Character development
Scarlett O'Hara is not beautiful in a conventional sense, as indicated by Margaret Mitchell's opening line, but a charming Southern belle who grows up on the Clayton County, Georgia, plantation Tara in the years before the American Civil War. Scarlett is described as being sixteen years old at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, which would put her approximate birth date in early 1845/late 1844 [1]. She is the oldest of three daughters. Her two younger sisters are the lazy and whiny Susan Elinor ("Suellen") and the gentle and kind Caroline Irene ("Carreen"). Her mother also gave birth to three younger sons, who were all named Gerald Jr. and died as infants.
Selfish, shrewd and vain, Scarlett inherits the strong will of her Irish father Gerald O'Hara, but also desires to please her well-bred, gentle French American mother Ellen Robillard, from a good and well respected Savannah, Georgia, family.
Scarlett believes she's in love with Ashley Wilkes, her aristocratic neighbor, but when his engagement to his cousin, the meek and mild-mannered Melanie Hamilton, is announced, she marries Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton, out of spite. Her new husband goes to train with Wade Hampton's Legion but dies within two months of measles, and never sees battle. The war progresses and near the end of the war the Yankee army, led by the infamous General Sherman, makes its way to Georgia. Scarlett's mother dies of typhoid fever, and her sisters are gravely ill. The Yankee army burns the family's store of cotton, steals the food and livestock, but spares the family home. Scarlett flees nearby Atlanta where she had been living with Melanie, her sister-in-law, and Melanie's aunt during the war ahead of the invading Yankee army, expecting to arrive at Tara to be cared for by her parents. Instead she finds the home and lands damaged, and the family barely surviving.
In the face of hardship, the spoiled Scarlett uncharacteristically shoulders the troubles of her family and friends, and eventually the not-so-grieving widow marries her sister's beau, Frank Kennedy, in order to get funds to pay the taxes on and save her family's beloved home. Her practical nature leads to a willingness to step on anyone who doesn't have her family's best interests at heart, including her own sister. Over the course of the story Scarlett sheds all her illusions — except her "love" for Ashley. The war's upheaval of Scarlett's life and the transforming choices she makes can be seen as a metaphor for the challenges life commonly presents to women, to face or deny; Scarlett's story particularly resonated with a 1936 readership which had just gone through a similar upheaval — the Great Depression.
One of the most richly developed female characters of the time on film and in literature, she repeatedly challenges the prescribed women's roles of her time. As a result, she becomes very disliked by the people of Atlanta, Georgia. Scarlett's ongoing internal conflict between her feelings for the Southern gentleman Ashley and her attraction to the sardonic, opportunistic Rhett Butler—who becomes her third husband—embodies the general position of The South in the Civil War era.