Where the Ancestors Reside

Margaret Mitchell does not make light of the O'Hara's Irish ancestry. This comes across in the novel in ways that it did not in the film. Irish ancestry is a key aspect of the story; it is how both Gerald O'Hara and Scarlett's determination is explained. In the case of Gerald for certain, his success is at least partly for the ancestors who never could have experienced the good life in Europe. Rhett Butler recognizes Scarlett's "Irish spirit." It is one of the things he likes about her. He notices when she has her Irish up. Scarlett herself hardly recognizes the depth of her heritage while she has but one goal before her--winning Ashley Wilkes. It is not until she figures him dead and perceives herself as abandoned in the world, left by Butler as well, that she acknowledges her ancestors.

"And when they died, they died spent but unquenched. All those shadowy folks whose blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit room. And Scarlett was not surprised to see them, these kinsmen who had taken the worst that fate could send them and hammer it into the best. Tara was her fate, her fight, and she must conquer it."

This is what comes to Scarlett as she lay in bed planning her future. She wonders if the ancestors are in fact in the room with her, or if the dimension she has entered is only a dream. "'Whether you are there or not,' she murmured sleepily, 'good night--and thank you'."

The mystical including presence of ancestors can be found throughout the novel. In the same chapter, Mitchell writes, "There were too many Irish ancestors crowding behind Gerald's shoulders." One can read this figuratively, Gerald seen to be standing on the shoulders of his ancestors. Their perseverance
has led to his. One can read it symbolically, which would be to read it from a symbolic universe in which there is a crowd existing in another dimension and yet ever present as witnesses. I do not think it unintentional that Mitchell places the ancestors behind the shoulders or, perhaps, off to the sides, for it has been suggested by others that this is how, visually, they are attached. Mitchell would seem to know this. Mitchell has undoubtedly acquired such an understanding.