Presented by:

JEDAHLYN A. DEMATE
MAT ENGLISH
ABOUT THE Louisa May Alcott (born November 29, 1832, Germantown,
AUTHOR Massachusetts) was an American author known for her
Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 6, 1888, Boston,

children’s books, especially the classic Little Women (1868–

69).

Louisa spent most of her life in Boston and Concord,

Massachusetts, where she grew up in the company of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and
Henry David Thoreau.

Alcott realized early that her father was too impractical to

provide for his wife and four daughters; after the failure of
Fruitlands, a utopian community that he had founded, Louisa
Alcott’s lifelong concern for the welfare of her family began.
She taught briefly, worked as a domestic, and finally began to
write.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR Alcott produced potboilers at first and many of her
stories—notably those signed “A.M. Barnard”—were
lurid and violent tales. The latter works are unusual in
their depictions of women as strong, self-reliant, and
imaginative. She volunteered as a nurse after the
American Civil War began, but she contracted typhoid
from unsanitary hospital conditions and was sent home.
She was never completely well again. The publication
of her letters in book form, Hospital Sketches (1863),
brought her the first taste of fame.
ABOUT THE Alcott’s stories began to appear in The Atlantic Monthly
AUTHOR pressing, she wrote the autobiographical Little Women
(later The Atlantic), and, because family needs were

(1868–69), which was an immediate success. Based on her

recollections of her own childhood, Little Women
describes the domestic adventures of a New England
family of modest means but optimistic outlook. The book
traces the differing personalities and fortunes of four
sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March) as they emerge
from childhood and encounter the vicissitudes of
employment, society, and marriage. Little Women created
a realistic but wholesome picture of family life with which
younger readers could easily identify. In 1869 Alcott was
able to write in her journal: “Paid up all the debts…thank
the Lord!”
ABOUT THE Except for a European tour in 1870 and a few briefer trips
AUTHOR to New York, she spent the last two decades of her life in
Boston and Concord, caring for her mother, who died in
1877 after a lengthy illness, and her increasingly helpless
father. Late in life she adopted her namesake, Louisa May
Nieriker, daughter of her late sister, May. Her own health,
never robust, also declined, and she died in Boston two
days after her father’s death.

Alcott’s books for younger readers have remained

steadfastly popular, and the republication of some of her
lesser-known works late in the 20th century aroused
renewed critical interest in her adult fiction.
Movie Trailer of
Little Women
 Brief Summary
• Little Women, novel for children by Louisa May Alcott, published in two parts in
1868 and 1869. Her sister May illustrated the first edition. It initiated a genre of
family stories for children.

• Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother,
Marmee, in a quiet Massachusetts town while their father serves as an army chaplain
during the American Civil War. They befriend Theodore Lawrence (Laurie), the
lonely grandson of a rich old man next door. The vital force of the family is Jo, a
headstrong tomboy who is the emotional centre of the book. In the course of the
novel, beautiful, vain Meg marries Laurie’s tutor, John Brooke, and starts her own
family; quiet, sickly Beth dies from scarlet fever; artistic Amy marries Laurie after he
is turned down by Jo; and Jo marries Professor Bhaer, whom she meets while living in
a boardinghouse, and together they set up a school for boys.
Narrator
Full Book Analysis
Omniscient. The narrator knows everything and provides analysis and commentary about
the characters and their lives.

Point Of View
Third person. The narrator focuses on all the different characters in turn.

Tone
Sympathetic and matter-of-fact; sometimes moralizing

Setting (Time)
During and after the Civil War, roughly 1861–1876
 Full Book Analysis
Setting (Place)
A small New England town

Major Conflict
The March sisters struggle to improve their various flaws as they grow into adults. Jo
dreams of becoming a great writer and does not want to become a conventional adult
woman.
 Characters
Josephine "Jo" March
The main character of Little Women, Jo is an outspoken tomboy with a passion
for writing. Her character is based in large part on Louisa May Alcott herself. Jo
refuses Laurie’s offer of marriage, despite the fact that everyone assumes they
will end up together. In the end, Jo gives up her writing and marries Professor
Bhaer, which can be seen either as a domestic triumph or as a professional loss,
since Jo loses her headstrong independence.

Because she displays good and bad traits in equal measure, Jo is a very unusual
character for nineteenth-century didactic fiction. Jo’s bad traits—her
rebelliousness, anger, and outspoken ways—do not make her unappealing;
rather, they suggest her humanity. Jo is a likely precursor to a whole slew of
lovably flawed heroes and heroines of children’s books, among them Mark
Twain’s Tom Sawyer.
Meg March

The oldest March sister, Meg battles her girlish weakness for luxury and money,
and ends up marrying a poor man she loves. Meg represents the conventional
and good; she is similar to her mother, for whom she was named. Meg
sometimes tries to alter who she is in order to please other people, a trait that
comes forth when she allows other girls to dress her up like a rich girl at her
friend Annie Moffat’s house. She becomes an agreeable housewife, pretending
to like politics because her husband does, and forgoing luxury because her
husband is poor.
Beth March

The third March sister, Beth is very shy and quiet. Like Meg, she always tries to please other
people, and like Jo, she is concerned with keeping the family together. Beth struggles with minor
faults, such as her resentment for the housework she must do.

Beth resembles an old-fashioned heroine like those in the novels of the nineteenth-century
English author Charles Dickens. Beth is a good person, but she is also a shade too angelic to
survive in Alcott’s more realistic fictional world. With Beth’s death, Alcott lets an old type of
heroine die off. The three surviving March sisters are strong enough to live in the changing real
world.

Beth is close to Jo; outgoing Jo and quiet Beth both have antisocial tendencies. Neither of them
wants to live in the world the way it is, with women forced to conform to social conventions of
female behavior. Similarly, it is not surprising that Meg and Amy are particularly close to each
other, since generous Meg and selfish Amy both find their places within a gendered world.
Amy March

The youngest March sister, Amy is an artistic beauty who is good at

manipulating other people. Unlike Jo, Amy acts as a perfect lady because it
pleases her and those around her. She gets what she wants in the end:
popularity, the trip to Europe, and Laurie. Amy serves as a foil—a character
whose attitudes or emotions contrast with, and thereby accentuate, those of
another character—for Jo, who refuses to submit to the conventions of
ladyhood. Both artists struggle to balance society’s expectations with their
own natural inclinations. The more genuine of the two and the more
generous, Jo compares favorably to Amy. Both characters, however, are more
lovable and real for their flaws.
Laurie Laurence

The Marches’ charming, fun, and intelligent next-door neighbor, Laurie becomes
particularly close to Jo but ends up marrying Amy. In between the publication of
Part One and Part Two, Alcott received many letters asking her to marry Jo to
Laurie. Perhaps to simultaneously please her readers and teach them a lesson,
Alcott had Jo get married, but not to Laurie.
Laurie struggles with his grandfather’s expectations of him, in a similar manner to
the way Jo struggles with becoming a lady. Laurie is not manly enough for his
grandfather because he does not want to enter the business world. Likewise, Jo is
not feminine enough for her sisters because she swears, soils her gloves, and
speaks her mind at all times.
Marmee
Marmee, the matriarch of the March family, is a near perfect model of motherhood in her daughters’ eyes
and in the eyes of the narrator. She is the cornerstone of the March family and social circle, and Marmee
is generous, wise, patient, and honest. She runs a household of four daughters in various stages of
adolescence and their lonely neighbor boy nearly singlehandedly while her husband serves in the
American Civil War. She is never short of wise words, and she leverages the daily rhythms of the
household as deliberate learning opportunities for her girls.

Marmee is a major character in Little Women, but most of what we learn about her internal life comes
from the lessons she teaches others. We know that she was once a part of fine society, and that Mr.
March was wealthy when she married him. Both Marmee and Mr. March were presumably generous
early on in their marriage, because she supported him when he loaned his fortune to an unfortunate
friend. That loan was never repaid, and the Marches were forced to change their lifestyle to
accommodate. Marmee never complains about this change of circumstance, and instead learns how to
cook, clean, and keep house without abundant resources. She retains her sophistication and takes pride in
the home she does have. The novel does not follow Marmee’s character development, but it implies she
became a model of virtue because of this loss of wealth and her reaction to it.
Frederick Bhaer

Jo first meets Professor Frederick Bhaer in New York City where they live as fellow tenants and
teachers in a large boarding house. He is in his forties and has emigrated from Germany to New York to
start a new life. He has no money, he is not particularly handsome, and, although he was an esteemed
professor in Germany, he is reduced to tutoring a few children for his income. Jo is immediately drawn
to him, though she does not consciously realize it at first. Instead, we learn how highly she thinks of
him by how much time she spends reflecting on him in her letters home.

Jo is a naturally adventurous person, and she does well for herself in New York. Professor Bhaer is part
of her success because he reminds her of the values she knows from home. She is attracted to him
because he matches what she has been taught to admire. Frederick Bhaer sees the same kinship in Jo,
and later in her family when he comes to know them. The novel sets up Laurie and Bhaer as two
potential love interests for Jo, but it is Bhaer’s maturity that makes him a better match for her untamed
spirit. Laurie is like Jo, but Bhaer is similar to the people Jo loves most – namely, her father, her
mother, and Beth. Little Women focuses on the growth of its main characters from children to
established adults, and Bhaer represents the place Jo wants to reach in her growth.
 Themes
Women’s Struggle Between Familial Duty and Personal Growth

At the time when Alcott composed the novel, women’s status in society was slowly
increasing. As with any change in social norms, however, progress toward gender
equality was made slowly. Through the four different sisters, Alcott explores four
possible ways to deal with being a woman bound by the constraints of nineteenth-
century social expectations: marry young and create a new family, as Meg does; be
subservient and dutiful to one’s parents and immediate family, as Beth is; focus on
one’s art, pleasure, and person, as Amy does at first; or struggle to live both a dutiful
family life and a meaningful professional life, as Jo does. While Meg and Beth
conform to society’s expectations of the role that women should play, Amy and Jo
initially attempt to break free from these constraints and nurture their individuality.
Eventually, however, both Amy and Jo marry and settle into a more customary life.
While Alcott does not suggest that one model of womanhood is more desirable than
the other, she does recognize that one is more realistic than the other.
 Themes
The Danger of Gender Stereotyping

Little Women questions the validity of gender stereotypes, both male and female. Jo, at
times, does not want to be a conventional female. In her desires and her actions, she
frustrates typical gender expectations. She wants to earn a living, for example—a duty
conventionally reserved for men. Also, she wears a dress with a burn mark to a party,
evidence that she does not possess tremendous social grace, a quality that nineteenth-
century American society cultivated in women. Similarly, there are times when Laurie does
not want to be a conventional man. He wants to pursue music, at that time a culturally
feminine pursuit, instead of business, a culturally masculine pursuit. Even his nickname,
Laurie, which he uses in favor of his much more masculine given name, Theodore, suggests
his feminine side. Alcott bestows the highest esteem upon Jo and Laurie, who, in their
refusal to embody gender stereotypes, willingly expose themselves to particular obstacles.
 Themes
The Necessity of Work

Over the course of Little Women, the March sisters try to find happiness through daily
activities, their dreams, and each other; but when they do not engage in any productive
work, they end up guilty and remorseful. When they indulge in selfishness by dressing up in
finery, hoarding limes, neglecting chores, or getting revenge, the girls end up unhappy. The
only way they find meaningful happiness is when they are working, either for a living or for
the benefit of their families. The novel demonstrates the importance of the Puritan work
ethic, which dictates that it is holy to do work. This work ethic, in line with the
transcendentalist teachings with which Alcott grew up, thrived in New England, where
many Puritans lived and where the novel takes place. Alcott ultimately recommends work
not as a means to a material end, but rather as a means to the expression of inner goodness
and creativity through productivity.
 Themes
The Importance of Being Genuine

Little Women takes great pains to teach a lesson about the importance of being genuine. To make this
point, Alcott contrasts the Marches with more well-to-do young women like Amy Moffat and Sally
Gardiner. Transcendentalists emphasized the importance of paying more attention to the inner spiritual
self than to temporary, earthly conditions like wealth and impressive appearances, and Alcott
incorporates this philosophy into Little Women. For instance, Meg and Amy constantly struggle with
vanity, and eventually overcome it. Amy turns down Fred Vaughn’s offer of marriage, even though he
is rich, because she does not love him. The March sisters all learn to be happy with their respective lots
in life and not to yearn for meaningless riches. The Marches’ snug New England home is presented as
more desirable than mansions in Paris. This theme is particularly American, especially distinctive of
New England. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, many middle-class Americans at the time did not
mind having come from humble origins and did not crave titles or other superficial trappings of wealth.
These Americans wanted only what they deserved and believed that what they deserved depended on
how hard they worked.
SYMBOLISMS
 SYMBOLISMS
Umbrellas
In Little Women, umbrellas symbolize the protection a man offers a
woman. Before Meg and John Brooke get married, Jo gets angry at
Mr. Brooke’s umbrella. It seems Jo is angry that Mr. Brooke is going
to take care of her sister. At the end of the novel, Professor Bhaer
extends his umbrella over Jo, and her acceptance of its coverage
symbolizes that she is ready to accept not only his love and
protection, but also the idea that men are supposed to offer women
love and protection.
 SYMBOLISMS
Burning
Little Women is filled with images of burning that simultaneously represent
writing, genius, and anger. At a party, Jo wears a dress with a burn mark on
the back, which symbolizes her resistance to having to play a conventional
female role. In anger, Amy burns Jo’s manuscript after Jo will not let her come
to a play. Whenever Jo writes, her family describes her inspiration as genius
burning. At the end of the novel, Jo burns her sensationalist stories after
Professor Bhaer criticizes that style of writing. This fire seems to destroy her
earlier self as well, as it marks the end of the fiery Jo of the novel’s beginning.
 SYMBOLISMS
Flowers
Little Women values the hard work and disciplined virtue of the March sisters higher than the talents and
appearances of good society. The novel reinforces this consistently in its comparisons between the March
family and the fashionable world they occasionally interact with. One of these comparisons is between the
natural beauty of flowers, which is praised as the result of deliberate care, and the artificial beauty of
expensive clothes and pampering. Flowers, rather than finery, enhance the characters’ beauty and their views
of each other.

Each of the March girls has a patch of garden they are allowed to use to grow whatever they choose. Although
they each cultivate different kinds of gardens, the novel commends them all for the work they put into caring
for their allotted spaces. It is their dedication and care that makes the flowers more valuable than the blooms
themselves. Beth is especially associated with flowers as she continues to cultivate her garden as well as
indoor flowers throughout the book. She is described as the most caring sister, and this plays out in her
attention to nature as well. Her floral association shows the story’s approval of her priorities and inclinations.
 SYMBOLISMS
Flowers
Laurie also holds a strong association with flowers in the novel, as he is frequently giving them as gifts to the
March women. He never forgets to send Marmee a small bouquet through their post, he brings flowers for
Meg and Amy at balls, and he tries to harvest roses for Amy in France. By bestowing these gifts, Laurie
shows his approval and appreciation of the March family. He finds the same cultivated beauty in the family
that it takes to produce the flowers.
That's all for today, ladies and
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