Who was Louisa May Alcott? Alcott was a nineteenth century author who wrote numerous famous books, such as the book series Little Women. However, Alcott did not start out famous. As a child, Alcott’s family lived in poverty. Though her family lived in poverty, Alcott had an extremely vivid imagination, especially for a girl during the time period that she lived in. Even when she was young, Alcott’s biggest dream was to become a famous author. She wrote one of her first poems at the age of eight when she saw a robin. With the money she made from her works, Alcott hoped to someday be able to pull her family out of poverty. Alcott was an extremely determined woman who used her determination to help her family rise out of poverty, and also accomplished many of her other goals in life.
The Alcott family was always struggling to survive, and often was forced to move from place to place in order to find work. Bronson Alcott was an extremely educated man, but because he had a hard time of supporting his family they were “Impoverished and often moved like vagabonds to smaller and smaller quarters” (Butos). Bronson was a schoolteacher who believed in teaching his students more than just simple memorization. For this reason, he was usually out of work, leaving his growing family with no income. However, the children never really understood just how poor they were until later on in their lives. Alcott’s family was so poor that her mother’s family, a prominent Boston family, urged her mother to disclaim her husband. As soon as she was able to realize how poor they were, she vowed that she would gratify her family by pulling them out of poverty. Alcott lived in an extremely poor family growing up, but she still had a good childh...
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Works Cited
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In Civil War Hospital Sketches, Louisa May Alcott presented her six-week experience as a volunteered nurse during the American Civil War. She gave herself an alias: Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle. Throughout the story, there were three concise “sketches” that portrayed her experience. The first sketch was about her decision to become a nurse, evading other suggestions by her family such as writing a book, teaching, and getting married. The second sketch was about her nursing job and how she took care and treated wounded American soldiers in the hospital. Her last sketch described when she contracted a serious illness from nursing and was forced and brought back home by her father. In chapter four, A Night, John, who was a young blacksmith, a soldier, and one of Periwinkle’s dying patients, affected her the most during her experience as a nurse. Alcott’s diction and imagery about John served to inform her audience’s understanding of the Civil War.
Harris, Susan K.. "'But is it any good?': Evaluating Nineteenth-Century American Women's Fiction." American Literature 63 (March 1991): 42-61.
I feel that I made a connection through the families that were mention in the book because even though I lived in a neighborhood that had access to many resources and suitable for children, I was not able to do things that middle class children that were mention in this book did. What my capture my attention in this book is that middle class children learn “how to set priorities, manage an itinerary, shake hands with strangers, and work on a team. They do so at a cost, however” (pg. 39). As I was growing up my parents did not show me how to shake hands with strangers, how to set priorities, or how to manage an itinerary I had to learn that by myself without anyone telling me or giving me a recompense for doing what I am supposed to do. Lower class and working families usually don’t recompense their children for doing things that they are expected to do because the parents might not have the money to do so and is the children’s responsibility to do what they are supposed to
The thought of her brothers still being in her former home environment in Maine hurt her. She tried to think of a way to get at least one of her brothers, the sickly one, to come and be with her. She knew that her extended family was financially able to take in another child, and if she showed responsibility, there would be no problem (Wilson, 40). She found a vacant store, furnished it, and turned it into a school for children (Thinkquest, 5). At the age of seventeen, her grandmother sent her a correspondence, and requested her to come back to Boston with her brother (Thinkquest, 6).
Wells, Rebecca. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. New York New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.
Parents play a crucial role in the development of children, varying from culture to culture. Although imperative, the mother and daughter relationship can be trivial. Many women writers have exercised their knowledge and shared their feelings in their works to depict the importance and influence of mothers upon daughters. Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Kiana Davenport are only three of the many women writers who have included mother and daughter themes in their texts. These writers explore the journeys of women in search of spiritual, mental and individual knowledge. As explained by these authors, their mothers' words and actions often influence women both negatively and positively. These writers also show the effects of a mother's lesson on a daughter, while following women's paths to discovery of their own voice or identity. In Kincaid's poem, Girl; Hong Kingston's novel, Woman Warrior; and Davenport's short story, The Lipstick Tree, various themes are presented in contrasting views and contexts, including the influence of mothers upon daughters.
While Louisa May Alcott is most often identified as an author, she also was a dedicated daughter and sister, a Transcendentalist, and an inspiration. Part of the reason that Louisa May Alcott stands out is because of her interesting family, career, and medical history.
Alcott grew up in a poor family with three sisters. Early on in her life, she was forced to work as a teacher, nanny, seamstress, and at other odd jobs in order to help support her family. Her education came mainly from her father, Bronson Alcott, who was a teacher, philosopher, and vegan. From him Alcott obtained her transcendentalist beliefs and gained many of her ideas, techniques, and most likely her power of rhetoric. She possessed an independent spirit and was sometimes rebellious against the standards of society and the restrictions that they put on her as a woman.
Hansberry uses setting, conflict, and conversation and actions of the characters to show how poverty has a negative effect on the Younger family. While this was a highly restricted time in America, the Youngers were willing to make a change to better themselves and help influence those around them to open up to transformation. The Youngers made foolish decisions over their money, but in the end they realized that the money was not what made them who they are. They refused to take Mr. Linder’s offer that would make them more money, in so doing they realized they could keep their pride and they knew they could work as they always had to better themselves.
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women In Literature : Reading Through The Lens Of Gender..
... 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.
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