Scarlett O’Hara Life Lessons: 7 Things Gone with the Wind Taught Me (and Her Best Quotes)
I am a huge fan of Gone with the Wind, the novel, the authorized follow-up books, and the film, and above all, I am a fan of Scarlett O'Hara. She is selfish, manipulative, and petty, and she is also a rebel, fiercely determined and loyal to the few things she decides are worth her loyalty. You are not supposed to admire her, and yet I do.
Over the years she has taught me seven lessons I still carry: listen to your gut over your heart, never betray your friends, even deeply flawed women deserve happiness, things are not always what they seem, learn to let go of what you cannot change, never give up because you can survive almost anything, and remember that tomorrow is always another day. Here is what each one really means, along with the Scarlett quotes that say it best.
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A note before we begin:The character of Scarlett O’Hara within the Gone With the Wind book and movie is a product of a time that depicts ethnic and racial prejudices that were wrong then and are wrong today, I decided to keep this post up without noting this denouncement would be irresponsible. If we are to create an antiracist future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history, including personas like Scarlett O’Hara.
Table of Contents
Many women, particularly feminists, would question my admiration for Scarlett O'Hara. She was selfish, manipulative, and petty among other things, but she was also a rebel, determined, and loyal (at least to those things she felt deserved her loyalty). She did not accept society's conformities and did what she damn well pleased. She was direct and unafraid to express her opinion, even though it would probably get her in trouble. She was passionate about what mattered to her, without ever experiencing physical passion until she met her match, Rhett Butler. There is a lot to be said of Scarlett, and there were definitely life lessons that Scarlett O'Hara imparted on me.
Who was Scarlett O'Hara?
If you are meeting her for the first time, Scarlett is the heroine of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, brought to the screen by Vivien Leigh in 1939. She is a Southern belle whose comfortable world is destroyed by the Civil War and Reconstruction, and who claws her way back through sheer will.
She is beautiful, clever about the things she cares about, blind about the things she does not, and impossible to forget. That mix of strength and deep flaws is exactly why she still gives us so much to think about, and so much to learn from.
1. Your dream guy may not be the right guy.
Scarlett never really loved Ashley (something she eventually admitted to herself), yet she pursued him relentlessly at the expense of experiencing real love with a guy who “got” her. How many years did Scarlett and Rhett lose with her mindless pursuit of the wrong guy? The guy (or gal) that you think you are meant to be with may, in fact, be the worst possible partner for you in the grand scheme of things.
When it comes to love, many people are so busy listening to their hearts, they forget to listen to their gut. Your gut, your intuition, that little nagging voice inside, is your best friend in the whole world, and if you learn to listen to it, you will be far happier and spared from a lot of bad relationships and worse situations.
In her own words: “I loved something I made up.” Scarlett finally realizes she never loved Ashley the man, only the idealized version she invented. That is the whole warning in a single line.
Takeaway: When your heart and your gut disagree about a person, listen to your gut.
2. Do not betray your friends
Scarlett did not have many friends, probably for good reason, but the one friend she did have was Melanie. Melanie was the bigger friend for putting up with all of Scarlett's antics, including trying to steal her husband. Scarlett's behavior definitely taught me how uncool it is to screw your friends, something I can say with confidence I have yet to do. And although I don't have a huge collection of friends, I prefer quality over quantity; I know that I can count on each and every one of them in good times and bad. An important asset in life. One that you should not risk.
Takeaway: Loyal friends are rare. Guard those friendships instead of testing them.
3. Even deeply flawed women deserve happiness.
Scarlett never once apologized for who she was. She ignored the rules, manipulated everyone in her path, and hurt a lot of people, and underneath all of it, she was simply a woman looking for love and a roof over her head. Everyone deserves love and affection. There is almost always some good to find in a person, and sometimes what looks like coldness is just someone who has not yet met the one who looks them in the eye and tells them they are okay.
Takeaway: Being imperfect does not disqualify you from love. It makes you human.
4. Things are not always what they seem.
Gorgeous green velvet gown, or the living room curtains? Both, of course. Scarlett tore down her mother's drapes to make a dress grand enough to fool Rhett into thinking she was still thriving. The first lesson is the obvious one: do not judge by appearances, and really, try not to judge at all. The second lesson is the one I love more: use what you have. Be resourceful, be inventive, be bold. Sometimes the curtains are exactly what you need.
Takeaway: Look past the surface, and when life strips you bare, get creative with what remains.
5. Learn to let go of what you cannot change (fiddle-dee-dee)
Fiddle-dee-dee. When Scarlett hit a conversation or a situation she did not like, she waved it off with that phrase, as if to say, I hear you, and since we cannot change it right now, let us not dwell. I translate it as, it is what it is. Some people read this as her way of dodging hard things. I read it as wisdom. There are things in life you cannot change, and you can bang your head against that wall until you bleed, or you can find the nearest door and walk through it. Knowing the difference is a genuine skill.
In her own words: “I'll think about it tomorrow.” It sounds like avoidance, and sometimes it is, but it is also permission to stop spinning and let a clearer head take over later.
Takeaway: Save your energy for the battles you can actually win.
6. Never give up; you can survive anything.
But when faced with obstacles that can be changed, but seemed unachievable, there was no one more determined than Scarlett O'Hara. Through war, bad marriages, near-rape, and starvation, Scarlett always found a way to survive. She had an end goal, Tara, and she never let anyone or anything push her off her path towards securing her Tara.
She did what she had to do; she sacrificed, lied, cheated, stole, and whereas that probably wouldn't fly today, and I am not 100% on board with the whole “end justifies the means,” I do admire and appreciate her drive and, yes, her positive attitude. If she had withered up in a ball and cried, if she had given up faith, she would have never gotten what she wanted.
In her own words: “As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.” It is a vow made in the ruins of Tara, and it is the purest picture of resilience in the whole story.
Takeaway: When the goal matters, refuse to quit, even when quitting looks reasonable.
7. Tomorrow is another day.
And lastly, this. No matter what happens to you, or doesn't happen to you. Tomorrow is another day. Start fresh. Live as if that day is your last. Be nice to people. Be generous. Profit from every action you take, every decision you make. Don't dwell on the past, or too much on the future. Live for the moment and know that each day is a gift.
In her own words: “After all, tomorrow is another day.” The final line of the novel, and Scarlett's whole philosophy in six words: whatever went wrong today, you get to begin again.
Takeaway: A hard day is not a whole life. You always get to start over.
Is Scarlett O'Hara a good role model?
Honestly, no, and that is the point. Scarlett is not a template to copy. She is a mirror to study. Her strengths are real: resilience, courage, independence, and a refusal to be a victim in an era that gave women almost no power. Her flaws are just as real: she is selfish, manipulative, materialistic and often blind to the love right in front of her. The value is not in being Scarlett. It is in taking her best qualities, her grit and her forward motion, while learning from her worst ones. A little bit of Scarlett, as one of my readers once put it, lives in all of us. The trick is choosing which parts to let out.
Scarlett O'Hara life lessons: quick questions and answers
What is the main lesson from Scarlett O'Hara?
That resilience matters. No matter how bad things get, tomorrow is another day, and you can start over and survive.
What is Scarlett O'Hara's most famous quote?
“After all, tomorrow is another day,” the closing line of Gone with the Wind, closely followed by “As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.”
What does fiddle-dee-dee mean?
It is Scarlett's way of brushing off something she cannot change right now, close to a modern it is what it is or I will deal with it later.
Is Scarlett O'Hara a feminist icon?
It is complicated. She is fiercely independent and self-reliant, which reads as feminist, but she often works the system rather than challenges it. That tension is exactly what keeps people debating her.
Should I read the book or watch the film first?
I love the book even more than the film, and I recommend the authorized follow-up novels too. Start wherever you like, then go deeper.
One last word before you go
If you made it all the way down here, thank you for spending a little time in Scarlett's complicated, infuriating, unforgettable company with me. She is not a hero to imitate, but she is a wonderful teacher if you know how to read her, and these seven lessons have quietly shaped how I move through my own life.
If you have never read the novel or seen the film, treat this as your nudge to soak it in, and if you know Scarlett well, I would love to hear which lesson lands hardest for you. So tell me in the comments: what life lesson did you learn from a book or a movie? Share this post with the friend who quotes tomorrow is another day at all the right moments, and then run along now and bring me a mint julep.
If you've never read any of the Margaret Mitchell authorized continuations of the story, I highly recommend them! There's Scarlett, the sequel by Alexandra Ripley; Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig, which parallels Gone With the Wind; and Ruth's Journey, also by Donald McCaig, which is a prequel. All great reads!
Special thanks to Gulya for allowing me to use her beautiful image of the Scarlett O'Hara doll. An actual picture of Scarlett O'Hara costs $500!
Illustrations commissioned from Linden Eller.
For a visual summary of this post, check out my Scarlett O'Hara web story!
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Thanks for stopping by my blog! I love your tagline 🙂 I started reading Gone With the Wind last Christmas but never finished – this post inspired me to pick it back up!
I LOVE this.
You know what I really love about the book? How you find out right away that Scarlet is not actually the beauty she is in the movie, yet she acts like she is, so everyone views her that way.
My interpretation of Scarlet’s famous phrase was more about procrastination – as in ‘ugh, I’ll just deal with this tomorrow’ – I read this book when I was 13 on a 45 foot sailboat with my best camp friends on a week-long trip around Lake Superior. It was the fattest paperback EVER – and frequently as I finished a page, it blew right off the binding and into the lake…one of the best books EVER.
hahahahaha – adorable and funny post. I think there is a little bit of Scarlet in all of us.
@Deb, agree! Thanks for stopping by!
As one of the only people on earth who has never read the book or never seen the movie, I appreciate your post so much. Now I can take this advice and never feel like I’m missin’ a thang!!!!
@Deb, I didn’t watch the movie until I was in my late 20’s, after which I read the book and the two additional books that continued the story. I actually like the books better. Scarlett is such a strong women, she is sort on inspiring. If you ever have extra time, I recommend trying out the book.
There are no books that continue the story because the story is complete in and of itself. That said, I’m not an ostrich. The Mitchell Estate probably allowed the two books to be written for the money. Margaret Mitchell would never have allowed them to be written, not ever. The ending of GWTW is the asme as the ending of Crime and Punishment. The reason there are additional works is due to the fact that Scarlett O’Hara is greater than the novel, in a way. Like Hamlet, for which there is no sequel, such as, I don’t know, Hamlet in heaven or something. Please do not mention any of the so-called sequels again ever. They do not exist. Like a sequel to Catcher in the Rye, for God’s sakes?
Wow, I never put all of that together, and sadly I never read the book, but did see the movie. You’ve inspired me to dust off a copy and relive all of these great lessons. There’s some great takeaways in here! Go Scarlet!
@Kelly, I love the book (actually more than the movie) and have read the follow-up books (other authors won competitions to be allowed to continue the story) and there was a recently a prequel release too!
i actually never watched gone with the wind! i grew up in a really strict house.. so i was only allowed to watch PBS until high school. we’ll have to watch it one of these days. i can relate in that i’m deeply flawed in a lot of ways and going after the wrong men in the past.. i don’t know that i would ever go after a friend’s husband.. and screwing people over so that the end can justify its means..
@Esther, oh Scarlett was a total mess, it is such a classic, you must watch it one day!
“Even deeply flawed women deserve happiness.”
I like that one. We’re all a little screwed up in our own special ways, and we all deserve to be happy. (I mean… like, 99.9% of us, at least) 🙂
@Britany, so true, I haven’t met a perfect person yet!
The film I watched when I was a kid and didn’t understand it anyway, but now I’m just nearly finished with reading the novel first time, Ebook on the iPad – I wonder why Scarlett is described in so many places as if she was, well, just stupid? Like, somebody tells her a decision wasn’t ‘ratified’ and she ‘tried to look intelligent’ – I thought – What?… Or somebody mentions a word and she ‘wasn’t sure what it meant’ – actually, I opened the dictionary app then, to find out for myself what it meant, haha… For somebody unable to think in metaphors or to understand much about what’s going on in people somehow she masters the skill of manipulation surprisingly well…There are quite a few lose ends in her character for me, and I’m still trying to connect those dots and to understand the whole picture. I think it’s quite intricate, I wish I could really understand all of it, because I love the book which I find really unique!
@Klaus, I think there were a lot of open answers left to her character, some of which I think I gained deeper insight on in the book called Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. It is touted as the sequel as there was a competition to write this novel and I actually liked it quite a lot. There is now a prequel that just came out by a different author called Ruth’s Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind by Donald McCaig – I haven’t read it yet but I am curious!
Thanks very much for the reply, I’ve got the vaguest memory of hearing about that sequel somewhere a long time ago – I must acquire and read it soon, it seems like the kind of book I want after having read GWTW in the first place. Thank you for pointing out those books!
@Klaus, my pleasure!
can you help me…
I read but forget when Scarlett told Butler : ( not sure the whole sentence is right , I remembet the means only ) The whole world can not beat us…but we can be beaten by digging into the past…
Thanks.
Very great tips, thanks for posting
I struggle with the character of Scarlett. She seems to me to be a horridly self-obsessed, self-servicing narcissist willing to use anyone that would serve her purposes. She was manipulative, spoiled and selfish. She rarely if ever thought of others unless it was out of some twisted sense of responsibility but that ‘care’ (as limited as it was) never comes across as originating from love. I also struggle with one other aspect of her character and that is her good looks. Imagine for a moment that she wasn’t attractive and men didn’t flock to her like love sick guppies. What if she were plain and unadorned but with the same temperament, would she have been able to get away with what she did? Would she be revered as she often is or would other words come to mind, more with the intent to vilify her and call her behavior out for what it was? Society often tolerates from those that have pretty faces (and figures) much more than they would from those whose faces are not considered so attractive – and all of that changes with the times and the fickleness of fashion. If I were a mother offering up an example of what NOT to do, what not to become, it would be Scarlett. If my daughter became like her I would suffer no small grief and I can’t help but wonder would people who admire her want their child to be like her, would they want to be friends with someone like that? Would one ever trust or share confidences with someone that would most likely use that information to serve some selfish purpose if given the chance? It surprises me how many people see that as strength and not an abuse of personal power. I don’t get it. I really don’t.
@Laura, you are SO right! People who are deemed pretty or beautiful do often get away with a lot more. I do think she would not have had as much “success” if she had been a plain-jane! Really great point!
@Laura, Laura, I couldn’t agree more. I watched GWTW yesterday for the first time and it left me feeling all sorts of disturbed which lead me to googling it. There was absolutely not a single redeeming quality to her. I’m such a strong advocate for women empowerment and that’s what I had hoped for in Scarlet but I only found her to a deeply manipulative self serving character mostly in self sabotaging ways and very hurtful to others and yet without a shred of remorse. Some seeming strength is simply fear and weakness mascarading as such and I wish better for women around me.
@Tendai, thanks for continuing the conversation around this topic, and agree with your comments, the Scarlett O’Hara character viewed with a lens of today’s real-world events affords us such clarity when it comes to how women and been portrayed and celebrated in fiction, or the arts as a whole.
I actually read it in Russian, a long while ago. Loved it. One of my favorite phrases that I have personally adopted is “ I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Such a great way to not overwhelm yourself with something but instead give time for feelings to settle and think with a clear head.