LITTLE WOMEN (my book)
LITTLE WOMEN
(LOUISA MAY ALCOTT)
Book 1GENERAL INFORMATION
Type of work · Novel
Genre · Sentimental novel; didactic novel; coming-of-age novel
Language · English
Time and place have written · 1868–1869, Concord and Boston, Massachusetts
Date of first publication · 1868–1869
Publisher · Roberts Brothers
Narrator The narrator knows everything and provides analysis and commentary about the characters and their lives.
MAIN CHARACTERS
Meg
The oldest of the March sisters. She hopes to conquer her vanity and do her work cheerfully.
Jo
Josephine, the second oldest March sister. She is a writer and a tomboy. Best friends with Laurie.
Beth
The third eldest sister. She is a quiet, selfless, shy girl, who only wishes to be at home with her family. She loves music and plays the piano. In Book I, Beth gets scarlet fever and recovers.
The youngest, Amy is the pet of the family. She loves art and is quite vain, but learns to be elegant, kind, and generous. Always planning to marry rich.
Marmee
Margaret March, mother of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy
Laurie
Theodore Lawrence, called Laurie by most or Teddy by Jo, is Mr. Laurence’s nephew. He becomes a close friend and brother to the girls, particularly Jo. Without parents, he is largely influenced by the morals of the girls and their mother.
The March family’s wealthy neighbor. He was good friends with Mrs. March’s father and becomes dear friends with all the Marches. He is especially close with Beth and gives her a piano.
Mr. March is a philosopher and pastor. During the war, he serves as a chaplain for the Union Army. A good man, but very unworldly.
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
Mr. Brooke
John Brooke is Laurie’s tutor. He accompanies Mrs. March to Washington when Mr. March is sick, and he woos and marries Meg.
Hannah
The faithful servant and cook who is generally treated like a family member.
Hummels
The family of poor German immigrants who live near the Marches. On Christmas Day, the March girls give up their breakfast to this family. Beth gets scarlet fever from them.
Scrabble
The rat in the garret where Jo writes.
Joanna
Beth’s most cherished doll, who once belonged to Jo.
Aunt March
Great Aunt March is Mr. March’s aunt. Rather old and cranky, she first has Jo as her companion, then Amy. She disapproves of how the girls are raised, but occasionally finds ways to be generous.
King Family
The wealthy family Meg for whom Meg is a governess. Their family woes cause Meg to see that money cannot bring happiness.
Mr. Davis
The teacher at Amy’s school. His corporal punishment of Amy for bringing pickled limes to school causes Mrs. March to withdraw her.
Mrs. Gardiner
Mother of Sallie. She invites Meg and Jo to a New Year’s Ball.
Annie Moffat
A wealthy friend of Meg’s, who invites Meg to stay for a fortnight with her.
Belle Moffat
Annie's sister, who dresses Meg up for the party at the end of the fortnight at Annie Moffat’s.
Clara Moffat
Annie and Belle's eldest sister.
Sallie Gardiner
A wealthy friend of Meg’s, of whose luxurious lifestyle Meg is very envious. At one point, she tempts Meg into buying silk for a dress, which she cannot afford.
Ned Moffat
Annie’s brother who likes Meg and tries to dance and flirt with her. Marmee disapproves.
Major Lincoln
A gentleman at the Moffats’ parties who says Meg’s friends have made a fool and a doll of Meg when they dress her up.
Kate Vaughn
The eldest of four children who come from England to visit Laurie. She is quite proper and looks down on the independent Americans.
Fred Vaughn
A rich friend of Laurie’s. When he is young he cheats at croquet, brother of Kate.
Frank Vaughn
Brother of Fred, with a lame leg due to an accident. Beth overcomes her bashfulness to talk to him out of pity.
Grace Vaughn
The youngest Vaughn, she and Amy get along well.
Lotty
One of the Hummel children,
Dr. Bangs
The doctor who treats Beth when she has scarlet fever.
Esther
Aunt March’s maid. French and Catholic, Esther is kind to Amy during her stay, witnessing her will, practicing French, and setting up a chapel where Amy can pray.
Polly
Aunt March’s terror of a parrot.
Kitty Bryant
Amy’s best friend when she is young, whose ring she envies.
Miss Crocker
An elderly woman from town who gossips, so the girls call her "Croaker." She calls during Marmee's experiment leaving the girls to cook for themselves, to everyone's dismay.
ANTAGONIST / PROTAGONIST
Jo March is the protagonist of the novel.
The struggle of their lives are the antagonists
The struggle of their lives are the antagonists
PLOT
The book is about the family daily life of the March sisters, beautiful Meg, tempestuous Jo, lovely Beth and romantic Amy, who are growing up in a small town somewhere in America during the Civil War.
With the father fighting in the war, the girls struggle with major and minor problems in their lives under the guidance of her mother, a strong-willed, affectionately woman called Marmee.
As a means of escaping some of their problems, the sisters revel in performing in romantic plays, written by Jo in their attic. She dreams of being a writer.
Living next door is Mr. Lawrence, whose grandson Theodore, nicknamed Laurie, moves in with him and becomes a close friend of the March family, particularly Jo.
Mr. Lawrence becomes a mentor for Beth, who plays the piano and reminds him of his deceased young granddaughter.
Mr. March is wounded in the war and Marmee is called away to nurse him. While she is away, Beth contracts scarlet fever from the Hummel's baby, an immigrant family the March's helped.
During this time Amy was sent to Aunt March's house, the old, any, alone rich aunt, where Jo works as a companion lady for several years.
When Beth condition worsens, Marmee came back home and nurses her to recovery just in time for Christmas. Mr. March came back home and Meg accepts John Brooke´s proposal.
MAJOR CONFLICT
The March sisters struggled to improve their various flaws as they grew into adults. Jo dreams of becoming a great writer and does not want to become a conventional adult woman.
RISING ACTION
The sisters begin to mature; they meet Laurie, their next-door neighbor.
Jo published her first story.
CLIMAX
Beth became scarlet fever.
Mother came back to attend her.
FALLING ACTIONS
Father came back recovered.
Meg gets engaged.
RESOLUTION
The family was together and happy again.
Static character:
Marmee
doesn't change throughout the course of the story. she is very caring, loving, encouraging and very supportive. She doesn't show a huge development in her character.
Mr. Lawrence
He is important for the family, he is a support, but he is always background.
Mr. March (father)
He is in a hospital far away, but throughout the book, he is always present and his recommendations and believes are followed.
Dynamic characters:
The sisters
They are always changing, of mood, taking actions, growing and maturing.
Laurie
He is always present in all activities, he is growing and maturing too.
Setting (time) During and after the Civil War, roughly 1861–1876
Setting (place) A small New England town
Point of view Third person. The narrator focuses on all the different characters in turn.
AUTHOR´S BIOGRAPHy
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
—Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father was an enthusiastic transcendentalist philosopher, abolitionist, and teacher. He failed to provide enough money to support his family, and their poverty was so dire that in twenty years, they moved twenty times. Louisa’s mother acted as head of the household, and when Louisa grew older, she also took on much of the burden. She was taught by her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, until 1848, and studied informally with family friends such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Parker.
She had an older sister, Anna, and two younger sisters, Lizzie and Abba May. These names are noticeably similar to the names she gives her characters in Little Women (Meg, Beth, and Amy). Her sister Lizzie died at age twenty-two after a bout of scarlet fever. Alcott also had a brother, Dapper, who died in infancy.
She worked as a domestic servant and a teacher to help support her family when she resided in Massachusetts. She went to Washington, D.C. during the Civil war to work as a nurse.
Louisa May Alcott had been publishing poems, short stories, thrillers, and juvenile tales since 1851, under the pen name Flora Fairfield. She began to publish stories under her real name in Atlantic Monthly and Lady's Companion and took a brief trip to Europe in 1865 before becoming editor of a girls' magazine, Merry's Museum.
In 1862, she also adopted the pen name A.M. Barnard, and some of her melodramas were produced on Boston stages. But it was her account of her Civil War experiences, Hospital Sketches (1863), that confirmed Alcott's desire to be a serious writer.
Alcott caught pneumonia while working as a nurse in the Civil War. The treatment gave her mercury poisoning. For twenty years Alcott was weak, suffered intense pain, and had hallucinations that could only be controlled with opium. Her right hand hurt her so badly that she had to learn how to write with her left hand. She also lost her hair because of the illness.
Alcott died on March 6, 1888, and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, alongside her father, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau.
Alcott was a best-selling novelist of the late 1800s, Alcott also tried her hand at adult novels, such as Work (1873) and A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), but these tales were not as popular as her other writings.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The American Civil war was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. It was the result of a controversy over slavery. War broke out in April 1861, when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after President Lincoln was inaugurated. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America, who advocated for states rights to expand slavery.The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished and 4 million slaves were freed.
ANALYSIS OR CONNECTION BETWEEN LITERARY WORK AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
She set her novel during the war and like Jo March, she could not get over her disappointment in not being a boy. When the Civil war broke out in 1861, she had an urge to go an fight in it. She supported the Northern side of the conflict because she was against slavery.
She could not join the military, she signed up to be a Union nurse and was stationed in Washington D.C.
She was active in the women's suffrage movement in the United States, whose supporters sought to extend the right to vote to women. Her feminist sympathies are expressed through the character of Jo March.
LITERARY MOVEMENT
American Romanticism was the first full-fledged literary movement that developed in the U.S. It was made up of a group of authors who wrote and published between about 1820 and 1860 when the U.S. was still finding its feet as a new nation.
COUNTRY
GENRE
It possesses many qualities of the didactic genre, works that have a moral lesson. It does not preach directly.
The narrator refrains from too much explicit moralizing, allowing us to draw our lessons from the outcome of the story.
SUMMARY
The story is about the March family who lives in a small town in America during the Civil war. The father is fighting far away. And the mother, a strong woman take care of the girls.
They were Margaret, called Meg, she is pretty and dreams to be a good woman, Josephine, Jo, she wasn’t happy of being a woman, she wanted to be a man, and fight with her father. She always dreams of being a writer.
Elizabeth, or Beth, she is fragile and sweet. She loves nature and simple things of life, and Amy, who dreams with richness and vanity.
The night before Christmas the girls were worried because there is no money for gifts and celebrating it in a big way. Mother came home and told them to look under their pillows for their gifts.
On Christmas morning, the girls wake up to find books of the Pilgrim´s Progress, to help them to be better and happy with what they have. Later that day, Marmee encouraged them to give their breakfast to a poor immigrant family, The Hummels. The March family later will become the protector of the family, taking care of them.
Their neighbor, Mr. Lawrence, an old, alone man, rewarded this action by sending them a feast. He has a grandson, Theodore, called Laurie or Teddy by the sisters. He was strict and afraid of the love for the music of Laurie because his son married a musician woman and they fight. He disapproved the marriage and didn’t see his son again. He takes care of Laurie after the parent's death.
Soon Meg and Jo were invited to attend a New Year's Party at the home of Meg´s friend, Sally Gardiner. This was a great opportunity for the eldest girls to take part in society. At the party, Meg enjoys dancing but Jo retreated to an alcove, she didn’t like this kind of activities were she had to act like women and there met Laurie. While dancing, Meg sprained her ankle and Laurie escorted them home.
They regretted having to return to their daily routines after holidays, Meg was a tutor of the Gardiners kids, Jo works as a companion of her old, angry, rich Aunt. Beth did housework, and Amy attends a girls school.
Jo visited Laurie when he was sick and here began the friendship, this day he met his grandfather, too. She inadvertently insults a painting of the old man thinking she was alone, but the old man was behind her, hearing what she was saying.
Luckily he was not angry, and he admired Jo's spunk, and they became friends. Later Mr. Lawrence met all the sisters and Beth became his favorite. He gave her his deceased granddaughter's piano.
The girls had various adventures. Amy was caught trading limes at school, and the teacher hit her as punishment. As a result, Mrs. March withdrew her daughter from school.
Jo refused to let Amy go with her and Laurie to the theater, she was really angry and burns Jo's manuscript. Jo, in her anger, nearly lets Amy drown while ice-skating.
Meg attended her friend Annie Moffat's party, and she allowed the other girls to dress her up in high style. She learned that appearances are not everything to be happy, while at the party she heard that people think she intends to marry Laurie for his money.
The girls formed the Pickwick Club, in which they wrote a family newspaper. In the spring, Laurie became a member. Realizing that being occupied is better than doing nothing.
At the beginning of June, they decided to neglect their housework and her mother let them as an experiment during a week. On Saturday all they were happy because the week was over, they were tired of doing nothing and Marmee took this day off to finish the lesson.
So they had to do all the housework and meal. The day was a complete disaster, they realized that they didn’t know how to keep a house, cook and other small things that Marmee did. They sort troubles as they could, but at the end, everyone was laughing over it. They learned the lesson.
Laurie invited The Vaughan's an English family to come over, and all went on a picnic. Was a great day.
During this time Jo was writing a story that she sells to a newspaper. Days later Jo got a story published for the first time. ]After this, she continued writing and publishing.
One dark day, they received a telegram saying that Mr. March was hurt in Washington's hospital. Marmee went to attend him with Mr. Brook, Laurie's tutor. To helped her mother to finance the trip, Jo sells her hair even knowing it was her only beauty.
Chaos was at home without Marmee. The girls neglected their chores again. Only Beth continued visiting The Hummels. In one of her visits, she contracted scarlet fever from the baby, who died.
Beth teetered on the brink of death until Marmee returned. Amy spent time at
Aunt March's house in order to escape the disease. Beth recovered, but not completely. Father recovered and came back home. Mr. Brooke fell in love with Meg and got engaged.
EXPLAIN THE REASONS WHY I LIKED IT AND WHY I RECOMMEND IT
When I was a child I read this book, it was in my house and my mother exhorts me to read all the collection. I got in love with it. I really admire Jo. She is so impetuous and active. She knows what she wants and she always looks for safety in her mother and family.The book has life and behaves lesson. It is so nicely written that is not boring.
I recommended it because is a really sweet story of a normal family with growing children. It could be my life with their adventures.
WHAT WHERE YOUR EXPECTATIONS BEFORE READING THE BOOK?
I knew the book, so my expectations were enjoying the reading and discover new things. The point of view of a teenager is not the same as an adult. So I wanted to realize if my memories of it were real.HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER READING THE BOOK
When I read the book the first time when I was a teenager, I felt that I could live the adventures in it and in my case, I feel so again. I have right now the feeling that I need to continue with the other books. I need to read the whole story.
WERE YOUR EXPECTATIONS / PREDICTIONS CONFIRMED?
Yes, they were confirmed, I really enjoyed reading the book and I felt like I was there.Other THINGS FROM MY BOOK
THE MOVIE:
THE BOOK:
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