Gone With The Wind is the iconic love story with notable forewarning to us girls, hopefully early enough in our love life, to be cautious but not timid. The story has war, love, jealousy, tragedy and hope. Some famous quotes both from Scarlett and Rhett are what many of us know as the representation of each character.
Rhett Butler: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Spoken by Rhett to Scarlett before he leaves at the end following tragedy along with what he regards as a hopeless marriage to Scarlett.
Scarlett O’Hara: "Tara! Home. I'll go home. And I'll think of someway to get him back. After all... tomorrow is another day!“ Scarlett’s last words in the story most notably demonstrating her characters determination.
Warning as it may be, many of us still venture swiftly with our heart and mindless in every other aspect of what’s best for us. Yes, we get him in our heart and the rest goes out the window. We laugh when he’s not funny, we text and call with no response and when he implies his own infatuations with us, it sends us to the nearest newsstand for the latest edition of Bride magazine. Only to find Mr. Wonderful doesn’t share our enthusiasm.
Then we're forced to not only accept he will not be our husband, nor will we have his 2 children (a boy and a girl), a 2 story Colonial with patio pergola shading us as we look onto the garden on the 3.4 acre lot. This is the injury. But, we must accept that he has chosen another to be the love of his life. And in it she will reside with his two children, lovely home and garden. This is the insult. To make it worse, she happens to be the most lovely of persons who is kind, sweet and simply adorable in every possible way. To try to find a flaw would in itself be your flaw to do so. Ugh! Yes, this is the classic Scarlett vs. Melanie.
Then life begins ladies. You know who we meet and how things go. And while the challenges they face are far different from our own, we can definitely relate to the inability to let some people and longings go. It robs us of our ability to experience the life we chose, the man we married and the rest of "our everything" as it is.
So, we eventually move on and perhaps sometimes it’s not the whole reason why and it’s not exactly a choice we make. Suddenly, as time passes, we start to wonder if we should be a little more Melanie and a lot less Scarlett.
Well ladies, I’m going to state the obvious because often times we fail to see what’s right in front of us. It’s not Melanie who has the most famous quotes in this story. It’s not Melanie whose name leads in the score of this film. Nor has her "larger than life", iconic character shaped women to embrace our feminine strength and courage through our vulnerabilities like Scarlett. Nor does Melanie develop our desire and courage to demand what we want and then accept the consequences for doing what it takes to be such a leading lady.
Yes, it’s Scarlett’s name that leads the title of this article and while we will always find Melanie simply adorable, she will never shape the celebrated freedoms of feminine strength like Scarlett O'Hara! You know it, I know it and despite his proclamation even Rhett knows it.
IMAGES COURTESY SKEEZE/PIXABAY