I've read chapters 8-11 in Gone With the Wind for this assignment.

Scarlett's lives at Tara and in Atlanta are as different as apples and pears. At Tara, Scarlett was expected to conform to all the many (many) rules of Southern society; "Everyone knew you must refuse a man's proposal three times before you can marry him." In Atlanta, she is free from the constraints of living with Mammy and Ellen, and can do whatever she pleases. Also, she lived at Tara before the war really picked up. As Mitchell tells us, in the South during the war, everyone kind of forgot the social etiquette and rules--people were getting married right and left, without the proper courtship rituals! This adds to Scarlett's freedom. In the book, Tara represents the Old South and Atlanta represents the New South, one riding on the crest of the wave of change that overtook the country and, really, the world, in the 1860s.