the In Chapter 5, Frank gives the three hundred dollars American Civil War of 1861–65, has sold twenty-eight to Scarlett and she settles her debt. Frank soon realises million copies since its publication in 1936. It is one of the that Scarlett has tricked him into marriage. He falls ill and greatest love stories ever written. Part One of the novel Scarlett learns that their business is not doing as well as follows its heroine Scarlett O’Hara through the Civil War she expected, since a lot of people owe a lot of money to between the Northern states and the Southern states. Frank. Rhett Butler is released from jail and visits Scarlett, At the beginning of Part Two of the novel, the defeated now Mrs Kennedy. Rhett offers to help her buy the South lies in ruins and Scarlett must work the soil of her sawmill she wants. Scarlett starts working hard and she family’s plantation, Tara, with her bare hands to survive. makes enough money to buy more sawmills. Many people Worse still, the North is demanding taxes from the large are shocked to find that she is doing business with the estates, and Scarlett has no money to pay, so she will have Yankees. Scarlett is surprised to find that she is pregnant to struggle to help her family survive. and that her father has died. In Chapter 6, Gerald’s funeral Chapters 1–3: In Chapter 1, Scarlett is very worried takes place back at Tara. Scarlett learns how her father about the future of Tara. She knows she cannot make ends died and how Suellen was about to convince him to sign a meet and pay taxes with the little money she is left with. Yankee Oath in exchange for money. Gerald finally refused Scarlett and Ashley spend some time alone for the first to do so. Yet all the people in town are now furious with time since he came back. Ashley tells her she should ask Suellen. Scarlett finds out that Ashley is planning to leave Rhett Butler for economic aid and Scarlett, hopeless and Tara for a job in New York. She decides to appoint Ashley shattered, breaks into tears. He tries to comfort her and a half-owner of her second sawmill so as to ensure that they end up kissing. Ashley finally tells her that he loves her he stays. She offers him the job opportunity but he turns but that he cannot leave his family. In Chapter 2, it down. Scarlett makes a scene and Melanie, touched Scarlett is shocked by the unexpected visit of a couple: by Scarlett’s desperate tears, persuades her husband to Jonas Wilkerson, their former plantation manager and accept the offer. Emmy Slattery, their former servant who made her Chapters 7–8: In Chapter 7, Scarlett is worried because mother fall down with typhoid. Now married, they want Atlanta is very dangerous since some former slaves are to buy Tara for peanuts and Scarlett cannot but kick them committing crimes and the Ku Klux Klan are after them. out. Scared to death, Scarlett decides to seduce Rhett into This makes people stay at home behind locked doors. marrying her. Once in his hometown, Scarlett learns that Ashley and Hugh stop working for weeks. Scarlett is so Rhett is in prison for having killed a black man and shocked worried that she decides to hire convicts to work at her by the atrocities the Ku Klux Klan are committing. In sawmills. Rhett Butler returns to Atlanta and seems to be Chapter 3, Scarlett visits Rhett in prison making everybody angry that Scarlett is still looking after Ashley. He also lets believe she is his sister. She pretends that Tara is better Scarlett know that her husband is up to something secret. than ever and that she has a lot of money. She tries to In Chapter 8, on her way to the sawmill along Decatur appeal to him in such a flirtatious way that he soon starts

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Gone With The Wind – Part Two

Road, Scarlett runs into Big Sam, who used to work at Tara passes away. Rhett and Scarlett are devastated. Things go and who is hiding since he had killed a Yankee soldier. She from bad to worse when Scarlett learns that Melanie is promises to help him escape. Scarlett is attacked by two dying after giving birth to her second child. On her death men who try to mug her and Big Sam helps her escape. bed, Melanie asks Scarlett to take care of her child and Safe at Melanie’s place, Scarlett is shocked to learn that husband. In Chapter 14, Scarlett realises that she really both Ashley and Frank are with the Klan, meeting nightly loves Rhett and wants to spend the rest of her life with at the old Sullivan plantation, and that the Yankee Soldiers him. She tells him how she feels but he does not believe are looking for them. Rhett Butler brings Ashley and other her. She knows she can win him back after she returns men back home. They all pretend to be drunk and to have from the one place she has always cherished in her heart: been at Belle Watling’s house. When the soldiers leave Tara. Melanie’s place, Rhett confesses to Scarlett that Ashley has actually been injured at the Sullivan Plantation and that Background and themes Frank has been shot dead. The background of Gone with the Wind: Part Two is the Chapters 9–11: In Chapter 9, Rhett Butler visits Scarlett problems that the Southern states experienced after the after Frank’s funeral. He tells her he is travelling to England war. The economic ruin of the South had several causes. and that he intends to marry her once he is back in By 1865 many of its slaves, on whom its cotton economy Atlanta. Scarlett accepts his proposal and moves to New depended, had run away from the plantations, knowing Orleans with him while their new fashionable house is that the Northern armies would free them. Other slaves being built in Atlanta. Scarlett has her third baby, Bonnie. In had taken advantage of an offer that the Confederate Chapter 10, Melanie organises a surprise party for Ashley’s government (the government of the South) made birthday and asks Scarlett to keep him busy. Scarlett does towards the end of the war: this guaranteed them their so and both she and Ashley start remembering the old freedom if they fought in its armies. The Confederate times. They hug each other and, at that very moment, government had stopped selling its cotton to Europe Melanie’s cousin, Archie and Mrs Elsing enter the room at the beginning of the war, in the hope that this would they are in. Scarlett runs away back home believing India encourage Britain and France to help their cause, but by will tell Melanie everything. Scared of being humiliated by doing so they deprived themselves of a major source of Melanie, Scarlett refuses to attend Ashley’s party but Rhett income. In any case, the Union (the North) blockade of persuades her to go. Scarlett is relieved to find that India the South’s ports meant that the Confederates could not is not there and that Melanie knows nothing. In Chapter import goods and had to turn many cotton fields to food 11, Rhett is furious with Scarlett because he knows she production. There were many ‘blockade runners’ – like still loves Ashley more than anything. To punish her, he Rhett Butler – who tried to get past the Union ships to spends many nights at Belle Watling’s place and then leaves bring materials to the South, but many of them were only for New Orleans with Bonnie for a long time. While he interested in their own gain, and made enormous fortunes. is away, Scarlett learns that she is pregnant with his child Both armies in the war deliberately spoiled huge areas of again. When Rhett returns home, Scarlett tells him about land, which ruined and demoralised the Southern states. the baby, they have an argument and Scarlett falls over to The South felt further humiliated by the way in which the bottom of the stairs. the North tried to make the Southern states safe before they could rejoin the Union. The North said that it would Chapters 12–14: In Chapter 12, Scarlett loses her baby pardon and give the vote to any Southerner who took an and is sent to Tara to get better. Rhett feels very guilty oath of loyalty to the United States, with some exceptions. but, at the same time, he still feels jealous of Scarlett and Ex-officers of the Confederate army and the richest Ashley. Rhett convinces Melanie that Scarlett should sell landowners – who were considered mainly responsible her sawmills to be more relaxed and that Ashley should for the war – could only be pardoned if they made a buy them with the money that he is willing to secretly special application to the President. The government also give them. Melanie is in two minds, but she finally accepts passed new laws which freed all slaves throughout the his proposal thinking of her husband, child and friend. Union and made them citizens. The Southern states could Later on, Rhett persuades Scarlett to sell her sawmills only re-enter the Union if they agreed to these laws. Still to Ashley. In Chapter 13, Rhett buys Bonnie a horse so more bitterness was caused by the ‘carpetbaggers’. These that she can start jumping. Bonnie has an accident and were Northerners who moved into the South after

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Gone With The Wind – Part Two

the war to try to buy up the property of its destitute Chapters 4–6 people or make profit in other ways. The greatest fear While reading the Southerners had, however, was of the newly freed 5 Discuss: Ask students to work in small groups and blacks. Southern whites could never accept ex-slaves to discuss the following after reading pages 21–23: What leads Tony Fontaine to kill his servant and as being equal to themselves, and were frightened of Wilkerson? Why did ordinary people join the Ku Klux the revenge they might take. This fear gave birth to the Klan? infamous Ku Klux Klan, a secret society of white people whose purpose was to frighten blacks and keep them After reading 6 Role play: Have students role play the following in a lower social position. Riding about at night in white conversation in pairs: You are Will and Scarlett when hoods and robes, they whipped, burnt and murdered they drive to Tara and discuss about Ashley and Melanie’s blacks everywhere. They also tried to prevent them from moving to the North, and Gerald O’Hara’s death. voting, and terrorized any whites who tried to help them. Chapters 7–8 The old South that was swept away by the Civil War was While reading a very conservative culture. Young men of the plantation- 7 Role play: Ask students to do the following role play owning families were brought up to ride, shoot, play cards, activity as they read pages 31–32 in groups of five: race and bet on horses, and little more. This is what makes Imagine you are Rhett, the Captain, Ashley, Hugh and Ashley Wilkes, with his refined manners and taste for Melanie, from the time the captain arrives until he leaves. books, so different. Women were denied education and What do you all do and say? political rights and their behaviour in public was bound by After reading strict social rules. Women like Scarlett O’Hara – intelligent, 8 Discuss: Ask students to discuss the following in spirited women – must have found Southern society groups: What is life like now for people such as the impossibly restrictive. Wilkes and the Kennedys? Talk about work, not having much money and the power of the Ku Klux Klan. Discussion activities Chapters 9–11 While reading Before reading 9 Discuss: Ask students to work in pairs and discuss 1 Discuss: Put students into small groups. Ask them to the following after they read page 36: Why does discuss what they think will happen to the following Scarlett decide to marry Rhett? What does she want in relationships in Part Two of the story: Discuss in life? groups what you think will happen between Scarlett and Rhett, Scarlett and Ashley, Rhett and Ashley. After reading 2 Group work: Bring in a map of the United States. 10 Role play: Ask students to imagine they are Point out where Atlanta, Georgia, (where the story is Rhett and Melanie and to act out the following set) and Washington DC are. Encourage students to conversation: You are Rhett feeling terrible after use a map as they read on. Scarlett’s accident. Write down the conversation in which Chapters 1–3 Rhett tells Melanie what has happened and what he feels. Then act it out. While reading Then tell students to read the first pages of Chapter 3 Discuss: In pairs, students discuss the following after 12 and to compare their dialogue with what Rhett reading pages 5–7: Do you think Scarlett and Rhett will and Melanie actually say. become lovers? Discuss this with another student and write down your ideas. Chapters 12–14 While reading After reading 11 Discuss: Ask students to discuss in groups after 4 Discuss: Ask students to discuss the Ku Klux Klan. reading pages 46–48: Why does Rhett want Scarlett to Guide them with these questions: What do you know sell her sawmill? Why is Scarlett sorry she sold them? about this organisation? Why do the members cover their faces and wear long white clothes? After reading Give them information from the Background and 12 Pair work: Ask students to work in pairs and to themes section above, if they have no knowledge. discuss the following: How does Rhett change through the story?