Gone With the Wind

In Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, two male characters, Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, represent two very different ways of life in the South. Ashley represents the Old South, with its quiet, respected ideals and very strict social etiquette. Ashley doesn't think the war is good, or even necessary at all. However, as a respected Old South gentlemen, he is "willing to die for [the Cause]." Rhett, on the other hand, is the personification of the New South, with its slightly risque social behavior and its loud, uproarious, always-excited and on-the-move atmosphere. However, he opposes the war too. And even though it shocks Scarlett that "anyone as absolutely perfect as Ashley could have any thought in common with such a reprobate as Rhett Butler," it doesn't surprise me. I think that the Old South and the New South aren't so very different yet. I think that the New South is clinging desperately to the threads of the Old, and until it can let go and become all its own, Ashley might seem like a reprobate, Rhett might seem like a gemtleman, and the entire Southern society will be in chaos.