I still love the book! I know it will only get more interesting from here and Scarlett is such an intriguing character that makes me crave reading more about her. Here's what I've read recently:
Scarlett thinks about the differences between her and her mother's personalities. Her mother is gently and sweet while Scarlett inherited her temperament from Gerald, who fled his unremarkable life in Ireland after killing another man in a feud. Gerald won his first slave, Pork, and his plantation in a poker game. Though lacking good breeding, Gerald won over the neighbors’ hearts with his kindness. Ellen, a placid, serious woman from the aristocratic Robillard family of Savannah, agreed to marry Gerald after the death of her first love, her cousin Philippe. She blamed her family for driving Philippe away from Savannah and from her, and out of frustration and revenge she married the low-class Gerald. Scarlett, the oldest and most strong-willed O’Hara daughter, lacks beauty. Still, she has learned ladylike behavior from Ellen and Mammy and has used her charms to become the most-pursued belle in the neighborhood. That day, Gerald has purchased a slave named Dilcey from Twelve Oaks so that Dilcey can be with Pork, who is her husband. At dinner that night, Dilcey thanks Gerald and offers Prissy, her daughter, to be Scarlett’s personal maid. Ellen returns late from the Slattery’s house. As Ellen leads the nightly prayer, Scarlett concocts a plan to win Ashley from Melanie. She resolves to tell Ashley she loves him at the barbecue. Scarlett overhears Ellen telling Gerald that Jonas Wilkerson, Tara’s Yankee overseer, must be dismissed. Scarlett realizes that Wilkerson was the father of Emmie Slattery’s dead child. On the morning of the Wilkes’s party Scarlett chooses a dress that will show off her seventeen-inch waist. Mammy persuades Scarlett to eat something to discourage an unladylike appetite at the barbecue. Ellen cannot attend the barbeque because she must go over the plantation accounts with Jonas Wilkerson before he leaves Tara. On the road, the O’Haras meet the Tarleton women. Gerald and feisty Mrs. Tarleton talk about horses and the possibility of war. In bed, Scarlett thinks about how she would like to run away with Ashley and how if he knew she loved him and not one of the Tarleton boys, he would leave Melanie. In her opinion, he is only engaged to Melanie to please his family since he thinks he cannot be with Scarlett. She insists she knows he loves her. The chapter ends with a brilliant quote, "she lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate."
I could really relate to Scarlett in this part, especially with the last quote. It's so typical of a teenage girl, laying in bed dreaming about a crush, believing beauty was all it took to win a boy's heart. And really, the better and easier life is the harder it is to accept tragedies. But is it true that beauty is all it takes? Even more so after reading this, I don't think it is. I think we (girls) have the misconception that guys really only like pretty girls. And as helpful as being pretty may be to draw the boys in and encourage them to talk to us, how do you build a friendship off of beauty? You don't. I really like how the dress and clear skin were described as weapons...it makes it seem as though Scarlett is at war, possibly a microcosm of the Civil War going on around her that she refuses to take part of? I really like how much this book makes me realize!
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