Editing Gone with the Wind (novel) (section)

===Manhood===
{{quote box
|quote = Somebody's darling! so young and so brave!
Wearing still on his pale, sweet face{{snd}}
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave{{snd}}
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace!
|source =—''Somebody's Darling'' by Marie La Coste, of Georgia.<ref name=autogenerated156 /><ref>Henry Marvin Wharton (1904), ''War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, 1861–1865'', Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co., p. 188. {{OCLC|9348166}}</ref> 
|width = 35%
|align = right
}}

Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood in Scarlett's eyes. A [[Planter class|planter]] by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died.<ref name=autogenerated176>Daniel E. Sutherland (1988), ''[[The Confederate Carpetbaggers]]'', Louisiana State University Press, p. 4. </ref> However, Ashley's name signifies paleness. His "pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death".<ref name=autogenerated173>Elizabeth Young, (1999) ''Disarming the Nation: Women's Writing and the American Civil War'', University of Chicago Press, p. 254. {{ISBN|0-226-96087-0}}</ref>

Ashley contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other ex-Confederate transplants there.<ref name=autogenerated176 /> Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been "in a state of suspended animation" since the surrender. He feels he is not "shouldering a man's burden" at Tara and believes he is "much less than a man{{snd}}much less, indeed, than a woman".<ref name=autogenerated13 />

A "young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight",<ref name=autogenerated177 /> Ashley is like a young girl himself.<ref name=autogenerated178>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 252</ref> With his "poet's eye",<ref>[[William Shakespeare]], ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', Act 5, Scene 1: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.</ref> Ashley has a "feminine sensitivity".<ref>Anne Goodwyn Jones (1981), ''Tomorrow Is Another Day: The woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, pp. 354–355. {{ISBN|0-8071-0776-X}}</ref> Scarlett is angered by the "slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was "born queer".<ref name=autogenerated6 /> (Mitchell's use of the word "queer" is for its sexual connotation because [[queer]], in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.)<ref name=autogenerated181>Young, E., ''Disarming the Nation: women's writing and the American Civil War'', p. 253.</ref> Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness, and sexual impotence.<ref>Jones, A.G., ''Tomorrow is Another Day: the woman writer in the South 1859–1936'', p. 355.</ref> He rides, plays poker, and drinks like "proper men", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated191>Darden Asbury Pyron (1991), ''Southern Daughter: the life of Margaret Mitchell'', New York: Oxford University Press, p. 320. {{ISBN|978-0-19-505276-3}}</ref> The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of [[Medusa]] on his [[Cravat (early)|cravat]] pin.<ref name=autogenerated6 /><ref name=autogenerated181 />

Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands{{snd}}the "calf-like"<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Charles Hamilton, and the "old-maid in britches",<ref name=autogenerated3 /> Frank Kennedy{{snd}}are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction.<ref>Craig Thompson Friend, (2009) ''Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on Manhood in the South since Reconstruction'', University of Georgia Press, p. xviii. {{ISBN|978-0-8203-3674-9}}</ref> Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy,<ref>Part 4, chapter 33</ref> is effeminate or "gay-coded".<ref>Lutz, D., ''The Dangerous Lover: Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-century Seduction Narrative'', p. 84.</ref> Charles, Frank, and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South.<ref name=autogenerated173 /> Its power and influence have been diminished.