“Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell (post 13): Scarlett experiences personified presence, is controlled by an unseen other, and has multiple personalities.

Conscience-stricken plus Personified Presence

“…added to [Scarlett’s] stunned sense of loss at Frank’s death [her second husband], were fear and remorse and the torment of a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in her life she was regretting things she had done, regretting them with a sweeping superstitious fear…God would punish her…Oh, if only God did not seem so furious and vengeful!” (1, pp. 821-822).

Scarlett’s previously described personalities (Southern belle, Atlanta businesswoman, etc.) were neither conscience-stricken nor prone to spiritual experiences, so the above would seem to be a different personality.

Scarlett speaks of a personified presence with whom she interacted, a person-like being who seemed “furious and vengeful” about how she had behaved. The religious interpretation is God. The literary interpretation is metaphor. A psychological interpretation would be that it was a furious and vengeful, alternate personality.

Conscience-free, Godless

“…I did try so hard to be nice to people and kind to Frank, but then the nightmare would come back and scare me so bad I’d want to rush out and just grab money away from people, whether it was mine or not…I’d go to bed and dream that I was back at Tara right after Mother died, right after the Yankees went through…I’m hungry and starving…My mind keeps saying: ‘If I ever get out of this, I’ll never, never be hungry again’…” (1, p. 828).

A possible interpretation is that her ruthless, masculine, businesswoman personality uses this nightmare to get control and take over.

Ashley-loving

“Ashley [who was married to Melanie, but had confessed to Scarlett that he loved her] was so honorable, so truthful, so kind…How could she live if that secret source of her strength, his love, were taken away from her?” (1, p. 823).

Rhett-like

“Perhaps…they were…alike. Sometimes [Scarlett] thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett…” (1, p. 826).

Controlled by Unseen Other

She whispered ‘Yes’ before she even thought…a sudden calm fell on her spirit…She had promised to marry [Rhett] when she had no intention of promising…almost as if by divine intervention, a hand stronger than hers was about her affairs, settling her problems for her” (1, pp. 835-836).

Comment

Scarlett switches among various, distinctly different modes of thinking and behavior, and is also described as experiencing the presence of personified beings and forces within her, all of which is seen in multiple personality.

But the author has not labelled it as multiple personality. It is unacknowledged. And as previously discussed in regard to other writers, unacknowledged multiple personality probably reflects the author’s own psychology.

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