Louisa May Alcott was said to be “the pioneer in the delineation of sprightly young-girl life, brim full of animal spirits, yet overflowing with a desire to be true and brave and helpful”(Delamar). As a classic, inspiring author, Alcott is best known for her novels concerning poverty and family struggles to overcome obstacles, and female independence. Alcott incorporated these ideas through her works in Eight Cousins and Little Women. Even though Rose in Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins and the March sisters in Little Women are brought up in different types of socioeconomic environments, they share common traits and themes, such as moral lessons, feminist ideas, coming of age, and illness and death.
The characters Rose in Eight Cousins and Laurie in Little Women are similar in terms of socioeconomic societies, unlike the March sisters in Little Women who struggle to support themselves during the Civil War. After becoming a recent orphan, Rose was put into the care of several unknown family members, wealthy Scottish descents from Boston, engaged in the China trade. As a heiress she was expected by her aunts to attend “a fashionable finishing school” (Alcott).
Similarly, Laurie was an orphan after both of his parents perished, until his Grandfather Laurence took him into his home. During the time of war, his grandfather still thrived in the business world. Thus being successful and wealthy and living among poor, including the March family. In the third chapter, Laurence Boy, both Jo and Meg attend a New Years’ party where the girls meet the handsome and rich Laurie. When Meg sprung her ankle, Laurie offered and took the young ladies home in his carriage.
Unlike Rose and Laurie, the March family struggles with money. The March f...
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...age of herself.
As Rose matures and develops into a young lady through out the book, she benefits from helping others. Rose witnessed her cousins engaging in conversation and smoking cigars. Knowing the dangers of smoking, Rose tried and successfully convinces her beloved cousins to quit smoking for their health. Her cousins reluctantly gave up their terrible habit, however, upon Rose giving up her love for her earrings. Rose’s common sense and morals she developed glimpse through this small event, which impacted the novel. Even though the novel Eight Cousins exhibits high fashion, smoking, and patent nostrums, Rose develops morals as she matures, similar to ones of the March sisters.
The March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, undergo experiences that impacted their perspectives on ideas on issues, changing their beliefs and morals.
Works Cited
eight cousins
In the books Where the Girls are and Coming of Age in Mississippi, the authors portray how they questioned their place within the American society, and how they found their voice to seek opportunities for themselves and others. The childhoods of Douglas and Moody are major factors in these women’s lives and character development. It is through these experiences that they formed their views of the world and learned to understand the world’s view of women. Douglas and Moody had very different experiences for they grew up in different decades, social and economic classes, and races. It is these differences that cause them to have different reactions. Susan Douglass in Where the Girls are and Anne Moody in Coming of Age in Mississippi have different critiques of American society and solutions, because of the differences of what they were exposed 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).
The stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, are different in many ways, but are also similar. “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Everyday Use” both focus on the relationships of the mother and daughter, and on the sibling’s relationships with each other. Emily from “I Stand Here Ironing” and Maggie from “Everyday Use” have different relationships with their mothers, but have similar relationships with their sisters. Although the stories are similar in that Emily and Maggie are both distant from their sisters, they differ in that the mother is distant from Emily in “I Stand Here Ironing,” while the mother is close to Maggie in “Everyday Use.”
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.
Another factor that clearly brings out the theme is the fact that she claims that orderliness of family roses is her pride. However she may not necessarily be that orderly as depicted in the development of that story. The author of the story Shirley Jackson uses the author and her ambiguous cha...
While Doris Goodwin’s mother and father were a very important part of her life growing up her sisters were just as important. She talks about how while Charlotte, her oldest sister was not around as much as her other older sister, Jeanne she was still very important to her. She goes into detail about a shopping trip that was taken with the oldest and youngest siblings and how after the shopping trip to Sa...
Instead, the novel begins with the seemingly disappointed statement: "There was no possibility of taking a walk that [rainy] day," and counters almost immediately with, "I was glad of it; I never liked long walks." When excluded from Christmas revelries in the Reed household, the child Jane says, "To speak the truth, I had not the least wish to go into company." Jane's defiance, which doesn't exclude childlike fears, strikes us as forthright in the way of the adolescent temperaments of other famous literary voices -- Jo March of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield and their now-countless younger siblings.
In both Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" present the reader with strong, successful female characters. Alexandra Bergson, the heroine of O Pioneers!, becomes the manager and proprietor of a prosperous farm on the Nebraska frontier while Joan R. Bascom of "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" is a successful doctor. Cather and Gilman create competent, independent female characters that do not conform to the perceived societal standards for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Both women must struggle against society’s perception of what they should be and how they should behave, however, Alexandra’s struggle leaves her emotionally distant while Joan’s struggle does not hinder her emotional attachments.
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.
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
She knows that they picked cotton in North Carolina before coming north a short time before she was born in Washington but she doesn 't know much else. As the firstborn girl Rosa Lee’s role was set by the Southern traditions. For the older daughter, her mother is so dependent on her account in the household that the younger ones will have opportunities that Rosa Lee never had. Most of Rosetta’s other children don’t share the same views of their mother as Rosa Lee. They remember her as a woman working hard to keep her family together under difficult conditions. While Rosa Lee was still in the early years at Giddings Elementary school, her smoldering resentment caused her to silently reject her mother 's vision of her future she was determined that domestic work was not going to be the way she survived. Rosetta gave birth to twenty-two children some of them died before reaching adulthood. Rosa Lee became accustomed to bedrooms crammed with too many people and living rooms with no room for private conversation (Dash,
In her younger years, Jane shows that girls do not need to follow society’s normalities through the defiance of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. As a young orphan, Jane lives with her aunt and her three children, and due to Jane’s “plain looks” and “quiet yet passionate character,” she is disliked among the entire Reed family (Gao). Her cousin, John, constantly reminds her of her social standing, calling her a “dependent” who should not “live with gentlemen’s children” like her cousins (Bronte 10). Rather than acting in accordance with her cousin, Jane, in rage of how she is treated with “miserable cruelty” (Bronte 36), Jane compares him to a “murderer...a slave driver...like the Roman emperors” (Bronte 10). Because of her refusal to submit to John Reed’s aggressiveness and accept that she is lesser than him and his family, Jane is punished for the night by her Aunt Reed. Mrs. Reed’s punishment of Jane demonstrates her part in the oppression ‘machine.’ Mrs. Reed should have understood Jane’s refusal to be docile, being a woman herself, but ...
...rd Times and Brontë in Wuthering Heights represent their protagonists as struggling to overcome oppression in order to survive as independent females. The struggles faced by the females provide similarities as well as contrasts to their literary counterparts. On one hand you have Louisa, corrupted by her father and never allowed to imagine or be free; and on the other hand you have Catherine, corrupted by her own aspirations and social constraints. Although Catherine does - for a short period of time, achieve some independence, she is destined to retain her traditional role of passive and dependent female; thus inevitably losing in her struggles. In contrast, Louisa faces similar struggles in the fight for the survival of her inquisitive mind; but she ultimately wins her battle against her ‘fact-loving’ father and in doing so, establishes herself as an individual.
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.