Rhett Butler
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Rhett Butler is the handsome, dashing fictional hero of Gone with The Windwritten by American author, Margaret Mitchell. The novel introduces him as the problem-solving pragmatist who is sure that the South cannot win a protracted war with the North. His opinions, expressed in the parlor of a Southern gentleman's household, are not viewed favorably by the Southerners and as a result, he is even challenged into a duel. Rhett gracefully takes a bow with the famous lines "I seem to have ruined everybody's brandy and cigars and dreams of victory and war."
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Introduction
In the beginning, the novel describes him as "a visitor from Charleston;" a black sheep, he was kicked out of West Point and because of his true rebel nature, he is not accepted by any family with repute in the whole of Charleston, and perhaps all of South Carolina. When Scarlett O'Hara, who was at the Twelve Oaks party where Rhett was introduced, hears of this, she is shocked and intrigued at the same time. In the course of the novel, Rhett becomes increasingly enamored with the survivalist instincts of Scarlett O'Hara in the chaos surrounding the war.
The Lost Cause
Like Thomas Sutpen and Charles Bon from Absalom, Absalom!, Rhett decides to join in the Southern cause, but unlike his fellow Confederate, Ashley Wilkes, Rhett is not spiritually paralyzed by the South's loss.
Rhett takes leave of Scarlett after rescuing her and Melanie Wilkes from the burning of Atlanta, expressing his desire to fight alongside the South and its lost cause. Scarlett cannot comprehend Rhett's sudden decision to fight, which underscores her total rejection of the Southern chivalric ideal.
Scarlett takes her burdens on alone and it hurts Rhett that she won't just lay them at his feet and he would carry them for her. After the war, Rhett meets Scarlett again only to find that she is now married to her sister's beau, Frank Kennedy (Her first husband was Charles Hamilton, Melanie Wilke's cousin). Rhett also discovers that even with her second husband, Scarlett still harbors her infatuation for the gentlemanly, Ashley Wilkes.
Life with Scarlett
Later, when Frank Kennedy dies during a Ku Klux Klan controversy and Scarlett is guilt-ridden and intoxicated, Rhett propositions her into marrying him. Scarlett accepts his proprosal for his money but Rhett does not mind because he understands her opportunistic nature which was not unlike his own. But her continuing affections for Ashley Wilkes becomes a problem for the couple to culminate in the death of their daughter, Bonnie. The tragedy causes a rift between the two which is impossible to bridge but which Melanie Wilkes tries to repair anyway.
But Rhett is not the type of man to wait forever and twelve years to most people is an eon. He leaves because he knows that is what he has to do. He has to get away from Scarlett. Her confession of love is something that startles him but also is something he expects. He knows that Scarlett could never be happy with Ashley and when she discovers that, he most likely does not want to be around when she throws her obsession onto him. When he finally gets Scarlett's love, he is not happy and leaves with his famous parting shot that has since been immortalized: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
Adaptations
In the movie Rhett was played by Clark Gable.sv:Rhett Butler