Little Women
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, [|Jo], [|Beth], and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.
Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success, and readers were eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume. It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men and Jo's Boys.
The novel has been said to address three major themes: "domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine's individual identity." According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new genre. Elbert argues that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the "All-American girl" and that her various aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.
The book has been translated into numerous languages, and frequently adapted for stage and screen.
Background
In 1868, Alcott's publisher, Thomas Niles, recommended that she write a novel about girls that would have widespread appeal. Alcott resisted, preferring to publish a collection of short stories, instead. Niles pressed her to write the girls' book first, however, and he was aided by her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, who also urged her to do so. Louisa confided to a friend, "I could not write a girls' story knowing little about any but my sisters and always preferring boys".In May 1868, Alcott wrote in her journal: "Niles, partner of Roberts, asked me to write a girl's book. I said I'd try." Alcott set her novel in an imaginary Orchard House modeled on her residence of the same name, where she wrote the novel. She, later, recalled that she did not think she could write a successful book for girls and did not enjoy writing it. "I plod away," she wrote in her diary, "although, I don't enjoy this sort of things."
By June, Alcott had sent the first dozen chapters to Niles, and both agreed that they were dull. But Niles's niece, Lillie Almy, read them and said she enjoyed them. The completed manuscript was shown to several girls who agreed it was "splendid". Alcott wrote: "they are the best critics, so, I should definitely be satisfied." She wrote Little Women "in record time for money", but the book's immediate success surprised both her and her publisher.
Little Women was a novel that took part in the realism literary movement of the mid-to-late 1800s. This movement focused on depicting everyday life in a natural way and is seen through Alcott’s portrayal of the real aspects of women’s lives through the ways the characters interact with one another, work, and play. Gregory Eiselein and Anne Phillips write: "Fresh, lively, and distinctly American, the novel offered singular depictions of young women and men playing, talking, squabbling, dreaming, creating, learning, and coming of age in ways that embodied and resisted its era and region and immediately generated passionate responses." Readers are able to see and experience the joys and sorrows of the March family and come to understand what it meant to be a woman in the nineteenth century.
One real aspect that Alcott focused on was marriage. Marriage was exceedingly prevalent in the lives of women in the nineteenth century; during that time 93% of women in America married. However, what was special about the marriages the March women made was their equal partnerships within their relationships. Daniel Shealy writes: "Alcott gave serious thought to the marriages in part two and set out to instruct her readers, especially young women, on the importance of egalitarian relationships between husbands and wives." The equal unions between man and wife can be seen through each relationship the March women have, especially between Mr. and Mrs. March and [|Meg] and John Brooke, as they both share equal footing in the household and in the decisions regarding their children.
Title
According to literary critic Sarah Elbert, Alcott used the phrase "little women" to draw on its Dickensian meaning; it represented the period in a young woman's life where childhood and elder childhood are "overlapping" with young womanhood. Each of the March sister heroines has a harrowing experience that alerts them and the reader that "childhood innocence" is of the past, and that "the inescapable woman problem" is all that remains.Plot
Meg, Jo, Beth, and [|Amy], and their mother, whom they call Marmee, live in a new neighborhood in Massachusetts in genteel poverty. Having lost all his money, their father is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army in the American Civil War, far from home. The mother and daughters face their first Christmas without him. When Marmee asks them to give their Christmas breakfast away to an impoverished family, the girls and their mother venture to the Hummels' home, laden with baskets, to feed the hungry children, help patch up the holes, and give them firewood. When they return, they discover their wealthy, elderly neighbor, Mr. Laurence, has sent over a decadent surprise dinner, to make up for their breakfast. The two families become acquainted following these acts of kindness.Meg and Jo must work to support the family: Meg tutors a nearby family of four children; Jo assists her aged great-aunt March, a wealthy widow living in a mansion in Plumfield. Beth, too timid for school, is content to stay at home and help with housework; and Amy is still at school. Meg is beautiful and traditional, Jo is a tomboy who writes, Beth is a peacemaker and a pianist, and Amy is an artist who longs for elegance and fine society. The sisters strive to help their family and improve their characters, as Meg is vain, Jo is hotheaded, Beth is cripplingly shy, and Amy is materialistic. Laurie, Mr. Laurence's orphaned grandson, becomes close friends with the sisters, particularly the tomboyish Jo.
The girls keep busy as the war goes on. Jo writes a novel that gets published but is frustrated to have to edit it down and can't comprehend the conflicting critical response. Meg is invited to spend two weeks with rich friends, where there are parties and cotillions for the girls to dance with boys and improve their social skills. Laurie is invited to one of the dances, and Meg's friends incorrectly think she is in love with him. Meg is more interested in John Brooke, Laurie's young tutor.
Word comes that Mr. March is ill with pneumonia and Marmee leaves to nurse him in Washington, DC. Mr. Laurence offers to accompany her, but she declines, knowing travel would be uncomfortable for the old man. Mr. Laurence, instead, sends John Brooke to do his business in Washington and help the Marches. While in Washington, Brooke confesses his love for Meg to her parents. They are pleased but consider Meg too young to marry, so Brooke agrees to wait.
While Marmee is in Washington, Beth contracts scarlet fever, after spending time with a poor family, where three children die. As a precaution, Amy is sent to live with Aunt March and replaces Jo as her companion and helper. Jo, who already had scarlet fever, tends to Beth. After many days of illness, the family doctor advises the family send for Marmee. Beth recovers, but never fully regains her health and energy.
While Brooke waits for Meg to come of age to marry, he joins the military and serves in the war. After being wounded, he returns to find work, so he can buy a house for when he and Meg marry. Laurie goes to college. On Christmas Day, a year after the book's opening, the girls' father returns home.
Part Two
Three years later, Meg and John wed and work to adjust to married life. When they have twins, Meg is a devoted mother but John begins to feel neglected. Meg seeks advice from Marmee, who helps her find balance by making more time for wifely duties and encouraging John to become more involved with child-rearing.Laurie graduates from college, doing well in his last year with Jo's prompting. Amy is chosen over Jo to go on a European tour with her aunt. Beth's health is weak due to complications from scarlet fever which lowers her spirits. While trying to understand Beth's sadness, Jo realizes that Laurie has fallen in love. At first she believes it is with Beth, but soon senses it is with herself. Jo confides in Marmee, telling her that she loves Laurie like a brother but does not love him in a romantic way.
Jo wants a little adventure and to put distance between herself and Laurie, hoping he will overcome his feelings. She spends six months in New York City with a friend of her mother who runs a boarding house, serving as governess for her two children. Jo takes German lessons from another boarder, Professor Friedrich Bhaer. He has come from Berlin to care for his sister's orphaned sons. For extra money, Jo anonymously writes salacious romance stories for sensational newspapers. Suspecting her secret, Friedrich comments that such writing is unprincipled and base, which persuades Jo to give up that literary genre. As Jo's time in New York ends, she is unaware that Friedrich is in love with her. When she returns to Massachusetts, Laurie proposes marriage, which she declines.
Laurie travels to Europe with his grandfather to escape his heartbreak. At home, Beth's scarlet fever has left her permanently weakened. Jo becomes devoted to caring for her dying sister. Laurie encounters Amy in Europe and slowly falls in love with her, seeing her in a new light. She is unimpressed by his aimless, idle, and forlorn attitude since being rejected by Jo. She inspires him to find his purpose in life and do something worthwhile. News of Beth's death brings them together and a romance soon grows. Amy's aunt will not allow Amy to return home with Laurie and his grandfather unchaperoned. Amy and Laurie marry before leaving Europe.
Friedrich, in Massachusetts on business, visits the Marches daily for two weeks. On his last day, he proposes to Jo, who realizes she loves him and they become engaged. Because Friedrich is poor, he must first establish a good income and goes west to teach. A year passes without much success. Later, Aunt March dies and leaves her large estate, Plumfield, to Jo. She marries Friedrich and turns the house into a school for boys. They have two sons, and Amy and Laurie have a daughter. At apple-picking time, Marmee celebrates her 60th birthday at Plumfield, with her husband, her three surviving daughters, their husbands, and five grandchildren.