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Although the marital union of Meg and John is the most conservative example of companionship in the novel, it also implies that for some women the greatest happiness is indeed to be good wives and mothers. The romantic marriage of John and Meg is by no means egalitarian but is based upon love, mutual helpfulness and sacrifice.
While John has to work hard to provide for her family, Meg is expected to moderate her materialistic longings. Her self-regulation is rewarded as John shares parental responsibilities with her. Their marriage suggests that the progress of society and the improvement of the position of women is possible if an effort is made to reform the family.
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The first step towards reforming the family is the involvement of husbands in household chores and parental duties. Unlike Jo, she makes a huge effort to please people and makes no secret of her intention to marry rich. Therefore, it may be argued that Amy is the daughter who is at the beginning of the novel marked as the least influenced by her mother.
However, critics often overlook the fact that Amy wants to marry rich not only for personal gain but also to help her family. Still, this undertaking, although easy in theory, turns out to be unattainable in practice. Amy, the youngest and therefore the most childish daughter, naively believes that she is cold-blooded and calculating enough to accept the marriage proposal of the rich Fred Vaugh, a man for whom she has no feelings.
Instead of continuing to pursue an artistic career, she is content to create for herself and the people close to her.
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Moreover, Laurie too renounces his artistic career. Instead, they are willing to patronise talented artists of modest means. A lesson Marmee teaches Amy, which she passes on to Laurie, is about the vanity of ambition. Instead of marrying Jo, whom he first proposes, Laurie later marries her youngest sister.
He renounces his castle in the air and agrees to pursue a career as a businessman. However, the emphasis is not on his actions outside the house. Rather, even though there is a minimum of contact between the male and female characters at the beginning of the novel, the gap between them is gradually bridged. The situation, however, is anything but that simple.
Apart from being a voracious reader, a bookworm so to speak, Jo has a gift for writing, a talent she is very dedicated to developing. To be sure, Jo is the daughter whom the family considers the most talented artist. Although at first, she writes only for the family, over time she dares in an attempt to publish her fiction. However, the problem with this genre is, as Daly-Galeano remarks, twofold.
Sensational stories are not expected to contain moral implications and are perceived as an inferior sort of fiction Daly-Galeano, , p. As it turns out, the fiction that sells well on the literary market is not at the same time what brings recognition. Therefore, Jo must choose between writing for money and writing for fame. This choice is anything but easy if we consider the fact that she views writing as a tool that should ensure her independence, which will allow her to take care of her family.
However, over time, she adopts the attitude of her parents and her future husband that her writing should come from her experience and have a positive effect on readers, and she stops writing sensational stories. Although at the end of the novel, Jo has a new castle in the air in the form of a school she establishes and runs along with her husband, the narrator does not explicitly state whether she will continue her career as a writer.
It is up to the reader to make interpretative choices and conclude whether Jo will definitely give up writing. Jo is initially opposed to marriage for two reasons. The first is that she dreads the restrictions she is sure will come with this institution. Whereas Jo enjoys freedom in the unconventional March household, she supposes that the transition from childhood to adulthood will significantly jeopardise that liberty.
The second reason is the fear that marriage will necessarily lead to the disintegration of the family. Quite the contrary, marriages actually bring about the expansion of the family with the inclusion of husbands and later children.
Accessed 8 Oct. Eisenstein, Zillah R. Capitalist patriarchy and the case for socialist feminism. Monthly Review Press. Fetterley, Judith. Levine, Philippa. Murphy, Ann B. Anna is so good she need not take care of herself, and can enjoy other people. I can imagine how Bronson was constantly comparing Louisa to Anna, suggesting Loui to look up to her older sister who was good without effort and to Louisa it was a constant battle to conquer her temper and her sharp tongue.
I can see how that built up insecurity, so she needed to do something magificent to prove that she was good.
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Skip to content Louisa May Alcott was an astute observer of life. Rate this:. Like Loading I was thinking of Fruitlands and how it affected the oldest March girls. Leave a comment Cancel reply.
Louisa may alcott books: Louisa May Alcott was an astute observer of life. Her description of Meg and John’s first year of marriage in Chapter 28 of Little Women, Domestic Experiences, amazed me with its accuracy. She obviously studied her sister Anna and brother-in-law John Pratt’s marriage carefully, probably without even realizing it.
Previous Post Previous Three years later. Next Post Next Amy wins the day, and Jo pays the price. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Louisa May Alcott is My Passion. The Alcotts were staunch abolitionists, supporting complete racial equality, including intermarriage. As part of the Underground Railroad, they risked their own freedom hiding fugitive slaves.
Louisa may alcott marriage license
Seven year-old Louisa once opened an unused oven to discover a frightened fugitive inside. She taught him to write letters. In Boston and Concord, the Alcotts were intimates of the great transcendentalist thinkers and writers of the day.