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Who do you respect more?History's Ashley Wilkes or Rhett Butlers


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One of the most powerful story elements of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind is the striking differences (yet similarities) between 2 of the main characters, Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes.

 

For those who never read the book, these characters are polar opposites that however share some things in common.

 

To start off with their similarities. Both men are well-educated, highly intelligent, and very courageous. Both had their lives affected by the Civil War.Both ABSOLUTELY thought the war was sheer stupidity. Both were outstanding soldiers in the war.

 

However here is where the similarities end.

 

Ashley Wilkes was a patriot at the core. Even though he opposed slavery enough that he would have freed all his slaves upon his fathers death had the war had not come and even though he knew that the Confederacy would have ultimately lost the war, he still volunteered to fight from the moment Georgia decided to enter the war. 

 

After the war ended, Ashley continued to try to live under the Southern code of honor. He did so much to live as the ideal Southern "Gentleman" before the war that he ended up living in poverty and his family suffered as a result. He was that patriotic, refusing to adapt to the new world if it would require him to breach "Honor" and he was nostalgic for the days of antebellum South later on by the time the story was in its final stage.

 

During the War, he was captured as PoW at one of the worst Civil War POW camps (can't remember the name). The conditions was such in the camp troops were starved and living under conditions comparable to a concentration camp. Mortality rates were high. Ashley Wilkes was given the choice to give up his loyalties to the Confederacy and instead fight for the Union in the West against Indians (which he had a much better chance of surviving). Ashley was so patriotically loyal he refused the offer and stayed in the camp until the war's end.

 

After the War, Ashley's spirit was destroyed when the Confederacy collapsed.

 

Rhett Butler was the exact opposite. He absolutely despised the South and its customs and mocked the Confederacy in front of patriotic citizens whenever he could. He committed acts of fraud on both the Union and Confederate sides to make a profit. While its true within the context of the story, some of his actions actually helped the Confederacy such as his acts of illegally bringing in weapons and necessities to the Confederacy during the Blockade, he openly admits the only reason he did such acts was to make a profit and if he could make more money by aiding the Union he would have sided with them instead.

 

Rhett before the war was an utter thug who murdered several people for fun and already committed acts of fraud for profit.

 

He could care less about the Confederacy's fate and never thought of fighting for the Confederacy until the very end when he departed from Scarlett after the burning of Atlanta. Even there I suspected his reason for joining the remnants of the Confederacy army to serve as an artilleryman in the last months of the war was motivated not out of patriotism but out of self-interest.

 

Even more striking differences come after the war. Where as Ashley's spirit was killed post-civil war, Rhett's spirit was more enthusiastic than ever. He thought the fall of the Confederacy and the Reconstruction was a blessing, and opportunity to make profits and become rich. Which is exactly what he did through a combination of deceit, fraud, and shrewd business skills. In addition its later revealed in the story that Rhett took a large portion of the Confederate's last gold reserves before it collapsed and hid it somewhere. Other Confederate veterans did the same but they honestly returned it to the now-sovereign Union government after the war. Rhett did not-after being released from prison for several more murders, he got his hidden gold and used the almost all of it to invest and make even more profits and put into his savings accounts.

 

His life took a different direction from Ashley- he would become one of the RICHEST men in the South because of his disregard for honor and patriotism.

 

As you can see the characters are polar opposites-patriots and traitor, thug and law-abiding citizen, traditional and revolutionary.

 

Just in the final chapter of the story, when Scarlett told Rhett how weak she discovered Ashley was, Rhett told Scarlett:

 

Edited by Pisces Adonis
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I'll bite. For argument's sake Wilkes' attachment to 'honor' means nothing since the cause he tied himself to was essentially dishonorable on several levels but mainly that of the defense of the institution of slavery [Revisionists like to babble that the Civil War was about state's rights & not about slavery but that's frankly bs]. Strip away the romanticism of gentlemanly honor and you have someone who supports enslavement, treason and a class-based agrarian society like that of the antebellum South. 

Edited by Virgil61
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I agree with you to an extent.

 

But the point of this question is not so much about the Civil War but I am interested in what people think of the two extremes in history.

 

The more and more I read civilization's downfalls, the more I ntocie figures very similar to Rhett Butler and Ashely Wilkes.

 

That when a civilization is in a brutal war or on the verge of collapse, there are "Gentlemen" (or Caballeros, Knights,  or other cultural equivalents) who are so conservative and stuck in tradition they cannot get past that their old world is disappearing. Often these "Gentlemen" make up the bulk of the resistance that comes after a the civilization collapses (or at the very least make up many of its leaders). Examples are the Anglo-Saxons who continued riots and uprising after William was crowned king of England, the Zealots raiding Roman Legionnaires,etc.

 

Ashley Wilkes joined the Ku Klux Klan after the war because so many Southerners wanted to continue the war behind the door so his honor compelled him to do so.

 

Even those "Ashleys" who don't partake in such uprisings attempt to live in the rules of the old days-which is precisely what Ashley does. He is literally the worst farmer in the county Tara (Scarlett's plantation) is in, being unable to produce descent crops. When he moves to Atlanta, his honor makes him too generous he has to help others at the expense of his familiar and he practically sucks at every job he gets.

 

The "Rhetts: on the otherhand adapt to the times, going as far as cheating and lying their way through and performing illegal means such as murders, bribery, fraud, and so on to not only survive but flourish in the new world. In fact they often played a major role in the collapse of a civilization (or if the civilization they're from manages to survive the war, the Rhetts betrayed their side and aided the enemy in the war that lead to a lost battle,failed operation, enemy conquest of territory,etc). Even the "Rhetts" who only aided their side were primarily concerned with profits and while they may have helped changed the tides for their side (which Rhett manages to do as blockade runner for the 1862-63 period), they did not help as much as they COULD have and only gave enough aid to gain a big profit. Rhett Butler did sell weapons to the Confederacy but he also sold  other luxuries that did not aid in the Southern Cause such as dresses from Paris, perfumes,etc. There was a remark that he could have filled his ship entirely with weapons rather than luxuries and that would have helped the Confederates and he replies he's only doing this for money not out of patriotism.

 

These same Rhetts aid the invaders after the collapse of civilization, and takes advantage of the poverty for unscrupulous business for wealth. Anything they do, even if it seems patriotic, they only do because they can milk cash. They're willing to sellout their entire nation to become rich.

 

An example is Ephimates who led the Persians through the Goat Pass at Thermopylae.

 

Thats what I meant by which do you find more respectable in history-characters like Rhett Butler or Ashley Wilkes.

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I haven't read the book. Out of curiosity who historically would you identify with either character? 

 

On another tangent I haven't watched the film Gone with the Wind in years but by coincidence I have the four-disc collector's edition that I got late last year and never watched. This reminds me that I need to watch it. 

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