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Have I ever been ashamed of it? No, 'tis proud I am. And don't be forgetting that you are half Irish, Miss! And to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. 'Tis ashamed of you I am this minute. I offer you the most beautiful land in the world—saving County Meath in the Old Country—and what do you do? You sniff! But there, you're young. 'Twill come to you, this love of land. There's no getting away from it, if you're Irish. You're just a child and bothered about your beaux. When you're older, you'll be seeing how 'tis...Now, do you be making up your mind about Cade or the twins or one of Evan Munroe's young bucks, and see how fine I turn you out!

—Scarlett and Gerald O'Hara

Gerald O'Hara (June 2, 1801 - November 14 1865) was the owner of Tara, the husband of Ellen O'Hara, and the father of Scarlett, Suellen, and Carreen O'Hara. He is a male character in the 1936/1939 book and film, Gone With the Wind.

Overview[]

Gerald O'Hara is an Irish immigrant who makes his fortune in America through skill, luck, pig-headedness, and an ability to hold his drink while he's gambling. His determination and gumption is passed down to Scarlett. Just as Gerald is an upstart outsider who never picked up the social graces, so Scarlett "had the easily stirred passions of her Irish father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother's unselfish and forbearing nature".

In fact, Scarlett basically reproduces Gerald's success. He had nothing, and he becomes wealthy through courage, impudence, and determination. Scarlett loses everything after the war, and then becomes wealthy through courage, impudence, and determination.

Scarlett's success, then, and her personality are presented as being inherited. Rhett actually sneers at Scarlett and her father in racial terms. "[Y]our father was nothing but a smart Mick on the make," Rhett tells his wife. "And you are no better". The Irish can blend in and try to become like white people, but in the novel they're never fully accepted, always a little too ethnically different. Gerald and Scarlett may be admirable in many ways, but they are also "Micks," their success is used as a literary device to show that the old ways of the Antebellum south have changed.

Biography[]

Gerald O'Hara is stated as being twenty-eight years older than his wife, Ellen O'Hara née Robillard. He is first mentioned in Chapter #1 multiple times, and makes his first appearance in Chapter #2.

Early Life[]

Described as a self-made man who had come to America from County Meath, Ireland when he was twenty-one years old. Since it's stated that he was 60 in 1861, at the beginning of the novel, it can be deduced that Gerald was born around the year 1801, on his tombstone in the film, his birthdate is mentioned as June 2, 1801. He came to America "with the clothes he had on his back, two shillings above his passage money and a price on his head that he felt was larger than his misdeed warranted." Apparently, he killed "an English absentee landlord's rent agent" when the Englishman insulted him by whistling the opening bars of "The Boyne Water." The Battle of the Boyne has occurred more than a hundred years before, but to Gerald and his family in Ireland, it was still fresh and pained them. The O'Hara's in Ireland were not in good terms with the English due to their suspected activities against the English government.

Gerald was the baby of the family. He has five brothers and his two older brothers, James and Andrew O'Hara, left Ireland before him under similar circumstances. They were successful merchants in Savannah, Georgia and Gerald lives with them when he first arrives in America. He and his entire Irish family are devout Catholic.

Physical Description[]

OHara Family1

The O'Hara family.

While his five brothers and father stood over six feet tall, Gerald was five feet four inches when he was twenty-one years old. It was his "compact smallness that made him what he was, for he had learned early that little people must be hardy to survive among large ones. And Gerald was hardy." His voice is described as a "brisk brogue." His eyes are bright blue and his ringlets long and silver. His hair is curly and is described as being "crisp". His legs are described as "sturdy".

Education[]

Though he did not have much formal education, his mother had taught him to read and to write with a clear hand. He was adept at ciphering. The only Latin he knew was in response to the Mass and the only history he knew was "the manifold wrong of Ireland."

Gerald1

Gerald after the death of his wife, Ellen.

Founding Tara[]

Gerald won the deed to Tara, as well as his slave valet Pork, following a poker game. In a saloon in Savannah, on a hot night in spring, Gerald made conversation with a native of Savannah who had been one of the winners in the land lottery conducted by the state or Georgia to divide up the vast area in middle Georgie. Ceded by Indians the year before Gerald game to America, the Savannah native had established a plantation but the house burned down and he wanted the property off of his hands.

The fictional Tara is near the Flint River with oak trees on the property. In the early days, Gerald lived in the four-room overseer's house because only the blackened foundation stones of the original house existed.

Later, Gerald used slave labor to build the main house. It is described as "a clumsy sprawling building that crowned the rise of ground overlooking the green incline of pasture land running down the river." The MacIntosh property adjoined Tara on the left and the Slattery property on the right along the swamp bottoms between the Flint river and the Wilkes' property.

Death[]

Suellen was made aware by Mrs. MacIntosh of the money being given out to 'Union sympathizers', and attempted to manipulate her mentally ill father into signing the Iron Clad oath, which would have given them several thousand dollars in compensation for the damage done to Tara.

During the process of signing, Gerald became lucid enough to understand what she was having him do, and, enraged, stole Alex Fontaine's horse to ride back to Tara. While attempting to jump a fence Gerald was thrown, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. The blame for Gerald's death was then placed firmly on Suellen's shoulders.

Famous Quotes from the Movie[]

GoneWithTheWind-Leigh-Mitchell

Gerald: "Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O’Hara, that Tara, that land, doesn’t mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.”

  • Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts.
  • It's proud I am that I'm Irish, and don't you be forgetting, Missy, that you're half-Irish, too. And, to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them - why, the land they live on is like their mother. Oh, but there, there. Now, you're just a child. It will come to you, this love of the land. There's no gettin' away from it if you're Irish.
  • Well, what difference does it make who you marry - so long as he's a Southerner and thinks like you?
  • It’ll come to you, this love of the land. There’s no getting away from it if you’re Irish.

Trivia[]

  • Gerald O'Hara dies quite differently in the film. In the film, he dies after a horseback riding accident in a fit of madness after seeing Jonas Wilkerson attempt to buy Tara from his daughters. In the book, Gerald dies after his daughter Suellen tries to trick him into signing allegiance to the Yankees in exchange for money.
  • Gerald named his daughter after his mother and is the only one to call her "Katie Scarlett".
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