Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

This book is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It in a town in New England in the 1800’s. It about a family and the girls growing up during the 1800’s and the things they have to face. The growing pains that all girls have to go through even now. This was a very sad book at the end when Beth dies.

The four main characters are Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth the story centers around the four girls and the life they have during the time they are growing up. Marmee the girls mother is another main character because she is always supporting them in every decision and helping them to make through bad times even when they did not get anything for Christmas.

The setting was in New England during the Civil War on the block where they lived. The other locations were at a dance and in Europe later on when “Laurie” enters in the picture.

In small New England town; mid 1800s an upcoming Christmas looked like it would be a bleak affair to the four March girls. With their father at the Civil War battlefront, and their saintly mother, Marmee, as they called her, working to support her family, the holiday would be void of many of its traditional pleasures. With the dollar Marmee said they might spend, the girls each settled on buying simple gifts for their mother and for the Hummel family down the road; and receiving, in kind, surprise treats of ice cream and bonbons from rich old Mr. Lawrence next door.

The girls resolved to face life as Pilgrims, to overcome their weaknesses, and be "good little women" by the time their father returned. The oldest, Meg, determined to enjoy her work more and fret less about her looks. The tomboy, Jo, pledged to better control her temper, upgrade her writing abilities and develops feminine qualities. Amy desired to be less selfish and less vain concerning her beautiful golden hair. Everyone believed Beth, the homebody, to be perfect, but she earnestly prayed to overcome her fear of people. The girls labored for the next year to acquire these qualities, with much success and occasional failure.

At year's end, Meg confidently and excitedly attended a fashionable New Year's dance. She talked Jo into accompanying her, but Jo didn't care much for "girls or girlish gossip," and felt as much out of place as a "colt in a flower garden." Running from a prospective dance-mate, Jo hid behind a curtain. ...

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...ed from the fever, had slowly faded away, no longer to sit contentedly by the fire knitting and smiling. Jo unearthed a great emptiness in her heart and life after her sister's death. Meg and John, and Amy and Laurie were happily married. Though Jo had resolved never to marry, still she felt an awful loneliness as she wondered what direction her life should take. While struggling with these feelings, a tutor entered her life, Professor Bhaer. He was an older, German gentleman, filled with a gentle love. People turned to him because of the compassion he so freely gave, akin to Beth's spirit. This love healed Jo. They married and opened a "school for lads, a good, happy homelike school." Jo looked after the boys while the professor taught them in the large, Plumfield home, willed to Jo by her aunt.

As the sisters gathered together to celebrate Marmee's birthday, they agreed that their lives were happy, rich and full. The little women had become cultured, confident young ladies. There at the table, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, along with one empty chair, symbolizing their love for Beth, sat the contented mother. She wished that such a moment could last forever.