Women's Studies

An interdisciplinary journal

ISSN: 0049-7878 (Print) 1547-7045 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gwst20

Girl Power: A Look at Recent Little Women

Adaptations

Elise Hooper

To cite this article: Elise Hooper (2019) Girl Power: A Look at Recent Little�Women Adaptations,
Women's Studies, 48:4, 421-432, DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2019.1614873

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2019.1614873

Published online: 13 Jun 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 17

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gwst20
WOMEN'S STUDIES
2019, VOL. 48, NO. 4, 421–432
https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2019.1614873

Girl Power: A Look at Recent Little Women Adaptations

Elise Hooper
Independent Scholar, Seattle

Since its publication in 1868, there have been numerous literary respinnings of
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, including Little Vampire Women (2010),
a nod to the popularity of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, as well as the more
highbrow Pulitzer Prize-winning March (2006) by Geraldine Brooks. Recent
adaptations include six films, six television adaptations, a Broadway musical, and
an opera, not factoring in countless examples of fan fiction available online, as
well as many amateur theatrical productions staged every year across the
country.
The interest in Louisa May Alcott and her beloved classic arrives at an
interesting time. The destabilizing effects of the presidency of Donald Trump,
Brexit, the rise of increasingly conservative governments in European nations,
armed conflicts around the globe, and increasingly dire signs of global warm-
ing have cast the world into uncertainty. Today’s polarization of the United
States would be familiar to the Alcotts who, after all, lived during the Civil War
and took notice of the political, economic, and social turmoil of their day,
responding with support for civil rights, abolitionism, universal suffrage, and
progressive education for all children. It is not difficult to imagine Louisa and
her family’s interest in, support of, and even participation in movements such
as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.
It can be tempting to highlight Little Women’s progressive impulses and view
Alcott as a trailblazing feminist. Many recent adaptations take that angle. On the
other hand, the novel might be seen as a nineteenth-century instruction manual
advocating that young women suppress their own ambitions and desires in
order to become dutiful Victorian-era wives and mothers. The malleability of
Little Women may be part of what has made it so popular for the last century and
a half and certainly accounts for some of its current relevance. Readers across the
political spectrum can find a story that reflects their own belief system. The
novel’s emphases on duty, family, tradition, Christianity, and self-reliance may
appeal to some readers while others may see Little Women as a portrayal of
a family that espouses progressive, even radical, feminist beliefs.
When news that the BBC was producing a miniseries based on Little
Women to air in 2018, The Boston Globe, the newspaper native to the epicenter
of the Alcotts’ history, inquired, “Do we really need another movie based on
‘Little Women’?” Anne Boyd Rioux, author of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of

CONTACT Elise Hooper elise@elisehooper.com

© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
422 E. HOOPER

Little Women and Why It Still Matters, asserted affirmatively on Lithub: “The
best stories are living things and as much as we may cherish the original, the
true act of love comes in the retelling.” There can be many emotional reasons
for recreating a beloved classic, but there are also pragmatic ones. Certainly,
out-of-copyright children’s classics offer the possibility of high visibility and
profit (Mackey 154). Whatever the motivation may be for producing an
adaptation of a classic, fans may enjoy the possibility of bringing new audi-
ences and new generations of fans to older stories that they might not other-
wise encounter. Further, nineteenth-century novels such as Little Women
provide challenging vocabulary and slower-to-develop plots, making them
less accessible to many young people. At times, Little Women’s language can
sound “niminy-piminy” (an adjective taken from the opening pages of the
book, meaning “affectedly refined” according to Dictionary.com). Its pacing is
inconsistent, and references to Undine and Sintram and The Pilgrim’s Progress
are obscure for many of today’s young people. Yet, for those who choose to
persist despite its challenges, the story of the March sisters can feel surprisingly
modern with its portrayal of a family of women all striving for a sense of
agency while also evoking a comforting sense of tradition and nostalgia.
If attracting new readers to a classic text is made more successful by introdu-
cing these readers through an adaptation, why not? University of Illinois
professor M. Casey Diana found that students who watched a film adaptation
of Sense and Sensibility before reading Jane Austen’s novel increased compre-
hension of it and described more positive feelings about it than students who
read the book prior to watching the movie. Despite the small sample size, her
logic makes sense: “By providing an entertaining, positive learning experience,
the film equips college students to read and understand the novel by transmit-
ting to them a greater historical, social, and cultural sense of the period” (Diana
141). There is an obvious counterargument that not everyone who first encoun-
ters an adaptation of a classic novel will go on to read the original, but familiarity
with the original creates a shared experience that connects increasingly diverse,
fragmented audiences.
What is it about Little Women that continues to interest adaptors and inspire
them to create new versions? It offers a realistic perspective on what it means to
be a female adolescent. Alcott wrote it in 1868 after being urged by her
publisher to produce a novel for young girls. Overcoming initial reluctance,
she wrote the novel in several feverish months, basing it her own childhood
with her three sisters—with their consent. The March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth,
and Amy—correlate closely to the real-life Alcott sisters—Anna, Louisa, Lizzie,
and May. Never out of print, its powerful themes of sisterhood and family
loyalty make it durable. For generations of fans, the iconic March sisters, each
with distinct characteristics, have provided a kind of Myers-Briggs-like person-
ality test for readers. One might be a Meg—a woman interested in following the
rules, marrying well, and creating a satisfying family life. One might be a Jo—an
 WOMEN’S STUDIES 423

ambitious, adventurous trailblazer with an affinity for the unconventional.

Perhaps one is an Amy—an outgoing artist interested in forging a fashionable
and creative life. Or, one aligns with Beth—an introvert with interests in
animals and music and dedication to faith and family. Many notable women,
including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells, Ursula Le Guin, Gloria
Steinem, and Hillary Clinton, have cited Jo as the inspiration behind their own
young ambitious dreams (Clark 14, 15, 107). Men have also identified with
Alcott’s characters. Even Teddy Roosevelt described “worshipping” Little
Women in his autobiography (although it is unclear with which character he
most identified) (qtd. in Clark 15). No matter which sister is most relatable, the
story of four young women navigating the challenging terrain that spans
between adolescence and adulthood has felt familiar to many. In her essay
“Reading Little Women: The Many Lives of a Text,” Barbara Sicherman
explains that Alcott’s classic has been read as everything from romance to
a quest to a “how-to manual” for immigrants eager to assimilate into middle-
class American life (656). In other words, in Little Women Louisa May Alcott
created a collective experience that can supersede socioeconomic status, culture,
and race.
In the following sections, I focus on selected adaptations—two books and two
films—from the twelve months leading up to the sesquicentennial of Little
Women’s first publication on September 30, 1868. Clare Niederpruem’s twenty-
first-century-set feature film of Little Women stars Leah Thompson as Marmee.
Anna Todd’s novel, The Spring Girls, is also billed as a modern retelling of Little
Women. Capitalizing on the BBC’s success with period dramas and benefitting
from the involvement of Jan Turnquist, executive director of the Alcott’s
Concord home, Orchard House, Vanessa Caswill’s miniseries of Little Women
premiered in Great Britain and was subsequently televised in the United States.
This production was eagerly anticipated by Alcott fans who hoped that Little
Women would enjoy the attention and popularity that Downton Abbey received.
Additionally, Littler Women, a novel by Laura Schaefer, was marketed as “a
modern retelling” for girls aged eight to twelve. What all of these adaptations
have in common is an emphasis on “modern.” Even in the BBC adaptation set in
the 1860s, dialog and plot emphasize a theme of “girl power” that may not
necessarily reflect the original intentions of Alcott in Little Women but clearly is
in step with the times. Widespread commitment to feminist ideals precipitated
by Donald Trump’s presidency, hearings involving accusations of sexual assault
against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the expanding #metoo move-
ment, and the 2018 midterm elections in which a record number of women were
elected into Congress provide additional context for the emphasis on “girl
power” in these adaptations. In each, Jo remains a sassy, spirited young
woman who rebels against gender and class constraints. While readers of the
original novel might take issue with the “porous” nature of these adaptations and
424 E. HOOPER

their varying fidelity to Alcott’s original work (Mackey 168), each version depicts
the story in fresh ways for long-time as well as new fans.

Clare Neiderpruem’s Little Women

Neiderpruem’s big-screen Little Women is clearly a descendent of Gillian
Armstrong’s 1994 feminist film adaptation, although Neiderpruem’s version argu-
ably offers less of an ensemble with its focus on Jo. Actress Sarah Davenport’s Jo is
energetic, loud, and bossy, saying at the beginning of the movie, “I want to be a very
successful writer and do all the things,” a quotation practically begging to be
splashed onto memes across Pinterest boards. Whereas the 1868 original is told
in linear fashion, the structure of this Little Women cuts back and forth between
past and present, merging the first and second parts of the novel.
Neiderpruem’s film places itself in the #metoo era in the second scene of the
movie when Jo pitches her novel to a panel of four male judges, one of whom
calls her “sweetie.” Her presentation is roundly panned, with the exception of
a young professor from Columbia named Freddy Bhaer who agrees to help
mentor her through revisions of her work. There are a number of updates in this
version that are “LOL-worthy” for even the most conservative of Alcott aficio-
nados. Viewers see Jo’s iPhone ringing with “Marmee” identified as the caller;
the sisters Skype with their father (now an army doctor instead of an army
chaplain); Jo calls Laurie’s tutor, John Brooke, a “manny”; and Jo writes zombie
and high-fantasy stories instead of “blood and thunders.” Although it can be
jarring to see Meg sporting fake eyelashes and a prom dress with a cutout midriff
while drinking wine coolers, these updates are fun and fresh. However, the
modern treatment presents some story challenges for which there are no clear-
cut solutions.
Today’s young women have more educational and career options than the
Alcotts enjoyed. Few women attended secondary school, much less college. In real
life the Alcott sisters were homeschooled by their father, except for the youngest,
May, who briefly attended a school for girls. Despite uneven educations, Anna,
Louisa, and May worked as teachers during their young adulthood, a common
occupation for young women of the period. Louisa and May were both intellec-
tually curious and aspired toward professional careers in the arts, so it is reason-
able that they would have pursued more education had it been feasible. In 2018,
should the March sisters go to college? In this film, Jo applies only to one college (a
puzzling move that flies in the face of what any reputable college advisor would
advise) and is rejected. Later she mentions that she is taking night classes at UMass
Lowell, but it feels out of character that Jo would not be pursuing college
experience. In the present-day thread, Jo mentions that she is 29 and living in
Queens with her Aunt March, but it is unclear what she is actually doing to
support herself. In Alcott’s 1868 novel, Jo serves as a companion to Aunt March
and, later, as a governess and writer of sensational stories for tabloids; a major
 WOMEN’S STUDIES 425

motivation for Jo is financial independence, as it was for Louisa. In Neiderpruem’s

film, the March family possesses a comfortable middle-class life, living in a big
house in a New England suburb, with few apparent economic pressures. The
absence of financial struggle and concern about social standing removes tension
from the story insofar as independence appears to be something taken for granted
by these women, not a hard-fought accomplishment.
Another challenge to modernizing Little Women is what to do with Beth, her
illness, and her eventual death. There remains uncertainty as to what killed
Elizabeth Alcott, the real-life sister who inspired Beth March. Some scholars
believe she may have suffered from acute anorexia, a health issue that could be
worked into a modern adaptation to raise awareness about body confidence,
self-acceptance, and issues of control. The new adaptations all elide that possi-
bility. In the original novel, when Laurie says, “We’re an ambitious set, aren’t
we? Every one of us, but Beth, wants to be rich and famous, and gorgeous in
every respect” (225), he calls out Beth’s lack of ambition, the reason some readers
have considered her to be the boring sister. Viewed in today’s terms, Beth
appears to aspire to become a shut-in cat lady. Then she becomes sick and her
lack of ambition becomes muted as she languishes. In a touching scene from the
novel, Jo takes Beth to the seaside but realizes that her sister is dying. Beth tells
Jo, “ … don’t be troubled about me, because it’s best; indeed it is” (590). When Jo
presses her to fight it, Beth replies, “I try, but every day I lose a little, and feel
more sure that I shall never gain it back … it goes slowly, but it can’t be stopped”
(592). Both of Beth’s statements are hard to imagine emerging from the mouth
of a young present-day character. Her slow slide toward death is not unusual in
a Victorian-era novel, but her apparent lack of ambition and agency makes her
a challenging figure to recreate in a modern setting, especially because scarlet
fever now can be eradicated by a good dose of antibiotics. In Neiderpruem’s film,
Beth develops leukemia, and it proves terminal. While this is a believable story-
line, less believable is Beth’s resignation to dying. There is none of the Victorian
old-fashioned romance of a slow death in this film’s dramatization of the sisters
at the beach. Beth appears to be simply giving up. Today’s viewers have been
conditioned to want to beat cancer at every turn, so the prolonged wasting away
of Beth without a hard-fought battle goes against every modern instinct. It is
hard to imagine sassy Hazel Grace Lancaster, the protagonist suffering from
thyroid cancer in John Green’s bestselling 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars,
relinquishing herself to death as easily as Beth March does.

Anna Todd’s The Spring Girls

In The Spring Girls, billed as a “modern-day retelling of Little Women,” author
Anna Todd makes significant changes. The March sisters live on a military base
outside New Orleans with Meredith, their mother, while their Army father is
away for a tour of duty in the Middle East. Todd deviates from Alcott’s
426 E. HOOPER

omniscient narrator by having Meredith, Meg, Jo, and Beth alternately narrate
the story. If Todd’s characters did not share the same names with Alcott’s cast, it
is possible that only the most discerning of readers would connect her novel with
Alcott’s classic. Most adaptations have faithfully included plot points such as Jo
cutting her hair to pay for Marmee’s trip to nurse Mr. March; Jo and Amy’s
squabbling and reconciling after Amy’s near-death experience; and Beth’s heart-
wrenching death scene—but The Spring Girls veers from the predictable.
Instead, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy scrap their way through early adulthood by
tackling social media bullying, awkward sexual encounters, and their mother’s
depression and drinking.
In Alcott’s Little Women, Jo rails against growing into womanhood and wants
to remain free of domestic and social constraints for as long as possible. The
possibility that Meg and John Brooke could marry upsets her. When Meg scolds
Jo for her unladylike display of running in public, Jo cries, “Don’t try to make me
grow up before my time … let me be a little girl as long as I can” (242). The
Spring Girls takes the opposite tack. Jo envies Meg’s maturity and experience,
stating plainly, “I wanted to grow up” (30). While contradicting a central theme
of the original Little Women, this arguably sympathizes with today’s pressure on
young women to grow up quickly. And even though Todd’s Jo is eager to
mature, there are also moments that echo Alcott’s Jo: “I hope my only purpose
to the universe isn’t to procreate and keep the earth populated. That sounds like
some shitty dystopian novel. I want to have more purpose than that. Maybe
I don’t want to get married and pop out babies. Maybe I want a career and I want
to live alone and sleep in and hop on a plane any second I want. What’s so bad
about that?” (235–36).
Placing her characters on an army base, Todd realistically recreates the same
sense of limited options and class anxiety that beset the March sisters in the
1860s. Meg and Jo point out repeatedly that women on the military base often
do not attend college and tend to marry early and have children. Nineteen-year
-old Meg explains, “most of my friends … were twenty-two and on
their second kid” (242). Todd’s novel is frank about relationships and sex,
and I confess to having to reread the following passage in which Jo describes
Meg to make sure that I had understood it correctly: “I was intrigued by her
sexuality and fascinated by the way experience danced around her” (40). It is
jarring to picture Meg Spring as Meg March, the character who regrets
showing décolletage at the Moffats’ ball. Todd’s Meg has slept with three
different partners by the time she is sixteen and is trying escape a sexting
debacle from her past. Nevertheless, The Spring Girls captures the poverty and
social class anxieties that bedeviled the characters in Alcott’s 1868 novel in
a way that few other adaptations have accomplished.
The stress that accompanies poverty is a theme that most film adaptations
have downplayed or ignored in favor of representing greater gentility. In fact,
Alcott encouraged this fictional veneer, depicting the Marches as poorer than
 WOMEN’S STUDIES 427

their neighbors and relatives but with a housekeeper and the means to donate
breakfast to the Hummel family, recent immigrants struggling under dire
conditions. The Marches’ circumstances appear manageable, even quaint and
plucky. In reality, the Alcotts were destitute until Louisa achieved financial
stability with the publication of Little Women. Interestingly, Todd experi-
enced financial and class anxieties similar to Louisa’s. At eighteen, Todd and
her husband moved to Fort Hood, TX with only a few dollars in their bank
account, and he immediately deployed to his first of three tours of duty in
Iraq. While Todd now lives in Hollywood and is a bestselling author (Byrne),
her poverty and sudden literary success give her a unique perspective on
Alcott’s work.
In The Spring Girls, Mr. March returns home after being injured when his
Humvee is blown up by an improvised explosive device. The family is told that
they will have to move off base because Mr. March is unable to serve. Adjusting
to life with a severely injured husband and trying to hold everything together,
Meredith also struggles with alcohol and anxiety. There is a scene in which Beth
goes with Meredith to the base’s post exchange to shop and their credit card is
denied. Simmering in embarrassment, the women leave the store. Meredith asks
Beth to not mention anything to anyone by apologizing: “I’m the parent. I know
it doesn’t seem like it lately” (364). It is an awkward, vulnerable moment, sharply
contrasting with Alcott’s depiction of Marmee, a character modeled on her own
mother Abigail “Abba” Alcott, whom she would never render in fiction as
powerless and desperate.

Vanessa Caswill’s Little Women

The BBC three-episode miniseries (televised in Great Britain in 2017; aired in
the United States in May 2018) most resembles Alcott’s novel while also
portraying modern themes and fully realized, flawed characters. Although this
adaptation is set in the 1860s, the cinematography “where sunbeams filter
through snow-covered branches [and] meals are eaten artfully on mismatched
china” will be familiar to the Instagram generation (Gilbert). Meg, Jo, Beth, and
Amy are photogenic without resembling airbrushed Kardashian sisters and the
scenery is not quite the Currier and Ives snowy goodness of the 1994 Little
Women film, but do not let the beach waves sported by Maya Hawke or the
opening shots of the girls dancing and giggling in corsets (which Alcott would
loathe) make you think you are in for a Victorian-era pillow fight; this adapta-
tion has gritty moments. Unlike the original novel, which treats the war as
a distant, vague event, the opening scenes of the miniseries establish that Pastor
March is serving in a filthy and beleaguered Union Army camp as he tends to
a bloody and dying African-American soldier. The Civil War is not a distant
event; there are references to its horrors throughout. The wounded’s calls of
anguish echo in the background when John Brooke brings Marmee food as she
428 E. HOOPER

cares for her ill husband at an Army hospital. There are also more intimate
moments not found in Louisa’s 1868 novel. When Jo and Meg hide out in the
“retirement room” at a party early in the first episode, Meg hikes up her skirts
and uses the toilet, a moment that Louisa would never have imagined depicting.
Meg’s labor as she delivers her twins is also included, complete with screaming,
a scene only hinted at in Louisa’s novel. While this film includes all of the major
plot points of most Little Women adaptations—Jo burning Meg’s hair with
curling tongs, Amy enduring the pickled limes debacle, Amy burning Jo’s
manuscript—there are notable ways in which it pushes our understanding of
Little Women distinctly into the twenty-first century.
Beth becomes a more interesting character. She does not say sappy things
to her sisters or appear overly angelic; rather, she shakes her head in
annoyance and is sometimes critical of her sisters. This Beth suffers from
acute social anxiety. When Marmee urges her to leave the house, Beth balks.
In fact, it takes Annes Elwy’s Beth three attempts to travel next door to play
the Laurences’ piano. Later, facing death, she is stubborn and resolute, telling
Marmee, “I’m sick and I’m not going to get better.” Her family mourns her
deterioration with believable woe, instead of the aura of acceptance and
sacrifice infused into previous adaptations.
Emily Watson’s Marmee is portrayed as strong but frustrated by her lot in life.
In Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 film adaptation, Susan Sarandon’s Marmee “cham-
pions feminist causes that are never mentioned in the novel” (Hollinger and
Winterhalter 182) but Watson’s Marmee does not come across as preachy or
righteous. Instead, she is a stressed-out woman single-handedly trying to man-
age her family during a challenging period. Caswill includes a scene from the
book in which the March sisters are getting ready for their day: “everyone
seemed rather out of sorts, and inclined to croak” (52). The girls squabble and
Meg even tells Beth, “if you don’t keep these horrid cats down cellar I’ll have
them drowned” (53). Such a scene, while relatable to most families in 2018, is
omitted in earlier adaptations, yet in this one, Watson’s Marmee sternly chides
her daughters to “get to school or get to work within the next five minutes.” This
Marmee is not the martyred know-it-all or unfailingly positive woman of earlier
adaptations. Her frustration and impatience are on full display. After an enraged
Jo attacks Amy for burning her manuscript, Marmee must collect herself in the
hallway before returning to the fray. When the telegram announcing Pastor
March has been injured, Marmee opens it on her own behind a closed door.
Emerging to tell her daughters what has happened, she is stunned and over-
whelmed, snapping at Jo when she has to repeat some directions. “Help me.
Help me to bear it,” she eventually cries as she collapses in grief. In another scene
from the novel routinely omitted in film adaptations, Marmee admits to Jo, “I
am angry nearly every day of my life.” Caswill’s Marmee is a revelation, a fully
fleshed-out woman who is both committed to raising strong women, but who
believably reveals her own fears and frustrations.
 WOMEN’S STUDIES 429

Emphasizing a community of strong women, Caswill follows the 1994 film

adaptation of Little Women, bringing the progressiveness of the author into the
story that the 1868 Little Women never openly communicated. Analyzing the
1994 film adaption, Karen Hollinger and Teresa Winterhalter write that “con-
flating author and characters, … [they] are able to redirect their central
characters’ motivations and goals, making them champions of feminist causes
and women unafraid to speak up for themselves in a world dominated by men.”
This statement also could apply to Caswill’s adaptation, in which Jo announces,
“Being born a girl is the most disappointing thing to ever happen to me.” The
miniseries writers want to make sure no one misses that Jo is chaffing at
society’s expectations. When Mr. March urges Jo not to accept the revisions
required by her publisher and to pass on the $300 paycheck, lamenting, “Money
isn’t everything,” she displays rebelliousness and pragmatism by replying, “No,
but we need more of it in this house.” She also stands up for herself when
Professor Bhaer dismisses her writing for The Volcano. In Alcott’s novel, Jo
takes his criticism to heart and burns her “potboiler” sensational stories, but in
this adaptation, she stands her ground and tells him that she needs the money.
Aunt March also stands out in Caswill’s miniseries as another woman who is
not afraid to speak her mind and live as she pleases. When she visits Marmee to
loan her money to travel to Washington, D.C. to visit her sick husband, Aunt
March, played by the formidable Angela Lansbury, demands to know “what ails
the fool?” and Marmee admits that the telegram contained little useful informa-
tion. Lansbury’s Aunt March gives a knowing look and says, “It was indubitably
written by a man. I venture to suggest that we might send a woman so we can
ascertain the facts.” Later, when Jo bemoans how life has shrunk for her, Aunt
March comforts her with surprising tenderness, telling her that her situation
will improve.

Laura Schaefer’s Littler Women

Laura Schaefer’s Littler Women reads as an homage to the original novel and is
designed to attract and engage a new generation of young readers, specifically
girls aged eight to twelve. Schaefer provides craft project directions and recipes
in every chapter, a clever touch. Set in current times, the novel features the
March sisters at younger ages, with Meg still the oldest at thirteen and Amy the
youngest at nine. Mr. March serves overseas in the Army and “Mom” works as
the director of the community center in their small New England town. Alcott’s
familiar scenes are translated into more contemporary settings, with Jo meeting
Laurie at a middle school dance and the March sisters creating a “zine” club
instead of the Pickwick Portfolio. After seeing in a fashion magazine how many
celebrities tote around little dogs, Amy brings Beth’s kitten to school in her
backpack and gets into trouble in a situation reminiscent of the pickled limes
incident in Alcott’s novel.
430 E. HOOPER

Because this book is geared to younger readers, Schaefer downplays the more
somber themes of Little Women. Instead of becoming severely ill, Dad suffers
a concussion, and Mr. Lawrence gives Mom enough frequent-flier miles that
she can go to bring him home. Beth does not die in this story, contracting the
flu but healing quickly. More mature themes of love and marriage are also
simplified into situations relevant to the book’s intended adolescent audience.
When Laurie gets up the nerve to invite Jo to a dance, she turns him down
while insisting that they remain friends: “I don’t want a boyfriend or anything
like that. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not ready or if it’s because I see you
almost like a brother or what. But all I can be is your friend. I’m sorry. I really
am” (Schaefer 177). Akin to Diane’s experiment in showing the film of Sense
and Sensibility prior to assigning Austen’s novel, Schaefer’s adaptation may
inspire young readers to bond more fully with Alcott’s book as they mature into
more capable readers.

Conclusion
Interest in adapting Alcott’s classic novel shows no sign of abating. As this
article goes to print, a star-studded cast is filming another feature-length
adaptation of Little Women written and directed by Greta Gerwig. This new
film, slated to release at Christmas 2019, features Hollywood stars, including
Meryl Streep, Emma Watson, and Saoirse Ronan. According to producer
(and 1994 adaptation screenwriter) Robin Swicor, this adaptation will focus
more on part two of Little Women, depicting the lives of the March sisters
after they leave home: “It’s really taking a look at what it is for a young
woman to enter the adult world” (Nechamkin). If so, Gerwig’s adaptation
will be forging new territory as most Little Women adaptations, both cine-
matic and literary, more predominantly have focused on part one. It should
not come as a surprise that Alcott, an ambitious nineteenth-century woman
novelist known for writing “I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own
canoe” (Journals 99), would become newly relevant in 2018 to feminists
seeking trailblazing independent-minded historical figures for inspiration.
It seems that almost every generation receives its own film adaptation of
Little Women, and each reflects the time in which it was produced.
While analyzing these Little Women adaptations, I have purposefully omitted
professional reviews. Rather, I am interested in tracing how the general public
responds to them, how regular readers connect these adaptations to their under-
standing and memory of the original Little Women. In many Amazon reviews of
recent literary adaptations, readers write that they are eager to revisit Alcott’s
1868 original novel. In one review on Amazon’s product page for The Spring
Girls, for example, a reader writes, “I was interested in the reinterpretation of
‘Little Women’ and it was fun to draw comparisons” (Anonymous). On social
media platforms, there has been spirited debate about the casting choices for
 WOMEN’S STUDIES 431

Caswill’s miniseries and analysis of scenes, with commenters frequently citing

passages from the original book. Viewers of the miniseries took to Twitter
during the show’s airing to collectively analyze it. A tweet from @sundialSoft
scoffs, “oh what a mess they made of little women. Anyone who has not read the
book will probably enjoy it but as someone who has read it many times it’s just
a case of spotting the few parts that are accurate and cringing at the rest of it.” In
contrast, @RichmondBrands waxes nostalgic: “Sobbing my eyes out watching
Little Women, feeling like I did at 11 years old and reading the books for the first
time.” Discussions of literary and theatrical adaptations of classics serve as
satisfying ways for the public to bond. Adaptations inspire discussion among
longtime readers and engage new audiences in exploring their themes and
motifs. They remove us from the humdrum of our everyday lives and challenge
our imaginations and ways of thinking. They unite generations and help create
memories and traditions. I have met people who tell me that their families gather
every Christmas to watch the 1994 feature film adaptation of Little Women. As
long as we have readers who are interested in family dynamics and coming-of-
age journeys, there still will be an audience for Little Women, and, as long as this
story can be reinvented and revisited in different forms, we are fortunate. It will
be interesting to see what future adaptations of Little Women bring. While
readers of different economic classes and races report enjoying the story, as
demographics shift in the United States, will future treatments pivot from the
story’s traditional casting of an all-white, cisgender, middle-class American
setting? Only time will tell.

Works cited
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women, Penguin, 2008.
Anonymous. “Turns Alcott’s Story on Its Head and Shakes It.” Amazon, 27 Jan. 2018, https://
www.amazon.com/Spring-Girls-Modern-Day-Retelling-Little-ebook/product-reviews
/B074ZQ47DV/.
Byrne, John Aidan. “This 27-Year-Old Has Become An Unlikely Literary Sensation.” The
New York Post, 22 Jan. 2017, nypost.com/2017/01/22/this-27-year-old-has-become-an-
unlikely-literary-sensation/
Clark, Beverley Lyon. The Afterlife of Little Women, Johns Hopkins UP, 2014.
Diana, M. Casey. “Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility as Gateway to Austen’s Novel.”
Jane Austen in Hollywood, edited by Sayre Greenfield and Linda Troost, UP of Kentucky,
2000, p. 141.
Gilbert, Sophie. “Little Women for the Instagram Generation.” The Atlantic, 14 May 2018,
theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/little-women-review-pbs-bbc/560144/.
Hollinger, Karen, and Teresa. Winterhalter. “A Feminist Romance: Adapting Little Women to
the Screen.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 18, no. 2, 1999, pp. 173–92.
doi:10.2307/464445.
Little Women. Directed by Clare Neiderpruem, performances by Leah Thompson, Sarah
Davenport, Pinnacle Peak, 2018a.
432 E. HOOPER

Little Women. Directed by Vanessa Caswill, performances by Annes Elwy, Emily Watson,
BBC, 2018b.
Mackey, Margaret. “Little Women Go to Market: Shifting Texts and Changing Readers.”
Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 29, no. 3, 1998, pp. 153–73. doi:10.1023/
A:1022475522193.
Nechamkin, Sarah. “Everything We Know About Greta Gerwig’s Little Women Adaptation.”
The Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 2018, https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/everything-we-know-
about-greta-gerwigs-little-women.html.
@RichmondBrands. “Sobbing My Eyes Out Watching Little Women, Feeling like I Did at 11
Years Old and Reading the Books for the First Time. #Bbc #Littlewomen.” Twitter, 28 Dec.
2017, twitter.com/RichmanBrands/status/946494721622495233.
Rioux, Anne Boyd. “Why We Do Need Another Adaptation of Little Women.” Lithub, 19
May 2017, lithub.com/why-we-do-need-another-adaptation-of-little-women/.
Schaefer, Laura. Littler Women, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2017.
Sicherman, Barbara. “Reading Little Women: The Many Lives of a Text.” Little Women, edited
by Anne Phillips and Gregory Eiselein, W.W. Norton, 2003, pp. 632–57.
@sundialSoft. “#Bbc #Littlewomen Oh What a Mess They Made of Little Women. Anyone
Who Has Not Read the Book Will Probably Enjoy It but as Someone Who Has Read It
Many Times It’s Just a Case of Spotting the Few Parts that are Accurate and Cringing at
the Rest of It.” Twitter, 26 Dec. 2017, twitter.com/sundialSoft/status/945765365036060672.
Todd, Anna. The Spring Girls, Gallery Books, 2018.