After Rhett's departure, does anyone think Scarlett would have gone back to chasing Ashley? Once she got her head out of the clouds and came to realize the reality of the damage she caused with Rhett and the fact that he was over her, would she have settled for Ashley just to have someone to obsess over once again even though she realized he wasn't her true love?
shareI doubt it. The whole discovery she had been wrong all those years likely left a bad taste in her mouth.
The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.
No. She realized she didn't love Ashley. Part of me thinks that Scarlett, knowing that Rhett no longer loved her, would eventually stop chasing Rhett...and that's when Rhett would chase her: he had a soft spot for truly lost causes.
shareI could see them getting together if Rhett ever went through with divorcing her, and she realized that if she ever wanted to show her face in Atlanta society again, she needed to marry a highly respectable man from a good family. And face it, it Scarett came to him and demanded that he marry her, he'd do it for reasons of honor and sympathy and because someone with a stronger personality had told him what to do.
But she'd never to it because... You're right, by the end of the story she was kind of embarrassed about her feelings for Ashley. Nothing kills romance like embarrassment.
No, i think she'd gone off Ashley after realising he didn't really love her, and suddenly decided she loved Rhett after all. She would go back to run tara and scheme over how she could get rhett back. perhaps ashley could marry scarlett's sister who is still keen to get a husband.
shareAshley would never be interested in Suellen. She is far less intelligent than Scarlett and Ashley values intelligence. He would be better off going north, working in a bank, and marrying a widow with an inheritance.
The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.
I don't think that Scarlett would be obsessed over Ashley again after she realized that he wasn't interested in her at the end of the movie. Her realizing that he wasn't in love with her made her lose interest in him. She may have went to Ashley's house sometimes after Melanie died to look after him like Melanie asked Scarlett to do and to see how he is doing, but I don't think that Scarlett and Ashley would ever date or get married.
shareNo, I think she finally saw him for who he was,and once it was possible to have him, she was like, " No, thanks!" She finally had her much too late epiphany about Rhett.
shareI think Louiseculmer nailed it, and as a matter of fact Scarlett says that's exactly what she's going to do at the end of the film. I wonder if Rhett would have come back to her...
shareThank you, HollyGoLightly2013, for opening this up. I agree with both of you. There relationship is the typical 'Can't live with each other, Can't stand to be without each other because deep down they Do love each other. A Love-Hate relationship usually draws two people together for a lifetime.
shareNeverstandalone you're welcome!! Yeah Ashley was her ideal fantasy of what she thought she wanted, and she didn't really know Ashley the person. She knew Ashley the fantasy, and fantasies never live up to reality, because perfection does not exist. With that said I believe Ashley would have been a disappointment to her, because he would not have lived up to her self conceived expectations.
shareExactly my thoughts, Holly!!!
Scarlett knows she needs a strong man, which Rhett is. Ashley's weak minded behavior after Melanie died gave Scarlett the incite she should've had years ago when she 'loved' Ashley. She hadn't actually known Ashley in the way she thought all those years. Rhett & Scarlett might have a Love/Hate relationship, but IMO, they will love each other until death, even if separated.
I don't see them reuniting either. Ashley was that perpetual ideal she kept fixed in that flighty head of hers, but in reality, she'd always think of someone like Rhett.
She would see Ashley as boring after settling down (Ashley is not boring, but would seem so to her). The two people with the most rascally elements in them, high-spirited and hot-tempered, were naturally drawn to each other. These types don't necessarily make the best long-term couples, but their relationship sure is a wild and passionate one.
On the flipside, Ashley and Melanie (and people like them) would always find each other. They're a better intellectual match and similar in temperament.
Yep, you do know relationships, don't you, AtomicReturns?!?!
share The novel does go into more detail about Scarlett's feelings and why she thought she wanted Ashley.
Early in the novel she recalls how Ashley paid a call on Tara after he had returned from his Grand Tour in Europe. She thought him so handsome and charming and from then on, she "just wanted him." He had silvery blond hair and good looks and the adolescent Scarlett was smitten.
Never mind that she was fourteen and he was about twenty-five. I guess the creepiness factor of a grown man squiring a young teen around the countryside didn't compute in those days.
Ashley was never honest with Scarlett. He just basically had the hots for her. He knew all along that he was going to marry Melanie. It was the shock of Melanie's death and the way Ashley was grieving that finally shook up Scarlett. He never loved her.
She says to herself, "I made up a pretty suit of clothes and I made him wear it."