“Captured the nuances that still move me to laugh and cry” (Delamar xiii). Louisa May Alcott is such a wonderful woman who was known not only as a great writer, but also a fighter for justice and advocate of human rights. No matter how many difficulties Louisa faced in her life, she had succeeded in achieving her dream. She wrote one of the greatest books of her era, Little Women. She participated in anti-slavery activities, and was a non-official feminist. She worked hard for fans and neither for fame nor money. Louisa May Alcott is example for all of the people in the world.
Louisa May Alcott was born in a poor but full of love family. She grew up with the kindness of her father and loveliness of her mother. Louisa May Alcott’s father was a writer, and a great influence on her. Her mother was a pioneer in the women’s suffrage and abolitionist movement. Louisa showed interest in writing when she was the child. She used her father’s dictionary and philosophy book to study when no one saw (Delamar 3-5). Her family moved many times, and only when she got fourteen, she had her first personal room (Shealy xix). Louisa May Alcott and her three sisters got education at home by her father. In spite of her poor and hard life, she tried to overcome hardships.
When Louisa May Alcott turned seventeen, she was such a beautiful woman, who was tall and charming. She had great blue eyes and brown hair. However, she would never get married because she thought that a woman could take care of herself without a man’s supports (Delamar 34). Because of her difficult life, she began to work at an early age. She worked as a governess, a seamstress, and a teacher. When she was fifteen, she taught some of her younger playmates. During her teaching and...
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... appetite, and all her sicknesses teased her, she continued work. She was not able to write by her right hand, but she forced herself to learn how to write by her left hand. Louisa May Alcott worked on Jo’s Boys, and she knew that it would be her last story (Delamar 136).
On March 4, Louisa May Alcott came to visit her sick father for the last time, and he died on that same day. Two days later, she followed her father without any regret. She left behind a wonderful work; all her books, letters and journals are part of American history (Matteson). In spite of hard life, she achieved everything she wanted. Louisa May Alcott is analogy of perfect and free woman. She proved that hard working can help to achieve dream. People read her book up till now. “One thing she gained was something she never dreamed of – Louisa May Alcott achieved immortality.” (Delamar 142).
Growing up Abigail never attended a real school; she was barely even home-schooled. At home she hardly learned to read and write, and she was taught little music or dance to develop the girly charm. During this time the colonies acted as though education for females was not a necessity so when Abigail was taught it happened at home and she was usually taught by her parents, older sister, or her grandparents. Abigail was never taught the rules of writing and it was not until the marriage of her older sister Mary to Richard Cranch that allowed her to get involved with literature. “To our dear and venerable Brother Cranch do I attribute my early taste for letters; and for the nurture and cultivation of those qualities which have since afforded me much pleasure and satisfaction.” It was because of Mr. Cranch that Abigail learned of her writing techniques that later played a large role in her life. The literary works of many men opened Abigail to a new world of literacy. It was from writers like John Thomson that gave Abigail a sense of pleasure in reading...
Lydia Marie Child was born on February 11, 1802 and died on October 20, 1880. During her life she wrote in many forms and on various topics, but Lydia was more than just a writer. She wrote short stories, biographies, science fiction, serialized fiction, children’s literature, historical novels and antislavery literature (Karcher 6). She was also a journalist and a feminist, and wrote about the American Revolution and Native Americans. She helped Harriot Jacobson escape slavery, encouraged reform and was an abolitionist. But, before she could help others, Lydia had to fight for her own right to advance and succeed. Lydia was born in Medford, Massachusetts, as the sixth and youngest child of Convers and Susannah Francis. Susannah died when Lydia was twelve, and she was sent to live with a married sister until the age of nineteen. Although Mr. Francis encouraged the intellectual advancement of his sons, he discouraged his daughter, Lydia, from her fondness for books (Myerson 5). Lydia continued to read and learn, without her father’s encouragement or help, an...
Abigail came from one of the most educated and prosperous families, but she never went to school or even had a tutor like most other families. Instead, her mother taught her to sew and cook as well as do house chores. Abigail learned much social grace and etiquette from her mother and grandmother. Mr. Kem Sawyer stated, “ Abigail would inherit her grandmother’s lively, cheerful disposition…”. She read any and every book available to her. Her father taught her that respecting God was VERY important. Abigail even kn...
In 1832, she got married to a man named Colwin Stowe. After some years, they had seven kids. But one child at the age of one died. Everyone was sad but they got over it. With six kids to take care of she really had no free time anymore. So she would do house work all day long, help the kid, and play with them. But when she did have extra time, she would write books for as long as she could. She liked to play with the kids a lot and she would help with homework, make dinner, make lunch, and breakfast. Also, in her free time, she would help the blacks and would be on th...
Child had some arguments against the education system for girls. As the class learned, girls would go to school and dip their toes into many of the sciences rather than focus their education on the classics to prepare for college entrance exams like their male counterparts. Child also argued that once young women graduated, they got caught up in going to balls and parties to live out their youth while they still could. The author thought that young people should be taught about frugality and industry in case they became impoverished at some point in their lives, like the struggles that she faced with David’s debts. Within the text, Child visited with the mother of an impoverished family. The mother hired a seamstress to sew and patch their clothing because the sixteen year old daughter did not have enough sewing skill. Child was taken aback by the statement because she thought that the young woman would have been able to sew to bring in money for her family. But, the mother replied that school, music, and dance took up too much of the daughter’s time during the school year and during winter break she would be spending time with her friends. “Now is her time to enjoy herself, you know. Let her take all the comfort she can, while she is single!,” stated the mother. Since young women did not learn domestic tasks in school, they did not enjoy them later in life. The arts
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.
While the mother felt she was cultured she never fully understood what she was reading and learning, and could only name the classics. This difference between mother and daughter is what created a gap between the two. While the daughter had the knowledge to self-educate herself, her mother would never meet these standards no matter how hard she persevered. There was a generational gap between mother and daughter created by the change in social and cultural norms. For the daughter’s generation it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to continue her education and strive for social advancement through knowledge. For the mother’s generation social mobility was almost impossible even if one worked every day of her life, and children did what they were told to do by their parents. This wedge created a series of rebellious years by the daughter, leading her to ask permission to study in
Mary Wollstonecraft was as revolutionary in her writings as Thomas Paine. They were both very effective writers and conveyed the messages of their ideas quite well even though both only had only the most basic education. Wollstonecraft was a woman writing about women's rights at a time when these rights were simply non-existent and this made her different from Paine because she was breaking new ground, thus making her unique. Throughout her lifetime, Wollstonecraft wrote about the misconception that women did not need an education, but were only meant to be submissive to man. Women were treated like a decoration that had no real function except to amuse and beguile. Wollstonecraft was the true leader in women's rights, advocating a partnership in relationships and marriage rather than a dictatorship. She was firm in her conviction that education would give women the ability to take a more active role in life itself.
Wadsworth, S. (2009) ‘Louisa May Alcott and the Rise of the Gender-Specific Series Books’ in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.39-48
...tive techniques to get her point across. Her story was very powerful and probably helped in the antislavery movement, therefore fulfilling her goal. In the end she is thought of as a "new kind of female hero" (497). She has gone through many hardships
... 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.
Throughout the life of Sylvia we was hard times and issues that no one should have to tackle alone. By going through these obstacles she was able to bring to us poerty and a novel that will not soon be forgotten. Her work made a huge step forward for feminists and women for that matter. Sylvia changed the literary world for the good. She is proof that just because you are delt a bad hand, you can make something of yourself. Sylvia also beat the annotation that when you die your fame and work goes with you. It remains clear that this is far from true concerning this young writer. Sylvia Plath was a great writer, one that will remembered for her perseverance and writing style. This great American author will go down in history as a woman who took a stand.
By the time she was ten she had learned English, French, German, and Italian; these languages enabled her to read books from her father’s library, including poetry books written the earlier stated languages. These books are what sparked her interest in poetry, and were some of the first poems she translated. Lazarus started writing her own poetry along with the poems she translated when the civil war began. While Lazarus was only eleven and might not have known much of war but she did understand how sad her elder male family members were when they came to bid goodbye to her parents. To express her understanding she wrote poems, poems on both war and nature. (7)
Louisa May Alcott tells the story of family growing together in her novel Little Women. The four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy all mature in different ways over the course of the novel. Meg and Amy both deeply concern themselves with looks and reputation at the beginning of the book, but as the story progresses, each of these characters develops into women with unselfish