Emma Bovary and Scarlett O'Hara are two of the most hateful mothers ever depicted. Here's Emma, responding to her toddler daughter's demand of attention:
But there, between the window and the work-table, was little Berthe, tottering along in her knitted boots, trying to reach her mother, to grab hold of the ends of her apron strings. -- Leave me alone! said Emma, pushing her away. The little girl soon came back again, even closer, up against her mother's knees; and, leaning to steady herself, she gazed up at her with big blue eyes, as a thread of clear saliva dribbled from her lips on to the silk of the apron. -- Leave me alone! repeated the young woman sharply. The look on her face frightened the child, who began to cry. -- Can't you leave me alone! she said, elbowing her away. Berthe fell over by the chest of drawers, against the brass fitting; she cut her cheek on it, blood trickled down.
(p. 107.) Scarlett seems to have studied at the Emma Bovary mothering school. Here's Scarlett, bemoaning her pregnancy with Ella: "When she thought of the baby at all, it was with baffled rage at the untimeliness of it." (p. 624.)
"Aren't you proud to be having a child?" [asked Rhett.] "Oh, dear God, no! I -- I hate babies!" "You mean -- Frank's baby?" "No -- anybody's baby."
(p. 638.) As for Wade, Scarlett's oldest, his attempts at gaining his mother's attention are consistently met with "Don't bother me now. I"m in a hurry" and "Run away, Wade. I am busy." (p. 823.)
In all societies, mothering is such a weighty measure of a woman's value and virtuousness that it's remarkable that these two enduring ladies of literature are such abominable mothers. Bad mothers are unsympathetic. Why would readers devote the time and energy to spending hundreds of pages with these two loathsome mothers?
As readers obviously do spend the time and energy necessary to finish Gone with the Wind and Madame Bovary, repeatedly, they can apparently take bad mothering in stride when it's a character trait in their novels' heroines. One reason may be that extraordinary adventures become possible for women who are not maternal. In a sense, bad mothering is necessary for verisimilitude. If Scarlett and Emma Bovary had accepted the roles that society had selected for them, then they'd have been normal mothers, and they wouldn't have gotten themselves into the messes that ruined their lives and make such great reading.
Scarlett's and Emma's bad mothering also contributes to the reader's sense of justice at the comeuppance both women receive at the end of the tales. These ladies aren't merely victims of their authors' sadism; rather, they deserve their fates because, among other things, they've been appalling mothers. Readers respond positively to this shape of righteousness in the narrative arc.
Finally, bad mothering shows a kinship between Scarlett and Emma and male protagonists of great novels. By being lousy mothers, Scarlett and Emma signal their exceptionalism: they're not like other women; they're non-maternal. They're like great men, who are driven by the imperative of realizing their potential in a non-domestic context, who'd rather live out their destinies directly than vicariously through their children.
Privileging the self over others, including offspring, is a sharply double-edged trait. It's both necessary for greatness, and the most ready mark of a narcissist -- or, in non-clinical terms, an asshole. Truly great people rarely calibrate this trait with sufficient sensitivity: witness artist-monsters like Pablo Picasso and V.S. Naipaul. As for the mere narcissists, the trait leaves their personalities an unmitigated disaster.
In life, the misfortunes that rank above being the child of such a person are few. On the page, there's enough distance to make it a captivating dymanic about which to read.
Notwithstanding the tremendous differences in style, setting and story between Gone with the Wind and Emma (as well as the 121 years between their publications), Scarlett O'Hara and Emma Woodhouse are remarkably similar. They are both strong-willed and rich. They are both treated by society as beautiful, but handled by their authors somewhat less deferentially. (The first clause of Gone with the Wind is, "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful." And Emma, though pretty, is second in beauty to Harriet Smith.) They are both quick witted but narrowly focused in their interests. They are both selfish and lack self-awareness. And, perhaps most importantly, at the time we meet them, they have -- neither of them -- been in love.
"I never have been in love: it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall," says Emma (at page 75). The fact that, by the end of the book, she has fallen in love with Mr. Knightley is what salvages her from perpetual bratdom. In gaining self-awareness of her own heart, she grows up. Most significantly, she ventures beyond the safety of her self-sufficient life, willing to risk the ever-present failure that lurks when any of us trades our solitary satisfactions for the hope of greater bliss in pairs.
Scarlett, on the other hand, thinks she's in love with Ashley, but her love for him has always struck me as false. Ashley doesn't possess any of the qualities -- pragmatism, forthrightness, gumption -- that Scarlett prizes most highly, and perhaps it is for this reason that she can't comprehend him. Ashley's function is not as the love of her life, but as the shield to protect her from ever truly falling in love.
For all the horror that Scarlett confronts, the one thing she fears is falling in love. Scarlett, who reacts to the atrocities of war by committing passionately to survival, equates that survival with self-sufficiency. She can envision (indeed, tolerate) a survival that burdens her with dependents for whom she must provide; but she cannot fathom a survival in which she is dependent -- even in a situation of mutual and reciprocal dependency, as (presumably is possible) in marriage. Falling in love would deprive her of the independent self-sufficiency that she feels is necessary for her existence.
A woman who doesn't want to fall in love is a challenging character. Jane Austen remarked that Emma was a character that only she could like, and Scarlett is far from sympathetic. And yet both characters are compelling, both books masterpieces and -- not incidentally -- popularly acclaimed.
Perhaps that combination of tough character and popular appeal arises from the humiliation both women endure. Emma is mortified when Mr. Knightley criticizes her sharp treatment of Miss Bates. Scarlett is humiliated so profoundly and so frequently that Margaret Mitchell appears almost sado-masochistic.
That audiences can endure strong female characters as long as they get their comeuppance is received wisdom. But maybe audiences are also warming to an uncomfortable truth fundamental to both tales: openness to the humiliations and tribulations of dependency is a prerequisite to falling in love; but a refusal to countenance such indignity is no protection against it.
