-----------On Little Women
In American literary world, there have been three profound works whose influence has lasted for at least one century. They are Gone With the Wind, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Little Women. Among them Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, is the most popular one for it told the story of the Marches in the form of family dairy, which is easy to understand. Through portraying the lives of four young girls, the author tried to emphasize optimism, independence, self-restraint, tolerance and family love. So to this extent, Little Women possesses too many qualities of the didactic genre, a class of works that have a moral lesson. But as a matter of fact, the real significance of novel is that for the first time a literary work in American literary history expressed the idea of woman’s rights and presented the conflict women faced between family and career. Then I’d like to analyze this theme in two aspects.
Firstly, through author’s experience, it’s not hard to find that Louisa herself was faced with the conflict whether to have a family or to have a profession. She was born in a poor family. Her father was not responsible and failed to provide enough money to support his family. So her mother had to act as head of the household. And as the second oldest child in the family, Louisa also took on the burden of supporting family when she was young. So she had a strong sense of independence and then slowly developed boyish characteristics. Unfortunately at that time, opportunities for women were limited. When the Civil War broke out, Louise wanted to join the military but women were not entitled. Not willing to be a traditional woman, she worked as a nurse in the wartime. She never married or had a family of her own. She understood that for women, having a family meant professional loss, and having a profession meant personal loss.
Though at last she chose a career of her own, Louisa still had a desire to have a family with her beloved husband and lovely children. So in her novel Little Women, she expressed her hope clearly. (Meg, Jo and Amy all lived a happy life with their husbands and children.) Then in her later life, Louisa became active in the women’s right movement to make women realize the importance of family as well as profession. Especially, she expressed this idea through the character of Jo March in Little Women who finally not only owned a happy family but also had her own career.
Secondly, through the characters in Little Women, we can also read author’s attitude towards women’s struggle between family and profession. Generally speaking, the author created four girls with different characteristics: Meg, kind and responsible but pursuing after luxury and money; Jo, independent but hot-tempered; Beth, traditional but too shy; Amy, elegant but a little selfish. But to some extent, Jo and Amy were alike that they were both eager to become professional (Jo wanted to be a writer while Amy wanted to be an artist). Their ambitions forced them to make a choice between family and profession. “I’d have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled with books, and I’d write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie’s music…I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream.” Such was Jo’s dream to be a famous writer, which was big and ambitious. Contrarily, Beth’s dream was just “to stay at home safe with Father and Mother, and help take care of the family.” So Meg and Beth, on the other hand, belonged to another kind that they were both traditional and always ready to help others. What they wanted was to have a happy family of their own and live an easy life as their mother did.
In the 19th century, with the development of society, women’s status was increasing slowly. People’s stereotype towards women was changing. So through the four different sisters, Louis explored four possible ways to deal with the confliction between family and profession: marry young and create a new family, as Meg did: be subservient and dutiful to one’s parents and immediate family, as Beth was: focus on one’s art, pleasure, and person, as Amy did: or struggle to live both a dutiful family life and a meaningful professional life, as Jo did.
As one of the most influential works in the Untied States, Little Women has played an important role in advocating women’s rights. This novel will always be remembered by the future generations.
