Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is an engaging and remarkable “snapshot” of its time. Written in response to a publisher’s request for a “girls’ book,” Little Women is a timeless classic of domestic realism, trailing the lives of four sisters from adolescence through early adulthood. The life-like characters and their tales break some of the stereotypes and add to the strength of the plot that embeds the last few years of the Industrial Revolution and social customs and conflicts, such as the Civil War, of the 1800s. Often moralistic and emotional, the novel nonetheless genuinely portrays family life in the mid-nineteenth century United States. The four “little women” of the March family journey into womanhood, learning difficult lessons of poverty and hard work along the way. The inspiring story is presented with an affectionate tone, symbolism, bold character traits and reference to the classic novel Pilgrim’s progress; a Christian allegory.
Little Women is loosely based on May Alcott’s own family life; made obvious from the affectionate tone that she uses to describe her characters. Each sister's personal struggles are described with devoted detail, as though the narrator sympathizes with every conflict the characters bare. Sometimes the narrator even goes to great lengths to explain the context of the conflict and why they react to things the way that they do. For example, when Mr. Davis, Amy’s teacher whips hers on her hand for bringing pickled limes to school, she grows paranoid of the situation and so do all her sisters. Marmee even pulls her out of the school. To us, all thit seems quite extreme. But the narrator really wants us to understand why they reacted so strongly:
"To others it might seem a ludicrous or trivial ...
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... "little tripping maids" is no reason that they can't follow "saintly feet" and go on a deep spiritual journey through life. This passage contains guidelines for what the story is supposed to do. Unlike novels that are meant only to entertain their readers, Little Women is also meant to chaperon readers toward their own self-improvement and salvation.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has greatly enriched my understanding, as a reader, about poverty, salvation, religion and most importantly, the transformation of young girls into strong women. The book is impressively written, displaying a combination of symbolism, characters that are hard not to adore and hints of important American history. This novel is crafted with a loving tone. At the end of the novel, the little women had grown and I, as a reader was compelled to read on about their lives as they continued.
The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm
This ESSAY discusses the female Lowell factory worker as portrayed in the Offering. Although the magazine never expressed an overtly feminist view of the factory girls' condition, nor invoked a working-class consciousness similar to later labor expressions in Lowell, there is evidence of a narrative strategy and ideology speaking both to the factory women and the middle-class readership outside of the mill town. The paper's short stories, epistolary narratives and commentaries seek to legitimize an operatives' role within the feminine ideal of domesticity. In conforming to the norms of feminine literature, the Offering reconstructs the operatives' character. It subordinates the evidence for independence or autonomy to relate stories of familial or sentimental ties binding the factory girl to the world outside of factory life. The magazine sought to provide an answer to this question: given her new liberties, what kept the "factory girl" from losing contact with her moral sentiments?
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.
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, was published in 1868 and follows the lives, loves, and troubles of the four March sisters growing up during the American Civil War.1 The novel is loosely based on childhood experiences Alcott shared with her own sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth, who provided the hearts of the novel’s main characters.2 The March sisters illustrate the difficulties of girls growing up in a world that holds certain expectations of the female sex; the story details the journeys the girls make as they grow to be women in that world. Figures 1 and 2 in the Appendix are of Orchard House, the basis for the March family home, where the Alcotts lived.
One of the most well-known American Literary Classics is “Little Woman”. Louisa May Alcott’s stirring tale about hardship, loss, and coming of age is appealing to girls and women alike. In an homage to this classic story, Geraldine Brooks gives us “March”. Written for an older crowd, “March” is the harrowing account of Mr. March, the father and wife of the protagonists in “Little Women”. The companion novel details his adventures in the South, and the events that lead to him joining the Union Army in his 40’s. Mr. March is a multi-faceted man, with a head for teaching. However, the once innocent, well-meaning and naïve man who volunteered to be a chaplain in the Union forces was scarred beyond recovery by what he saw during his tour of duty. Throughout the book, he learns and changes from the person that he once was. Facilitators of this transformation include Silas Stone, Zannah the former slave, and his wife, Marmee. For better or for worse, they each changed Mr. Marsh and the way he thought about the world.
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.
Catharine Sedgwick’s novel, A New-England Tale, tells the story of an orphan, Jane Elton, who “fights to preserve her honesty and her dignity in a household where religion is much talked about but little practiced” (Back Cover). The story take place in the 1820s, a time when many children were suffering in silence due to the fact that there was really no way to get people to understand exactly how bad things were for them. The only way anyone could ever really get a true understanding of the lives of the children in these households would be by knowing what took place in their homes. Outside of the home these women seemed perfectly normal and there was not reason to suspect any crookedness. The author herself was raised by a woman of Calvinist religion and realized how unjust things were for her and how her upbringing had ultimately play at role on her outcome. Sedgwick uses her novel, A New-England Tale to express to her readers how dreadful life was being raised by women of Calvinist religion and it’s affect by depicting their customary domestic life. She takes her readers on an in deep journey through what a typical household in the 1820s would be like providing them with vivid descriptions and reenactments of the domestic life during this period.
Jo March, the protagonist of Little Women, has a similar childhood to Louisa May Alcott. “Jo is the perfect part for Louisa to play” (Carter). Louisa uses these resemblances as a foundation to show her aspirations as a writer. The family characteristics, the setting of the novel, and the attitudes and desires of both Jo and Louisa are rather parallel. First of all, Louisa lived in Concord, Massachusetts with her parents and three sisters, like her protagonist Jo and her family. She began writing at a young age and wrote in a journal daily. She used this journal to depict her childhood experiences, which she later used to create stories and novels. Several of these adventures from Louisa’s childhood are continued in the novel, Little Women. Because of their supportive families, both women started writing at an early age. “Alcott illustrates Christian virtues, especially unselfishness, fortitude, faith, and charity, in the context of family and friendships” (Morrow). They share a passion for literature and writing, and struggle to help their families overcome poverty.
...ut men, family ties and financial stability would be difficult to obtain, which were necessary to secure an identity in the early south. Early Southern women were ultimately forced to identify themselves by the males to which they were tied. Three female characters from the works read thus far, struggled without men to identify them. For Désirée, her past and family heritage proved too much to overcome. Without the surname provided by her husband, Désirée was without an identity to call her own and gave way to societal code. Yet, due to their internal fight for self-satisfaction, Lena and Janie were able to overcome their lack of identity by establishing their own without the aid of a male. In conclusion, identity is attainable for some women. However, it takes a Southern woman dedicated to her own beliefs to overcome such obstacles and return stronger than before.
Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.
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.
“Louisa, Please Come Home,” by Shirley Jackson, is a first-person narrative story that tells the experience of Louisa in the small town of Rockville during the 1950s. In fact, there are six characters in this story. The protagonists of this story are Louisa Tether, Mrs. Peacock, Carol Tether, Mr. Peacock, Mrs. Peacock, and Paul. Carol and Louisa are sisters, and the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Tether. Paul is a neighbor of the Tether family, and Mrs. Peacock owns the rooming house where Louisa Tether lives. Mr. and Mrs. Tether, Mrs. Peacock, and Paul worked together to solve the problem of Louis running away from home. The main character Louisa Tether is a nineteen-year-old-girl, who is fair-haired, five feet four inches tall, and weights one hundred twenty-six pounds. Her personality could be described as intelligent, impudent, and organized. The following scenes from the book exemplify these three personality traits throughout the story. Shirley Jackson shows the life of Louisa, and ultimately the aspects of this character’s personality shine.
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
... she does not teach girls that they are inferior to boys. On the contrary, Alcott bluntly expresses her frustration regarding the gender prejudices of her society. While Alcott could not reform the minds of her contemporaries, she could mold the minds of her young readers by giving them a moral guide to follow. Thus, Alcott encourages children to model their own behavior after the March sisters, who try very hard to improve themselves, and succeed despite their imperfections. By presenting these moral struggles to the reader, Alcott encourages them to bear their burdens as gracefully as Beth, Amy, Jo and Meg do.