It is interesting that Louisa May Alcott writes Little Women, in which she incorporates her own feelings and experiences. In fact, Jo's character is a near replication of Alcott herself. This makes the novel all the more interesting and personal, with the author speaking directly through the protagonist. Alcott writes the
novel from third person limited point of view, focusing chiefly on Josephine March. She develops the characters brilliantly throughout the entire work,
especially the March girls. Each sister is entirely unique, and yet so tightly bound together through their love for one another.
Little Women takes place during the Civil War in a small town in Massachusetts. The Marchs live a life of poverty with their father in the
war. Through this hardship, the girls: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, learn to be thankful in all circumstances and help those less fortunate than themselves.
The girls are very hopeful and dream of a brighter future. Each experiences adventures and pursues her own dreams. In the end, they are still gathered
as one family, grateful for their many blessings and for each other.
Josephine March is the protagonist, a tomboy who refuses to submit to the traditional image of ladyhood. This mindset is radically different from a
typical woman of her time. Jo possesses an innate passion for writing and literature in general. However, she loses much of her headstrong independent
nature through marrying Professor Bhaer. She gives up writing as he is a significant critic of her style. The reader is exposed to two the
dramatically different sides of Jo March. She is rebellious, fiery, and outspoken, wishing all the while that she was a man who could fight in the
war along side her dear father. Jo stresses and works to keep her family together, becoming extremely upset when Meg and Amy become married. With
their father absent, Jo assumes the male role as a father figure in many ways. Nevertheless, her flaws only make Jo a more lovable character. The
reader cannot help but adore Jo for her sheer humanity, much like Huck in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Amy is the youngest March sister. She is ladylike, artistic, and is regarded as the beauty of the March family. Often fantasizing a life of riches and
popularity, Amy's thirst for worldly pleasures represents the inner desires of man.
Josephine also has a number of self-esteem issues that manifest themselves throughout the novel in her perceptions of the world. These issues are further complicated by her family situation. Issues that are dealt with include:
...Then I watched Delia draw a line through each one. Who’s left in our area?”(270) The girls keep fighting even though they secretly loose hope but not faith, and their families tell them to stop, right up until death. Their lives, not taken in vain, were lived solely for the fight and the cause.
Joy's sour temperament and her introspectiveness have both taught her nothing about the world, people, or how to judge a person's character. All of her degrees have done nothing but push her farther into books and farther away from the world. It is Joy's own qualities that put her in the vulnerable situatio
Josephine’s perspective on life and her attitude towards the influences in her life changes throughout the novel. Initially she is confused about her nationality, her social standing and, probably like any other teenage girl, she is unsure of her attractiveness. However, by the end of the novel she has realised who she is and is proud of it.
She believes that no one understands her and that she has had it worse in her family. Her personality could be described as melodramatic, witty, and self-centred. Josephine comes from an Italian background and is raised in a single parent home by her mother Christina Alibrandi. Although Josie’s grandmother Katia Alibrandi lives close by, she is reluctant to visit everyday after school as her grandmother’s nagging, meddling and Italian traditions stifle her.
According to the Internet Movie Database's exhaustive records, Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women" has seen itself recreated in four TV series, four made for TV movies and five feature length movies since 1918. The most recent version appeared in 1994 and features Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Samantha Mathis, Eric Stoltz, Susan Sarandon, and Gabriel Byrne. As a long time fan of the novel, who has happily carted her large leather bound gold-gilded unabridged edition whenever she has moved, I find that I was disappointed in this newest movie version. As a movie lover, however, I found the movie to be an enjoyable experience.
In the story Little Women, the sisters all have to work together when their mother leaves. Mrs. March leaves to meet with the girls’ father after she is told he has become ill. During the weeks Mrs. March is gone it’s a test for the girls’ work ethic, since their mother is not there to tell them to do their work. The March girls start to change after a couple of weeks.
Best remembered for her books about the March family, especially her children’s masterpiece, Little Women, Alcott also wrote sensational novels and thrillers for adults. She was a very creative, difficult, and willful girl who was both moody and loyal.
She wrote this novel to inform readers that there are differences and similarities between the genders of male and female and how each of their minds work. She says, In other words, when we are not thinking of ourselves as “male” or “female” our judgements are the same. This quote directly shows us that she is trying to tell us what life is like with each gender.
Watson, N. (2009) ‘Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-9) Introduction’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.13-17
... Now that people of all economic groups were becoming more educated and more importantly literate, society changed. The first great, American, woman authors began to write. Lousia May Alcott wrote Little Women. This was a story attempting to give a realistic and sentimental view on life. This story was, like the works of Twain, relating everyday experiences and romanticizing mundane daily life, making her stories popular to the common person and most importantly, the children of the time.
The roles of women and how they were treated during the 1800’s are portrayed throughout Little Women, while also demonstrating how the main characters deal with these conformity norms. Through the 4 sisters, Alcott depicts different ways they dealt with being a woman during nineteenth-century expectations. While two conform, the other two attempt to rebel against the standards. Alcott doesn’t imply that one way is necessarily better than the other, but she shows that one is more realistic than the other.
She had hard time with her husband. When she was thirteen she was married to Willy Wells. They stayed together for two months, but Josephine never saw Willy as a significant partner as she once broke a bottle of beer on his head. She tried to forget this marriage. Fortunately, when she was fifteen years old, she married to another man who named is Billy Baker. Billy liked her when he saw her at the local theater. Then they got married, and she was happy that she was able to change her last name into Baker. For the first time, she no longer gets the insecure feeling from her last name. However, she still hasn’t got the perfect “personal life”. Billy’s mother disapproved of Josephine because her skin was darker than her husband’s and because she was a chorus girl with apparently no family to talk
Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she often demonstrates a sense of fear when she is sent to her bedroom. “We were afraid of the inside, the room were we slept (pg. 549).” She is intimidated by her personal space because she does not have control over it. Later, she gains control by adding lace to her side of the room; symbolically adding personality to herself and slipping into womanhood. When she felt uncomfortable she exercised her imagination, to psychologically regain control over the confusion in her life. Her subconscious effort to control confusing times were carried on to her later years as she was constantly put in difficult situations, which helped her to adjust quickly to change during adulthood. The dreams she created changed when she began to place emphasis on her appearance-that which she could control, other than past dreams of heroism that seemed so distant from reality. The Protagonist filled her childhood with much pride and maintained a consistent focused upon the activities that filled her childhood. She relished working at the side of her father, taking immense pride in every aspect of her assigned duties. She proclaimed, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride (pg. 551)” Once after her father introduced her to a feed sales man as “my new hired man (pg. 551),” the Protagonist was flooded with pride as she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (pg. 551).” In her later years her pride helped her to assemble strong self-confidence she used in her years of growing. Passion and depth were characteristics that impacted her future as a woman. Her passion and depth was revealed early on in the story ...
The story Little Women takes place at a time when women were taking on uncustomary roles like physical laborer, family protector and provider, and military volunteer while their husbands served during the Civil War. Keeping within the boundaries of the time, Louisa May Alcott uses herself and her own three sisters to create this classical novel from personal experiences. Each sister is different. They each set goals and dreams for their selves whether it goes along with their contemporary society or not. With the assistance of their mother, friends and experiences, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy struggle between their personal expectations and society’s expectations as they plan for their future and choose their destinies.