Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Much of Jo’s charm and appeal lie in the idea that, unlike Buffy Summers, she is not a superhero (although Beth’s goodness certainly appears superpowered). As Alcott writes toward the end of the novel, “Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature.... She had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard; and now she had her wish, for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to Father and Mother, trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her? And if difficulties were necessary to increase the splendor of the effort, what could be harder for a restless, ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes, plans, and desires, and cheerfully live for others?” (p. 420). We note, of course, that Alcott made such sacrifices in her own life, and her point, although it may be hard to swallow, is that heroics come in both big and small proportions.
Overall, then, how relevant can Little Women be to twenty-first-century youth? As Americans, for better or worse, remove themselves further from lifestyles like those of Alcott’s close-knit community of charitable neighbors, is Little Women to be relegated to solely period-piece status—fine fodder for costume-drama films and small children’s bedtime stories but not much else? Particularly following feminist critiques of Alcott’s domestic novel, readers have been more vocal about finding it sentimental, even sometimes cloyingly sweet, by more modern standards. Yet it is a testament to Alcott’s descriptive powers that though the family’s shared activities may seem strange to a twenty-first-century audience, their utter sweetness and quaintness are in their own way rather stunning and just might provoke wistful feelings for a simpler kind of family life among even cynical readers—paradoxically just as the family’s episodes of cloying togetherness may sometimes raise their gorge. We may wonder at how Beth, for example, could be so unnaturally shy as to dread being the center of attention at her own birthday parties—where members of her loving, indulgent family are the only guests! No matter how unrealistic or saccharine-sweet we may find Beth’s goodness, many readers find it difficult to avoid tears at her fate.
Other sequels in the March family saga followed Little Women and continued its popular tradition. The first, Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys (1871), describes events at the school Jo founds and the adventures of her diverse crew of pupils—all little boys, with the exception of Jo’s nieces and the extremely naughty girl Nan, an even more tomboyish specimen than Jo herself had been as a child. The last book in the trilogy, Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out (1886), would be Alcott’s final novel, published only two years before the author’s death. Written slowly, while Alcott was in poor health, the book centers on romance plots between the younger characters introduced in Little Men.
Several film adaptations of Little Women have appeared over the years, with appeals to successive generations of readers. Katharine Hepburn brought Jo so vividly to life in director George Cukor’s classic 1933 movie version (released only six years after the poll that found the novel more popular than the Bible) that Hepburn’s particular brand of sharp New England eccentricity has been forever linked to that character. Her portrayal has colored critics’ judgments of other screen depictions of Jo—such as June Allyson’s in the blander 1949 color version—and has set these later actors up for unwinnable comparisons. A more feminist film version of Little Women, from 1994, casts activist actor Susan Sarandon as Marmee, a very clear, pointed choice, and Winona Ryder, whose other roles many teen girl rebels have identified with, as a Jo March for the 1990s. This version also updates Professor Bhaer, doing the rumpled nineteenth-century scholar a tremendous favor by metamorphosing him into darkly handsome actor Gabriel Byrne.
New to bookstore shelves as I write this introduction is novelist Katharine Weber’s contemporary spin on the Marches’ story, titled The Little Women. Weber’s third novel disrupts the sweet perseverance the girls demonstrate in Alcott’s original. Here, the three New York City Green sisters—Margaret, Joanna, and Amy (Beth had been a doomed turtle)—find out via e-mail that their English-professor mother has been having an affair. They run away from home in disappointment and outrage after their father blandly forgives her, and the younger sisters move into Margaret’s off-campus apartment at Yale University, where they try to set up an independent household. Weber even includes a lesbian subplot. Rather than employ a moralistic, Alcott-like omniscient narrator, Weber has Joanna tell the story from her perspective, with critical commentary in the form of “readers’ notes” from the other sisters. By granting the Green sisters a kind of divorce from their parents, Weber addresses the wishes of those readers who wanted alternative plots for Alcott’s Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Although I haven’t yet found one, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Internet site (like those that exist for pop-culture icons like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example) where Alcott admirers can post fan fiction they’ve composed based on the original. In fact, this is a great idea. If we don’t agree with the way Alcott handles the girls’ fates, we can take matters into our own hands—although we may find the task of creating an alternate universe as fully realized and as paradoxically timeless as Little Women’s much more difficult than we’d imagined.
Camille Cauti has a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. Her dissertation concerns the Catholic conversion trend among the London avant-garde in the 1890s, including such figures as Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, John Gray, and Michael Field. Other academic inter ests have included nineteenth- and twentieth-century English poetry (in particular, John Keats, the Pre-Raphaelites, W. B. Yeats, and the connections between them), and Irish literature generally. She has also published on Italian-American studies. Cauti is a teacher, editor, and critic in New York. She also wrote the introduction and notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
PREFACE
“Go then, my little Book, and show to all
That entertain and bid thee welcome shall,
What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast;
And wish what thou dost show them may be blest
To them for good, may make them choose to be
Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me.
Tell them of Mercy; she is one
Who early hath her pilgrimage begun.
Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize
The world which is to come, and so be wise;
For little tripping maids may follow God
Along the ways which saintly feet have trod.”
Adapted from JOHN BUNYAN1
Part One
1
Playing Pilgrims
Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
“We’ve got Father and Mother and each other,” said Beth contentedly from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, “We haven’t got Father, and shall not have him for a long time.” She didn’t say “perhaps never,” but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, “You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army. We can’t do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don’t.” And Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.
“But I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good. We’ve each got a dollar, and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to e
“I planned to spend mine in new music,” said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle holder.
“I shall get a nice box of Faber’s drawing pencils. I really need them,” said Amy decidedly.
“Mother didn’t say anything about our money, and she won’t wish us to give up everything. Let’s each buy what we want, and have a little fun, I’m sure we work hard enough to earn it,” cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner.
“I know I do—teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I’m longing to enjoy myself at home,” began Meg, in the complaining tone again.
“You don’t have half such a hard time as I do,” said Jo. “How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you’re ready to fly out of the window or cry?”
“It’s naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get so stiff, I can’t practice well at all.” And Beth looked at her rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time.
“I don’t believe any of you suffer as I do,” cried Amy, “for you don’t have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don’t know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn’t rich, and insult you when your nose isn’t nice.”
“If you mean libel, I’d say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle,” advised Jo, laughing.
“I know what I mean, and you needn’t be statirical about it. It’s proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary,” returned Amy, with dignity.
“Don’t peck at one another, children. Don’t you wish we had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! how happy and good we’d be, if we had no worries!” said Meg, who could remember better times.
“You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money.”
“So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are; for, though we do have to work, we make fun for ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say.”
“Jo does use such slang words!” observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.
“Don‘t, Jo, it’s so boyish!”
“That’s why I do it.”
“I detest rude, unladylike girls!”
“I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!”
“‘Birds in their little nests agree,’ ” sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the “pecking” ended for that time.
“Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. “You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn’t matter so much when you were a little girl; but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady.”
“I’m not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in two tails till I’m twenty,” cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. “I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys’ games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman!” And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.
“Poor Jo! It’s too bad, but it can’t be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls,” said Beth, stroking the rough head at her knee with a hand that all the dishwashing and dusting in the world could not make ungen tle in its touch.
“As for you, Amy,” continued Meg, “you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you’ll grow up an affected little goose, if you don’t take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don’t try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo’s slang.”
“If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?” asked Beth, ready to share the lecture.
“You’re a dear, and nothing else,” answered Meg warmly; and no one contradicted her, for the “Mouse” was the pet of the family.
As young readers like to know “how people look,” we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable old room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain; for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it.
Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft, brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn’t like it. Elizabeth—or Beth, as everyone called her—was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom disturbed. Her father called her “Little Tranquillity,” and the name suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person—in her own opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave to be found out.
The clock struck six and, having swept up the hearth, Beth put a pair of slippers down to warm. Somehow the sight of the old shoes had a good effect upon the girls, for Mother was coming, and everyone brightened to welcome her. Meg stopped lecturing, and lighted the lamp, Amy got out of the easy chair without being asked, and Jo forgot how tired she was as she sat up to hold the slippers nearer to the blaze.
“They are quite worn out. Marmee must have a new pair.”
“I thought I’d get her some with my dollar,” said Beth.
“No, I shall!” cried Amy.
“I’m the oldest,” began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided—
“I’m the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Beth, “let’s each get her something for Christmas, and not get anything for ourselves.”
“That’s like you, dear! What will we get?” exclaimed Jo.
Everyone thought soberly for a minute, then Meg announced, as if the idea was suggested by the sight of her own pretty hands, “I shall give her a nice pair of gloves.”
“Army shoes, best to be had,” cried Jo.
“Some handkerchiefs, all hemmed,” said Beth.
“I’ll get a little bottle of cologne. She likes it, and it won’t cost much, so I’ll have some left to buy my pencils,” added Amy.
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“Put them on the table, and bring her in and see her open the bundles. Don’t you remember how we used to do on our birthdays?” answered Jo.
“I used to be so frightened when it was my turn to sit in the big chair with the crown on, and see you all come marching round to give the presents, with a kiss. I liked the things and the kisses, but it was dreadful to have you sit looking at me while I opened the bundles,” said Beth, who was toasting her face and the bread for tea at the same time.
“Let Marmee think we are getting things for ourselves, and then surprise her. We must go shopping tomorrow afternoon, Meg. There is so much to do about the play for Christmas night,” said Jo, marching up and down, with her hands behind her back and her nose in the air.
“I don’t mean to act any more after this time. I’m getting too old for such things,” observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about “dressing-up” frolics.