As Part 2 opens, Scarlett is shown picking cotton in the fields at Tara. Later, when she goes inside, a Yankee straggler comes in and tries to steal what’s left of their money, but Scarlett kills him and takes all of his looted money.
The war is finally over!! (1865) Frank Kennedy wants Suellen to marry him, and Ashley comes home to Tara. But there is trouble, the Yankee carpetbaggers and southern scalawags have raised the taxes on Tara. Now they are $300 — an unreachable amount of money. Ashley and Scarlett talk at the barn. Scarlett confesses her love for him again He says that he admires her fearlessness. They kiss, and then Scarlett asks Ashley to run away, then he says that she can’t go because she has too much honor to leave Tara. Emmy Slattery and Mr. Wilkinson come to Tara and offer to buy it from them. Scarlett tells them to leave. Gerald gets on his horse to chases them away, but he falls off and dies from a fall while he is jumping.
Scarlett decides that she’ll go see Rhett in Atlanta and ask him for the $300. She dresses up in a dress that she made out of curtains. Rhett is in jail, and he says that he can’t get his money out because it is hidden in Europe. After this Scarlett runs into Frank Kennedy. She marries him for the $300 , and then she starts a lumber business with Ashley. As Scarlett is on her way to the mill, she is attacked by hobos, but Big Sam saves her life.
Later that night, the women are all together, and India tells off Scarlett for all of the things that she has done. The husbands have gone to the woods to attack the men who attacked Scarlett. Rhett tries to save them from doing it but it is too late, Ashley was shot and Frank Kennedy was killed. (Poor Scarlett, widowed again!) Rhett makes up a lie to tell the Yankees of them being at Belle Whatley’s house, so that they can get back inside without Ashley getting arrested. Melanie invites Belle to her house to thank her for saving Ashley’s life.
Scarlett and Rhett are talking and he again asks her to marry him, and this time she says yes. They go on a grand honeymoon to New Orleans. Scarlett wants to go back to Tara. They go back, and build a mansion in Atlanta. They have a baby girl named ‘Bonnie Blue’ Butler. Scarlett doesn’t want to have anymore children because she is still in love with Ashley. They separate, and Rhett goes to see Belle and she convinces him to go back, because the Bonnie needs him. Rhett gets drunk one night after Melanie’s party and he wants to rid Ashley in Scarlett’s mind forever. This is the famous ‘carry her (to bed) up the Grand Staircase’ scene.
The next morning he apologizes then says he is going to London and taking Bonnie with him. Bonnie hates it there and says that she wants to go home and see her mother. Rhett takes Bonnie home, and then says he’s leaving. Scarlett tells him that she is pregnant, they both say that they don’t want the baby and Rhett says maybe Scarlett will have an accident. As he says this she falls down the stairs. Scarlett lost the baby. After some time, Mellie tells Rhett that Scarlett is better. They are on the patio talking and watching Bonnie, when Bonnie decides that she will jump. But she does not make it and dies, just like Gerald.
Mammy calls on Mellie to help her, because Scarlett and Rhett are both distraught. But Mellie is very ill, and falls when she is at their house and never recovers. Mellie dies shortly after. Scarlett realizes as Mellie dies that her love for Ashley never existed, and that she really loves Rhett. She rushes home to tell him, but it is too late. He has already made up his mind to go to Charleston. Scarlett begs him not to go, “where shall I go …. what shall I do?” But Rhett says, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Scarlett believes that she needs to get him back so she says she’ll go to Tara to think, to the place that gives her strength. “After all,” Scarlett says, “tomorrow is another day.”
