<P> Katie Scarlett O'Hara is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name . She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994 . During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print . </P> <P> O'Hara is the oldest living child of Gerald and Ellen O'Hara . She was born in 1844 or 1845 on her family's plantation Tara in Georgia . She was named Katie Scarlett, after her father's mother, but is always called Scarlett, except by her father, who refers to her as "Katie Scarlett ." She is from a Catholic family of Irish and French ancestry, and a descendent of an aristocratic Savannah family on her mother's side (the Robillards). O'Hara has black hair, green eyes, and pale skin . She is famous for her fashionably small waist . Scarlett has two younger sisters, Susan Elinor ("Suellen") O'Hara and Caroline Irene ("Carreen") O'Hara, and three little brothers who died in infancy . Her baby brothers are buried in the family burying ground at Tara, and each was named Gerald O'Hara, Jr . </P> <P> Scarlett O'Hara is an atypical protagonist, especially as a female romantic lead in fiction . When the novel opens, Scarlett is sixteen . She is vain, self - centered, and very spoiled by her wealthy parents . She can also be insecure, but is very intelligent, despite her fashionable Southern - belle pretense at ignorance and helplessness around men . She is somewhat unusual among Southern women, whom society preferred to act as dainty creatures who needed protection from their men . Scarlett is aware that she is only acting empty - headed, and resents the fashionable "necessity" of it, unlike most of her typical party - going Southern belles social set . </P> <P> Outwardly, Scarlett is the picture of southern charm and womanly virtues, and a popular belle with the country males . The one man she truly wants, however, is her neighbor, Ashley Wilkes--the one man she can't have . The Wilkes family has a tradition of intermarrying with their cousins, and Ashley is promised to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton of Atlanta . Scarlett's motivation in the early part of the novel centers on her desire to win Ashley's heart . When he refuses her advances (which no well - bred Southern lady would be so forward as to make), she takes refuge in childish rage, and spitefully accepts the proposal of Charles Hamilton, Melanie's brother, in a misguided effort to get back at Ashley and Melanie . </P>

How old is scarlett at the beginning of gone with the wind