Southern Fried Thursday

I found this excerpt on the web...one of my favorite scenes, not because of Ashley (blah) but of the importance of Tara (land) to Scarlett....

In the famous paddock scene, Ashley feels cowardly and spiritless, afraid of "life becoming too real...losing the beauty of that, that life I loved...Now I find myself in a world which for me is worse than death. A world in which there's no place for me." Tired of all her efforts at Tara,

Scarlett wishes to escape too:
I do want to escape too! I'm so very tired of it all!... The South is dead, it's dead, the Yankees and the carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us.

Scarlett still hopes she can win Ashley's love - she declares her love for him and begs that they run away together to Mexico. An honorable and devoted Ashley refuses to leave his wife and child for Scarlett, even though he realizes all of Scarlett's sacrifices for them: "You've carried the load for all of us." He tells Scarlett that he will be there to help her more. Scarlett proposes only one form of help:

Scarlett: Take me away. There's nothing to keep us here.

Ashley: Nothing? Nothing, except honor.

Although he expresses his honorable love for Scarlett, embracing and kissing her, he tells her that he mostly loves her courage and her stubbornness. He reminds her that Tara will sustain her, for she loves it more than she loves him:

Ashley: Yes, there is something. Something you love better than me, though you may not know it - (He picks up the red earth of Tara and puts it in her hand.) Tara.

Scarlett: Yes. I still have this. (She composes herself coldly.) You needn't go. I won't have you all starved simply 'cause I threw myself at your head. It won't happen again. (She turns and walks away.)

She turns away from him to return to Tara, realizing that she has lost him forever.

Jonas Wilkerson, a scalawag, shows up at Tara with his "trashy wench" wife Emmy Slattery: "We came out here to pay a call, a friendly call, and talk a little business with old friends." He offers to buy Scarlett out, believing she can't pay her $300 tax debt. Scarlett throws a handful of red dirt into his face, telling him: "That's all of Tara you'll ever get!"