4.2 Scarlett’s Bewilderment in Love
Scarlett falls in love with Ashley at her first sight. Through the relationship with Ashley she is affected by the love and all the struggles and lessons that go along with it. Scarlett loves Ashley because of all the young man she flirts with; he is the one who seems to have the strength of character she admires. The difference between Ashley and the other boys is that Ashley is well educated, intellectually, artistically and musically talented, and does not put him at the mercy of every pretty face. He is also tall and handsome, and somewhat aloof, Scarlett doesn’t understand anything he talks about, but she is drawn to his dignity and his old world charm. In fact, Scarlett doesn’t understand him at all. What she sees is just his surface merely, knowing nothing about his disposition and thought.
Although Scarlett dislikes the people with weak character, she still loves Ashley. She regards him as her prince since she is a young girl and offers her pure love blindly. Even if she can’t get him, she never gives up or changes her love to him through the repeated tribulations. Her love to him is so loyal, clinging and self-sacrificing that she is willing to do anything for him. When Ashley is leaving away for the war, he asks Scarlett to look after his wife, Melanie, Scarlett is very depressed but she still complies. In order to keep promise to Ashley, Scarlett stays by the side of her lover’s wife in dangerous Atlanta and escorts her and her baby to Tara; unfortunately, her dearest mother is dead before the day she comes back. When the war is over, Ashley can’t adept the postwar new life, and he can’t do anything but just lives in the dreams of the past, and he even doesn’t have the ability to support his own family. However, Scarlett doesn’t look down upon him but she helps him support his family silently with her own money. In order to defend Ashley’s self-respect as a man, Scarlett undertakes the loss of money of her sawmill, which is given to her lover Ashley to manage,. She spends no time to accompany her husband and her children, for the reason that she is occupied by the thoughts of earning more money or making appointment with Ashley.
In fact, Scarlett is very different from Ashley. Scarlett is very brave, energetic, realistic, and she has enough courage to face any difficulties during and after the Civil War. Ashley is that kind of person who likes thinking rather than acting. He misses the life of the old South and he can’t adjust to the new life. Ashley loves nobody but himself. He marries Melanie not because he loves her but because they are alike and only he stays with Melanie, thus he can link himself with the past of the old days. Although Scarlett is strong on some aspects, she still needs someone to encourage and comfort her sometimes, that is to say Scarlett needs a man who is stronger than her. But Ashley can give her nothing, and he even shows his fear for the new life to her: “It isn’t that I mind splitting logs here in the mud, but I do mind what a stand is for. I do mind very much the loss of the beauty of the old life I loved. Scarlett, before the war, the life was beautiful. There was glamour in it, perfection and completeness and symmetry to it like Grecian art. Maybe it wasn’t so to everyone. I know that now. But to me, living at Twelve Oaks, there was a real beauty to living. I belonged in that life. I was part of it. And now it is gone, and I am out of place in this new life and I am afraid. Now I know that in the old days it was a shadow show I watched. I avoided everything which was not shadowy, people and situations which were too real, too vital”.[12] 英语作文