Alcott’s Little Women Literature Project and Applicability in the 19th Century Life
Author’s Background
Louisa May Alcott, the author of the novel “Little Women” was born in the year 1832. She was raised by her transcendentalist parents and grew up in the midst of other well-known intellects of the time such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was educated from home by her father and loved to read books that she borrowed from Emerson’s Library. For Alcott, writing was her passion since her childhood and had a rich imagination. Alcott struggled during her childhood trying to conform to ladylike behaviour as expected by the 19th-century society. She was disappointed with being a woman since women opportunities were limited in the society. Later in her life, Louisa became an activist and active in the women’s suffrage movement in the US, whose aim was defending women’s rights. These experiences triggered Alcott to take writing as a profession, and published her first book “Little Women” in 1868 and the second book in the year 1869. The play, Little Women, dramatizes these women struggles between the desire to assist oneself and the desire to help one’s family in a manner that shapes the identity and position of women in the society. After that, this novel was commissioned for children. At that time, most of children books wrote about morality tales. Little Women is autobiographical and proves a sharp contrast to the more racy adult stories that Louisa wrote before this publication. Previously, Alcott wrote various publications to earn her living. However, Alcott is now famous for her domestic tales about children, which gave her fortune until her 1888 demise.
Plot Summary
Little Women preface by Alcott has excerpted from John Bunyan’s 17th century “The Pilgrim’s Progress” works about leading a Christian life and began on Christmas Eve. Alcott’s Little Women play uses four March girls namely Beth, Meg, Amy, and Jo. The four girls sit in their living room each having one dollar and lamenting their poverty. The girls lament their inability to buy anything for each other Christmas present. Soon, they change mind and decide to buy Marmee, their mother a present. In this perspective, Little Women opens the lives of the four March girls when Jo and Meg are teenagers, and Beth and Amy are entering adolescence. The story of Little Women follows the March girls for about 15 years of their lifetime. Little Women focuses on the four March girls and their efforts to overcome burdens, poverty, and weaknesses. The morning of Christmas, the girls awake and find etiquette guidebooks under the pillows as promised by their mother. In the climax of the story, the family gathers together to celebrate Marmee’s 60th birthday. The four sisters sit together and figure out how they desired their future to look like when they were teenagers and how different they have turned out. At the end of the first half of the novel, each March girl is seen to have improved, but none has attained perfection. In the second part, referred as “Good Wives,” the sisters’ characters advance further as they grow old to travel, work, and marry. The girls agree they are thankful and happy for their progress.
Thesis and Arguments
“Louis May Alcott’s sentimental and moralistic autobiographical novel, Little Women, is becoming of age play that portrays nineteenth-century life.” In the strenuous journey from childhood to adulthood, women are faced with two major things that require great balance and attention. Alcott explains the importance of taking pleasure for societal norms. She writes, “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.” (Ch. 1). In this quote, Jo takes the pleasure of piling pleasure in the societal norms and takes stray to men’s habits. Alcott also brings the aspect of interacting with the elite people in the society. She says, ““Her innocent friendship with Laurie was spoilt by the silly speeches she had overheard; her faith in her mother was a little shaken by the worldly plans attributed to her by Mrs. Moffat, who judged others by herself, and the sensible resolution to be contented with the simple wardrobe which suited a poor man’s daughter was weakened by the unnecessary pity of girls who thought a shabby dress one of the greatest calamities under heaven.” (Ch. 9). Her argument is that peoples’ thinking differ and that altering one’ perception requires conversation and interaction with intelligent members of the society, and this is manifest for Meg. Further, Alcott shows the importance of avoiding fear and despair by girls in the society. When says, “Yes, it is. She doesn’t know us, she doesn’t even talk about the flocks of green doves, as she calls the vine leaves on the wall. She doesn’t look like my Beth, and there’s nobody to help us bear it. Mother and Father both gone, and God seems so far away I can’t find Him.’” (Ch. 18). To illustrate this, she uses Beth’s illness and how Jo lacked confidence in nursing her. Seeking for guidance helps shape women in the 19th century to overcome with despair.
Research Issues
Little Women research project will entail various project ideas. A proper understanding of the background knowledge of this play in today’s period will benefit students in fully understanding all that goes on in Little Women. Alcott puts forth various characters’ morals, actions, and themes related to the period to bring this in broad light. Alcott brings out the thesis of supporting the ideas of living a simple life by women as well. She feels that getting back to nature contributes to the shaping of women life, an idea she borrows from her father who taught his children to believe as Transcendentalists.
Ideas of the Project
Movie or Collage: For this project, students will either design a poster collage or a shortened 4-5 minute movie utilizing music and pictures to demonstrate their well-being as well as their individual and gender identity. Either of the two will get accompanied with a 1.5-page reflection explaining the reasons behind their music and images of choice that they used to show their identity. Every explanation must relate to what was taught in the class. In this project, there is no music needed to undertake the collection.
Various questions will be used to guide students complete and achieve project objectives, and these include:
- What shapes identity? Does economic status, family, individual goas contribute to your identity shaping?
- What is identity and its meaning to you?
- How does gender influence your identity?
- Does your identity conform to the family, society, and friends gender roles opinions?
ABC Book Writing Assignment:
Learners participating in the project would create a book and choose symbols, characters, and themes to represent each letter of the alphabet; further, they will spell out a paragraph describing the reasons why each person chose to act fits in character to represent in the novel, “Little Women” with a clear illustration for each page. In essence, in-depth analysis in a non-intimidating setting as a traditional research paper will be required.
Project Informational Texts and Arguments
Alcott’s Little Women uses a lot of allusions to other literary works. In the context of the project, students will have to study excerpts from other authors’ literary works to enhance their understanding and framing of this little women research project in the given time. The main literary works alluded by Alcott includes Shakespeare plays, Dickens novels, Paradise Lost by John Milton, and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Using some of these texts as alluded by Alcott directly benefits students in pointing out something about the author’s morals. Further, these texts help us understand the importance of education, its value, and relevance to one’s life.
This project about Little Women does not follow traditional single plot attributes as used in other stories. Since Little Women is greatly autobiographical, learners can study and understand a great deal of the period as well as about Alcott herself and apply these ideas in this project. The transcendentalism, civil war, and the famous Bronson Alcott (Louisa’s dad) together with his transcendentalist contemporaries all shape significant ideas and things to the author’s literature work. A proper comprehension of the time period enriches leaner’s understanding of Little Women history and relates history to the project.
The Little Women research project helped in finding meaning for any girl in the time period. The project study revealed that issues of gender roles, personal identity, and economic status remain vital in all periods to any woman; and the text of Little Women greatly helps the adolescents. In conclusion, the project concurs with Alcott Little Women arguments that along with the characters of the set book, young women can grow and mature in the society. Little girls should struggle to win their place in the society to shape their identity. The project results differ with the society’s perception of the role of women, and this is manifest in Alcott’s Little Women literary work too.
Work Cited
- Alcott, Louisa May. Little women. Cosimo, Inc., 2010.
- Alcott, Louisa May. The Journals of Louisa May Alcott. Edited by Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealy, and Madeleine B. Stern. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.
- Alcott, Louisa May. The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott. Edited by Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealy, and Madeleine B. Stern. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.
- Eiselein, Gregory, and Anne K. Phillips, eds. The Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.