It seems like in some point in every little girl’s life, they read ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott. Whether it is given to them by their mother, an older sister, or required reading in school, it seems to fall into all of our hands in one way or another. As for me, I don’t remember how I got my copy, but I suspect my mother had something to do with it. I also don’t remember how old I was when I first read it, but it was probably sometime in elementary school.
I read it off and on for years until I was quite an adult. Up until that time, I had identified with all the characters in one way or another. Of course I was like the tomboyish Jo in our mutual love of acting and writing, I could relate to Beth’s love of music, I strove to be elegant like Amy, and I identified with Meg’s desire to be wealthy. Perhaps these were superficial ways of relating to the sisters, but it made it so that I was able to enjoy the book well into my adulthood.
One day, I was reading the book for the millionth time on my smartphone (ah, technology) when I realized there were actually two more, and it was in fact a series. This was perfect, and I quickly downloaded ‘Jo’s Boys’ and ‘Little Men’. I whipped through them in the course of a few days and I thought they were as good as ‘Little Women’. Maybe even better. For one thing, the conflicts were more severe, there were more characters, and everyone that I loved in the first book was back for an encore. There was nothing that they couldn’t do wrong.
Or so I thought.
I eventually became a twenty-something English major. I had learned to look beyond the words written on the page and think critically of the content. This of course did not mean that I picked apart everything that landed in my hands. It meant that I was able to see things in books that others didn’t. After a few years of schooling, I needed a break from slogging through my required reading for class. So I picked up my phone and looked for something light to relax my brain. I hadn’t read ‘Little Women’ or the following books in a few years, so why not? I was half way through ‘Little Men’ when I noticed something. Any conflicts were quickly cleared up without any long-lasting effects, unless they were positive. No one was ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ and if there were any characters that tried to be less than perfect, they were promptly done away with. It was almost as if Alcott couldn’t bear anything permanently damaging to happen to her characters. Each chapter seemed to be treated as an episode of a sitcom where any conflicts were resolved and everyone learns a lesson and becomes even more of a better person because of it. By the time I was done with ‘Jo’s Boys’, I was convinced.
Of course, anyone who’s read the books is going ‘Well what about Beth? She died! Can’t get any more permanent then that!’. You are very right, random shouting reader! But think about her character for a second. She was the epitome of perfection through dullness. She never got angry like Jo, was never discontented with her life like Meg, or wanted to be someone of importance like Amy. She was fine with who she was, and where she was in life. She had no motivation outside wanting to stay at home and do housework forever. Back then, that was fine for girls at a young age, but eventually they had to grow up and get married. In my opinion, Alcott killed her off before she could get to that stage in her life. Her sisters were all out of the house and it was only her parents left, two able-bodied persons who didn’t need their daughter to look after the housekeeping. And whether she intended to or not, Alcott rather made Beth into a martyr. Beth was Jo’s pet, so her death softened out Jo’s rough edges and makes her more determined to be considerate and caring of others. The other ‘imperfect’ sister, Amy, is away in Europe when Beth dies, but her death makes her care more about her family then she had in the past, since she cared more for her art and articles than anything else. In essence, Beth’s death gives Alcott an excuse to perfect her characters even more.
This ‘perfecting’ of characters really takes off in ‘Little Men. For those of you who haven’t read it, all the sisters are settled down, and Jo has opened a home for wayward boys. Wanting to make today’s youth better? Awesome. The only problem is, the only character that never reforms is sent away. Some money goes missing, and the main ‘bad boy’ is blamed. It comes out a few chapters later that a secondary character was really the one who stole the money. He runs away back to his father, so he misses out on being helped correct his ways. Which rather defeats the purpose of the house. The aforementioned ‘bad boy’ runs away a few times, gets into irreparable trouble, and is eventually sent away. This struck me as rather lazy. I know it’s good story telling to make sure not everyone can be saved, but sending the characters away that are just too badly behaved seems a little defeatist. It would have been more interesting if there was actual conflict instead of throwing in the towel when things got too hard. This character’s story really comes to a head in ‘Jo’s Boys’ when he shows a history of being unwilling to settle down and be ‘good’ and Alcott kills him off. Of course, she can’t help but be sanctimonious to the last, and has him die defending those weaker then him. She also kills off two other minor characters that didn’t ‘turn out well’ because they are vain, lazy, and gluttonous. It gave me the impression that you had to be a perfect angel, or try your hardest to be so, otherwise you didn’t deserve to live in Alcott’s world. Of course, everyone who strives for perfection, lives happily ever after in unsatisfyingly vague endings.
This was not a preferred analysis. I would have been perfectly happy to think of the book the way I did when I first read it when I was a child. However, many years in the English department at Chico State studying literature has made it so I can never look at a novel with an uncritical eye again. Sometimes this works in my favor; it is fun to mock a book if it is truly terrible, and no one mocks books as well as English majors. But I would prefer to do it to books I disliked from the start, rather than books that were childhood favorites. Once you look into the abyss, there’s no going back.
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