Rhett Butler

Rhett Butler is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. In the beginning of the novel, we first meet Rhett at the Twelve Oaks Plantation barbecue, the home of John Wilkes and his son Ashley and daughter India Wilkes. The novel describes Rhett as "a visitor from Charleston;" a black sheep, who was expelled from West Point and is not accepted by any family with repute in the whole of Charle... more

Rhett Butler is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. In the beginning of the novel, we first meet Rhett at the Twelve Oaks Plantation barbecue, the home of John Wilkes and his son Ashley and daughter India Wilkes. The novel describes Rhett as "a visitor from Charleston;" a black sheep, who was expelled from West Point and is not accepted by any family with repute in the whole of Charleston, and perhaps all of South Carolina. When Scarlett O'Hara, who is at the Twelve Oaks party where Rhett was introduced, hears of this, she is shocked and intrigued at the same time. Rhett's enthrallment with Scarlett begins when he overhears her declaration of love for Ashley in the library while the rest of the "proper" girls take a nap. He recognizes that she's willful and spirited and that they're alike in many ways, including their disgust for the impending, and later ongoing, war with the Yankees. They meet again when Scarlett has... less