As many would infer from the title, Little Women is a book for written girls. Thinking it couldn't be any worse than Cranford (it wasn't) I took the plunge. It is a tale of domestic affairs, following the four Marsh sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, through the trials and tribulations of adolescence into womanhood. It would be safe to assume that the book is aimed at a young audience, for the language is simple, the tone light-hearted and the ideas of a decidedly preachy nature. I found very little to engage my attention; the characters were uninteresting and the plot about as flimsy as Beth’s constitution.
The book is divided into two parts, although they were initially published separately, the first half dealing with childhood, and the second half with marriage and romantic attachments. The chapters in part one are self contained vignettes usually focusing on one of the four sisters. This gave the book a disjointed, directionless feel at first, and took me a long time to get used to it. The story takes place in New England during the Civil War and although the Marsh family are frequently referred to as poor, they never seem to be wanting for anything. The characters of the sisters are suitably contrasting; Meg is maternal and mild-mannered but prone to materialism, Jo is the jaunty, jocular tomboy with writerly aspirations, Beth the bashful, blissfully innocent domestic and Amy the affectational aesthete with artistic tendencies. Jo seems to be the dominant character throughout, but a lot of the narrative is also dedicated to young Laurence, a wealthy neighbour and friend who rapidly becomes a chief protagonist.
Little Women is realist to the extreme; there is no mystery and intrigue beyond whom holds a torch for whom, the morals are hammered home with eye-rolling consistency and everything reeks of commonplaceness. The chief themes behind the narrative involve a female’s struggle between familial duty and aspiring for a professional life, gender stereotyping and that Puritanical work ethic so popular amongst the lower classes. There is enough in the way of religion to keep the pious ones happy, but also a wealth of humanity. Alcott walks a fine line between sermonising and storytelling, but she does it competently enough. One major criticism I had with the book is that there was never really enough going on to sustain my interest. The story does pick up a little in part two, particularly when one of the sisters is killed off, but the annoyance of jumping between one character to the next in each new chapter remained jarring throughout.
Critiqued by some to be anti-feminist and praised by others for being inspirational to female writers, Little Women is one of those books that is either cherished or thought very little of. Alcott herself admitted to one gushing fan that, “Though I do not enjoy writing ‘moral tales’ for the young, I do it because it pays well.” Such honesty is to be commended for sure, but it begs the question of why one would read too much into a novel that was written to pay the bills? Little Women is the sort of bedtime story that a mother reads her daughters in order to instil pretty morals and tender sentiments. In a shockingly sexist analysis, it has also been described as a training manual for creating devoted daughters, dutiful wives, and deferential mothers. Whilst possessing its share of faults, the book does have some shining qualities. Modelled closely on Alcott’s own experiences of family life, there are some strong insights into human nature, characters are simply yet convincingly portrayed and the language is highly accessible. I recommend this novel to little women.
Rating: 2/5
The book is divided into two parts, although they were initially published separately, the first half dealing with childhood, and the second half with marriage and romantic attachments. The chapters in part one are self contained vignettes usually focusing on one of the four sisters. This gave the book a disjointed, directionless feel at first, and took me a long time to get used to it. The story takes place in New England during the Civil War and although the Marsh family are frequently referred to as poor, they never seem to be wanting for anything. The characters of the sisters are suitably contrasting; Meg is maternal and mild-mannered but prone to materialism, Jo is the jaunty, jocular tomboy with writerly aspirations, Beth the bashful, blissfully innocent domestic and Amy the affectational aesthete with artistic tendencies. Jo seems to be the dominant character throughout, but a lot of the narrative is also dedicated to young Laurence, a wealthy neighbour and friend who rapidly becomes a chief protagonist.
Little Women is realist to the extreme; there is no mystery and intrigue beyond whom holds a torch for whom, the morals are hammered home with eye-rolling consistency and everything reeks of commonplaceness. The chief themes behind the narrative involve a female’s struggle between familial duty and aspiring for a professional life, gender stereotyping and that Puritanical work ethic so popular amongst the lower classes. There is enough in the way of religion to keep the pious ones happy, but also a wealth of humanity. Alcott walks a fine line between sermonising and storytelling, but she does it competently enough. One major criticism I had with the book is that there was never really enough going on to sustain my interest. The story does pick up a little in part two, particularly when one of the sisters is killed off, but the annoyance of jumping between one character to the next in each new chapter remained jarring throughout.
Critiqued by some to be anti-feminist and praised by others for being inspirational to female writers, Little Women is one of those books that is either cherished or thought very little of. Alcott herself admitted to one gushing fan that, “Though I do not enjoy writing ‘moral tales’ for the young, I do it because it pays well.” Such honesty is to be commended for sure, but it begs the question of why one would read too much into a novel that was written to pay the bills? Little Women is the sort of bedtime story that a mother reads her daughters in order to instil pretty morals and tender sentiments. In a shockingly sexist analysis, it has also been described as a training manual for creating devoted daughters, dutiful wives, and deferential mothers. Whilst possessing its share of faults, the book does have some shining qualities. Modelled closely on Alcott’s own experiences of family life, there are some strong insights into human nature, characters are simply yet convincingly portrayed and the language is highly accessible. I recommend this novel to little women.
Rating: 2/5
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