Gone with the Wind Short Summary

Gone with the Wind is the work of Margaret Mitchell. The story begins at a cotton plantation that is located in Georgia in a time just before the Civil war. The news of Ashley and Melanie engaged reach Scarlet O’ Hara, and so she manages to get Charles to marry her. Charles dies in the army. Melanie goes back to Atlanta after Ashley enlists. She and Pitty Pat ask Scarlet to go for a visit and stay with them. The war traps her there. Scarlet sees the danger the war posed and plans to go back to Tara via a horse stolen by Rhett. Rhett is not with them on arrival.

When they arrive back, Ellen is dead, Carreen and Suellen were ill, and Gerald had lost his mind. There were no horses, few slaves, and a number of the plantations around them had been razed. Scarlet makes a trip to Atlanta because of raised taxes imposed by victors and realizes that Rhett had been imprisoned. She offers collateral in the form of herself and Rhett admires her for this. Scarlet convinces Frank Kennedy to marry her. He is wealthy admires her heartlessness. He even hopes she will use her aggressiveness in business. She is an outcast in society for her behavior as a widow. Soon she finds a way to generate income by purchasing and managing mills. She gets to a point where she borrows money from Rhett which angers Frank. Frank decides to have another child with her, Ella, with the hope that Scarlet behavior will change. Scarlet is still not content with family only and keeps conducting her business despite dangers. Archie, her bodyguard, abandons her service after seeing she mistreats ex-convicts. She is aggressively confronted in a shanty town, home to freed slaves lawbreakers and prostitutes. Ashley and Frank who were Ku Klux Klan members, defend her. Frank dies, and Ashley injured. Rhett saves the rest. Scarlet gets married to Rhett and becomes friends with the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags. She creates an imitation of the south in terms of society using Rhett’s money and the friends she had acquired. Rhett is jealous of the connection with Ashley. He bottles his feelings for the sake of their daughter named Bonnie. Melanie dies, and Scarlett makes the realization that she loves Rhett instead of Ashley. Bonnie dies, and Rhett blames himself. This makes him pull away from Scarlett.