“Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell (post 14):  “I won’t think of it now” is Scarlett’s self-hypnotic suggestion to switch to alternate personality.

The novel’s famous ending:

“I won’t think of it now,” she thought grimly, summoning up her old charm…“I won’t think of it now,” she said again, aloud, trying to push her misery to the back of her mind…“I’ll think of it tomorrow…Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day” (1, pp. 1036-1037).

Those lines are actually an old refrain. Scarlett has recited virtually the same words previously. But why does Scarlett think of “I won’t think of it now” as “her old charm”? In what sense does she use the word “charm”?

“Her old charm” means her old, tried and true, magical incantation. What magical effect has she come to expect from thinking or saying aloud, “I won’t think of it now”?

When Scarlett finds herself facing a problem she can’t solve, she uses that phrase as a kind of self-hypnotic suggestion to prompt a switch to an alternate personality. She is suggesting to the personality that is currently out and in control (and who is miserable because it can’t solve the current problem) that it temporarily give up control, go inside (“to the back of her mind”), and let another personality come out that is better able to deal with the problem.

With another personality in control, tomorrow will be another day.

1. Margaret Mitchell. Gone With the Wind. New York, Scribner, 1936.