[On November
26, 1942 the great Casablanca
premiered in New York. So this
week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]
On why I’d still
critique Mitchell’s romantic hero, and a more interesting side I’ve come to
better appreciate.
Occasionally in
this space I’ve referenced
my first published article, which appeared in the Southern Literary Journal 15 years ago: “‘What
Else Could a Southern Gentleman Do?’: Quentin Compson, Rhett Butler, and Miscegenation.”
The quoted question in that title comes from the pivotal scene, early in
Mitchell’s second half, when Scarlett finds Rhett in jail; he’s shot and killed
an African American man for “being uppity to a [white] lady” (614), and asks
the question of Scarlett. But as I noted in
this post, for the whole first half of the novel Rhett has resisted and
challenged the stereotypical “Southern gentleman” worldview on issues like
slavery and the Civil War, such as in the key scene where he argues that the
“Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle
Ages. … It had to go and it’s going now” (238). This moment and statement in
prison thus represents a striking change in his perspective and character—one
that will continue throughout the remainder of the novel, culminating in his
final decision to leave Scarlett in search of somewhere in the South “where
some of the old times must still linger” (1022).
In my article I
called Rhett’s transformation into a conservative white supremacist the
greatest failing of Mitchell’s novel, and I would still say the same. After
all, she creates Rhett as a really compelling and attractive romantic male lead
(including for the reason I’ll get to in the next paragraph), and thus draws
readers into feeling the same continued interest in him that Scarlett does
(despite Scarlett’s repeated attempts to focus instead on the far more
conventional Ashley Wilkes). As a result, we’re willing to go along with Rhett
into those white supremacist perspectives far more easily than we otherwise
might have been (at least if we’re more progressive readers), and even to see our
own move, like his, as simply a begrudging recognition of the realities of Reconstruction’s
“horrors,” of racial equality and the threat of miscegenation, and a bunch
of other
mythic nonsense that Mitchell’s second half fully and frustratingly
perpetuates. (Rhett’s and Scarlett’s realizations of what “Reconstruction in
all its implications” means [635] indeed comprise a key arc of Mitchell’s
second half.) For all those reasons, with Clark Cable’s
uber-charismatic film performance layered on top of them, I would call
Rhett one of the most destructive characters in American literature.
No literary work
can or should be defined through the lens of a single social or political
issue, though, and Mitchell’s novel isn’t simply or solely about race and the
South (important as it is to keep those themes in mind). And if we turn instead
to the question of gender roles and expectations, Rhett, like Scarlett, becomes
a more consistently complex and genuinely attractive character. As I argue in
my article’s opening, Scarlett appears to be a Southern belle stereotype (with
her “magnolia-white skin” and “seventeen-inch waist” [5]) but throughout the
novel challenges and undermines those images, becoming instead an increasingly
independent and strong woman. Similarly, while Rhett could be superficially
described as a classic gentlemanly suitor, I would argue that his continued
interest in Scarlett is due instead to his recognition of how different she is
from the stereotype—particularly if we contrast their relationship with that of
the far more conventional/stereotypical Southern characters Ashley and Melanie
Wilkes. If readers are going to continue falling in love with Rhett—and again,
it’s very hard to read Mitchell’s novel and not find him attractive—at least he
offers (especially for the time periods of the novel’s 19th century
setting and its early 20th century publication) a relatively nuanced
and thoughtful portrayal of gender and identity.
Next romance
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?
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