"Little Women" Reread, Chapters 1-5: thoughts about the March family (long)
I didn't plan to do a full reread of Little Women so soon. But @fictionadventurer's recent reread and interesting commentary, combined with the realization that the version I had read before was the revised text of 1880 and not Alcott's original text, made me feel the need to do it. And I've decided to share my thoughts along the way. I'm starting with my first impressions of the main characters.
These opening chapters have reminded me of how much I like Meg as a character. “Boring Meg” isn’t boring at all to me. That said, I think she’s probably a character you appreciate more as an adult than if you first read the book as a child. She could so easily have been just the sweet, ladylike, romantic foil to Jo, and she is those things. But she’s dimensional and flawed too. She obviously has her “vanity” (though I’m not sure if “vanity” is really the right word or not, because she’s not conceited, just too concerned with appearances) and her longing for wealth and envy of rich girls. But she also can be bossy and preachy to her sisters, as so many firstborn siblings are, and she has a hint of the same temper as Jo and Amy. (Who else was startled when she threatened to have Beth’s kittens drowned because one of them crawled up her back?) She detests the spoiled rich children she teaches, and she complains more than any of her sisters about poverty and work. (When Alcott writes that she seldom complained, I want to say, “The narrator doth protest too much, methinks.”) And I think her relationship with Jo belies the idea that all the sisters’ relationships apart from Jo and Amy’s are idealized and too perfect to be real. Meg is embarrassed and judgmental about Jo’s tomboyishness, while Jo is annoyed by Meg’s insistence that she try to be more feminine. Yet they’re still close, loving companions who rely on each other: Jo on Meg to advise her and help her navigate society, Meg on Jo’s spunk and wit to lift her spirits. I’m not sure I would always get along with Meg if I knew her personally, but I like her very much as a character, because she’s so human. I suppose that’s because Alcott based her on her own sister Anna, who was indeed human, not just a “sweet and pretty eldest sister” archetype.
Oh, Jo… I thought I would resist the temptation to identify with you… I thought I would see you as a bit of a Not Like Other Girls brat at the beginning… but I’ve failed. In this reread, I’ve been giving thought to @littlewomenpodcast’s frequent comments on Jo’s “internalized misogyny” and “toxic masculinity.” But while I can see it, especially at the New Year’s Eve party when she doesn’t talk to the other girls because she “didn’t care much for girls or girlish gossip,” I can sympathize with her perspective too. If I were in her place, I would also hate socializing with conformist upper-class girls with whom I had nothing in common and who only wanted to talk about subjects that didn’t interest me. I've been through that type of excruciating experience, though not in a gendered way. Besides, those girls make no effort to talk to her either, so it seems the antipathy is mutual. I’ve also been thinking of the argument I once heard (I don’t remember if it was from @littlewomenpodcast or someone else) that Jo isn’t really a tomboy by nature, but just performs boyishness for attention and because she thinks masculinity is superior. Because personally, I don’t see her that way at all. Now, it’s true that sometimes she plays up her tomboyishness to rebel when she’s urged to be more ladylike, and she does affect the role of “man of the house” to fill the void while Mr. March is away. And it’s absolutely true that she has “feminine” qualities too, which pop culture forgets: e.g. her skill at sewing and housework, and her motherly nurturing toward Beth or toward Laurie when he needs it. But she still comes across to me as a genuine tomboy, and genuinely, deeply uncomfortable with the elegant femininity that she’s increasingly pressured to perform as she grows up. Since she openly wishes she were a boy, I think it’s valid to imagine that if she lived in modern times, she might have identified as either a trans boy or non-binary (though of course that’s not the only way to view her), and her sheer awkwardness and restlessness makes me think she would be diagnosed as neurodivergent too, most likely with ADHD. But at the same time, I realize that I’m projecting my own AuDHD experience onto her, and that if I were neurotypical, I might see her differently. As I’ve written before, I’ve come to realize that for different readers, Little Women can be a vastly different story.
Another aspect of Jo that stands out for me, and which I think pop culture forgets, is how down-to-earth she is. Yes, she has her love of literature, grand ambitions, and hot temper, but she’s not all dreams and passions: she’s no Anne of Green Gables. She’s emphatically unsentimental and no-nonsense, she’s less averse to hard work than her more ladylike sisters are, and she has a sense of humor that she constantly uses to cheer herself and other people up. In The Annotated Little Women, John Mattison writes that it might seem unfitting when Jo is referred to as “a Sancho,” because her books and fantasies recall Don Quixote more than Sancho Panza, but personally? I think in general she is more Sancho Panza than Don Quixote.
Beth is not the plaster saint she’s often assumed to be. Yes, she’s idealized compared to her sisters and defined by her gentleness and compassion, but she’s not an inhuman embodiment of pure goodness. Here are some ways that Alcott humanizes her with humor, playfulness, quirkiness, and subtle imperfections: **Her shyness isn’t portrayed as just sweet feminine modesty, but as real fear of people and of too much attention, and as a real flaw that she struggles with, even if it’s not a moral flaw like Jo’s temper, Amy’s ego, or Meg’s “vanity.” She’s been homeschooled because her shyness made her unable to bear going to regular school: that’s very real social anxiety, not just conduct book shyness. **At age thirteen, she still has imaginary friends, and she not only still plays with her beloved collection of her sisters’ old and worn-out dolls, but still treats them as if they were alive, and talks to them as an outlet for her secrets and emotions. **She hates housework just as much as anyone else hates it. She does it dutifully, but she calls it “the worst work in the world,” says it makes her “cross,” and complains that washing dishes makes her hands too stiff to play the piano. **She has desires just like her sisters do, mainly revolving around her love of music. She sometimes cries because she has only an old, out-of-tune piano to play, and envies girls who have nice ones. And she wants to use her pocket money to buy sheet music, just like Jo wants to buy books and Amy wants drawing pencils, even though she’s the one to suggest they all buy presents for Marmee instead. **She uses humor to stop Jo and Amy’s bickering, by making a funny face as she recites a cliched homily about getting along. **While making toast, she gets absorbed in watching her sisters rehearse their Christmas play, and burns the bread, then accidentally puts Marmee’s slipper on the toasting fork instead of a new piece, which makes everyone laugh. **Another quirky detail that blends poignancy with humor: after hearing Father’s letter, she uses the army sock she’s knitting to wipe away her tears. **She embroiders “Mother” instead of “M. March” on Marmee’s new handkerchiefs, so they’ll never be confused with Meg’s, which Jo finds hilarious. **In her small role as a servant in the play, she forgets her lines due to stage fright. **She has a snowball fight with Amy in Chapter 5. **She says that Jo never knows when to stop talking. **Her embroidery is crooked. These details are small, but they make her a person, not a paragon. And it’s evident that she wants to be seen as a person, even as her family wants to glorify her as a saint. When Meg lectures Jo and Amy about their bad behavior, Beth wants to be lectured too – she wants to be told her faults so she can correct them, though she doesn’t get her wish because Meg says, “You’re a dear, and nothing else.” And when the girls are telling their “burdens” to Marmee, the latter remarks that Beth hasn’t told hers yet and says “I rather think she hasn’t got any” (a questionable moment of parenting: to say out loud that you don’t think your child has any flaws, and in front of the other children too), but Beth insists that she does and points out her shyness and her little frustrations and envies. The theme of Beth’s humanity vs. other people’s desire to idealize her is one I know I’ll come back to repeatedly.
Amy is chiefly a comic relief character so far. I find her adorable and funny, but at this early point in the plot, she seems to have few positive qualities and many flaws. As if her obvious prissiness, pretentiousness, and selfishness weren’t enough, Alcott also portrays her as a laughably bad actress in the sisters’ Christmas play, and shows that she’s not good at her schoolwork (or at least is bad at math), and mentions that she’s usually lazy in the morning. Even when she makes her effort to be less selfish at Christmas and exchanges the cheap cologne bottle she bought for Marmee for a nicer one that costs all her money, her virtue is comically undercut when she boasts than now her gift is prettier than all her sisters’ gifts. I sometimes feel as if her portrayal so far is a little mean-spirited on Alcott’s part. Still, her passion for art humanizes her (even if she draws too much in school), as do all her moments of self-awareness and desire to be a better person. And since she’s based on Alcott’s sister May, I’m sure the only reason I have that “mean-spirited” feeling is because I’m an only child: “If you think so-and-so is being mean to their sibling, you must be an only child,” is a refrain I’ve heard again and again. I suppose Alcott was just making good-natured fun of her little sister, and May must have been a good sport about it (at least until she got hate mail from readers who disliked Amy), or she wouldn’t have illustrated the book’s first edition.
*Speaking of “siblings being mean,” I’m paying attention to Jo and Amy’s relationship, and trying to decide whether I think Jo bullies Amy or not. So far, I don’t think so. What we see so far is just mild bickering and mutual fault-finding. Yes, Jo starts it in Chapter 1 by laughing at Amy for saying “label” when she means “libel,” but I would hardly call that bullying, just teasing, and Amy is just as obnoxious to Jo when she criticizes her slang and whistling. Yes, I know that “Jo Meets Apollyon” is coming, and I’ll take that into account when we get there, but so far, the impression is just “Jo and Amy tease and annoy each other,” not “Jo bullies Amy.” Especially since Jo praises Amy warmly for her effort to be less selfish at Christmas, and she sneaks bonbons home for her from the New Year’s party: their relationship clearly isn’t all bad.
One thing I found striking both when I first read the book and in rereading it now is the way Marmee is treated as both mother and father in her husband’s absence. While it might only be because Mr. March is away, Alcott seems to quietly promote a non-traditional family structure, where the mother is not only loved, but respected, and repaid for her hard work with the type of gentle pampering that’s traditionally reserved for men. The old-school cultural image of a father coming home from a long day at work and settling into his easy chair, while his devoted wife and daughters fetch his slippers and pipe and prepare his food, is given a twist here as the sisters welcome their mother home with those same comforts (minus the pipe, of course) after her long day of packing boxes for the army. It seems that in the March house, a woman’s home is her castle just as surely as a man’s home is his. Yet she fills the traditional role of nurturing mother excellently, so Alcott shows that a woman can fill that role while also receiving the same respect and comforts that fathers do; that they’re not mutually exclusive.
Another question I’m considering as I read is this: do the March parents pressure their daughters to be too perfect? I’ve seen them both accused of just that. Now, I know that in real life, the ultra-idealistic Bronson Alcott did sometimes pressure his daughters to be too perfect and Louisa struggled under his expectations. And there certainly is more emphasis on morals and self-improvement in the March family than in other families. But personally, so far at least, I feel as if the Marches balance their moralizing with enough love and acceptance to avoid excess pressure. The only line so far that makes me slightly uncomfortable is when in his letter, Mr. March encourages his daughters to “conquer themselves.” Now I know that the phrase “conquer yourself” just means to conquer your flaws and selfish instincts, but if taken too literally, it could mean suppressing everything authentic and unique about yourself to fit other people’s narrow vision of “goodness.” According to some of Alcott’s harsher critics, the latter is what Jo ultimately does. I’ll wait until I reach the end decide once and for all if I agree, though.
More thought to come...
@littlewomenpodcast, @fictionadventurer, @thatscarletflycatcher, @fandomsarefamily1966, @joandfriedrich, @amymarchess, @letusbeelegantordi3
