Did Scarlett get Rhett back?

Not too ashamed to say I rewatched “Gone with the Wind” with my daughter this weekend. The storytelling, the acting, the music all make it quite watchable despite its despicable depiction of slavery & inaccurate retelling of the Civil War. (Would be interesting to imagine Scarlett, Rhett & Tara’s story told against a more accurate backdrop). Anyway - the eternal question - Did Scarlett & Rhett reunite? What do you think? Having read the book, I’m convinced Rhett no longer loves her, & will stay away. On the other hand, Scarlett has no one else in her life, really & isn’t about to give up.
and please - the sequel not written by Margaret Mitchell doesn’t count.

No, he is far to intelligent. She will find another sucker.
:slight_smile:

Thank you for that.

As for the question… I think she is chasing him still.

Scarlett gets Rhett back - I have no doubt. She is generally unstoppable in these matters…

Hm, I don’t think she ever got him back. I think she married some other sucker to support her while she pined after Rhett for years [probably until Rhett died - he had a pretty bad lifestyle and died of either booze, cigars or getting shot because of gambling or womanizing.]

[And it is not despicable - it is a novel set in a time where slavery was still legal, the inaccuracies about the civil war were dramatic license by the author to progress the storyline. And no, reality is generally not anywhere near as interesting as fiction. ]

No, she is dead to him. One person can only take so much abuse.

She gets him back if and only if Rhett gives a damn.

She only wants what she can’t have and never wants what she does have. He’s just tired of her drama and no longer amused by her selfishness.

Rhett’s had enough of her shit. Told her as much, too.

Bye, bitch.

I’ve seen the movie 12 times in the theater and have lost track of how many times I’ve read the book. I always hope this time he doesn’t leave. Truthfully, I don’t think he comes back. They go their separate ways since everything they had together is gone–Bonnie, Melanie. Or, maybe she goes back to Tara to heal her heart and he comes after her…

Immediately after Mellie dies in the film, Scarlet sees Ashley fondling a glove. He says, “she must have put the other away.” and Scarlet makes an awful face. I believe she realizes at that point that she has been in love with some romantic image of Ashley, that Rhett is the one she truly and (big step for her) honestly loves. But is, of course, to late. :slight_smile:

I always thought he did, because quite bluntly, they deserved each other.

For all his faults, he didn’t deserve that.

I’ve only seen the movie, never read the book.

I’ve always looked at it that Scarlett has possibly, finally grown up at least a little. She’s lost everything she ever wanted, even things she didn’t know she wanted until it was too late (i.e. Rhett). She has one thing left, Tara, and she is going back there to heal. I then imagine that she will live the rest of her life in an admirable fashion, and Rhett will hear about it, and then one day in about 20 years, when they are both old and gray (she still has her figure of course, like they always do in the movies; he on the other hand is a little dissipated from grief and self-indulgence), he will come back to her and acknowledge that he still loves her. She will smile sweetly and sadly, her eyes will mist over, she looks down and away from Rhett, the camera will pull back until they are both lost in the background, the theme music will swell . . .

And just as you think the closing titles are about to start, you hear a bang! - the music stops and the camera is suddenly at an extreme close-up of her face, still smiling sadly, but without the misty eyes. (ending choice 1) The camera pans down to show her arm, to her hand, to the smoking pistol in her hand, and to him lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his forehead. She says “Oh, Rhett, you don’t know how sorry I am!” (ending choice 2) The camera pulls back again to reveal a well-dressed middle-aged black man coming down the front steps with a smoking pistol, and then pans down to see Rhett lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his forehead. He says “You had your chance, peckerhead! She’s with me now.” Scarlett nestles in his left arm, and looks down on Rhett with truly mixed feelings.

Fade to black, and closing titles.
Roddy

Only seen the movie, never read the books…

Scarlett is only happy when she’s pursuing something she can’t have. She loved the pursuit of Ashley because he was unattainable more than she actually loved him. Once she gets what she wants she’s bored with it and just lets it go away.

Rhett was always in and out of her life so he seemed more desirable to her than he probably really was. By Rhett leaving so thoroughly at the end he’s become the sole object of her desire. And I think that’s how Rhett likes it - they’re locked in an unhealthy relationship of continues periods of pursuit, resentment, withdrawal, and then pursuit again.

I believe Rhett walked over to Belle’s and never looked back.
:slight_smile:

I think she has a chance to get him back, but it will take a long time, because she’s got a lot to prove in how much she has changed.

It’s too bad there will never be a remake of the book. As long as the movie was there was tons of stuff left out. Like how and why Mrs. O’Hara married Gerald. She was fifteen, he was forty-one, and she hated her family for chasing away the cousin she was madly in love with. A shot of the family graveyard would be interesting too. After she had the three girls she had three boys, each one dying in infancy. and each one named Gerald O’hara Jr.

Oh, and St. Melanie was glad to have Scarlett offer Ashley a job. She said that way they wouldn’t have to move north and have their son go to school with all the little pickaninnies.

It has been a long time since I read the novel, but I do not recall the reference to “pickaninnies”. I would not be surprised, though.
Scarlet had a child by each of her husbands. Mitchell intended for Tara to be much more realistic than the house in the film. My Maternal Great Aunt had a house in Tennessee that resembled Tara in miniature.

Scarlett “loved” Ashley for years, wreaked havoc, pined, schemed, had to have him. It’s been years, but I don’t recall a single moment in a 1000-some pages where she was ever particularly nice to the guy, or respected him, or was genuinely fond of him. Not once. And that’s the real problem. The ending has her realizing Ashley doesn’tactually possess any of the qualities that attracted her to him, and while that’s true, those qualities never made him treat him particularly well even then. So she realizes Rhett always had those qualities and if she gets Rhett back, he gets what Ashley got from years of obsessive Scarlett-love: nothing.

She did make him that nice scarf.