Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge. [4]

Sander, Kathleen Waters (1998). The Business of Charity: The Woman's Exchange Movement, 1832–1900. University of Illinois Press. p.66. ISBN 0252067037. Norwich, John Julius (1990). Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia Of The Arts. USA: Oxford University Press. p.11. ISBN 978-0-19-869137-2. Jo loves literature, both reading and writing. She composes plays for her sisters to perform and writes short stories. She initially rejects the idea of marriage and romance, feeling that it would break up her family and separate her from the sisters whom she adores. While pursuing a literary career in New York City, she meets Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor. On her return home, Laurie proposes marriage to Jo, which she rejects, thus confirming her independence. Another reason for the rejection is that the love that Laurie has for Jo is more of a sisterly love, rather than romantic love, the difference between which he was unable to understand because he was "just a boy", as said by Alcott in the book.She is chosen by her aunt to travel in Europe with her, where she grows and makes a decision about the level of her artistic talent and how to direct her adult life. She encounters "Laurie" Laurence and his grandfather during the extended visit. Amy is the least inclined of the sisters to sacrifice and self-denial. She behaves well in good society, at ease with herself. Critic Martha Saxton observes the author was never fully at ease with Amy's moral development and her success in life seemed relatively accidental. [23] However, Amy's morality does appear to develop throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, and she is able to confidently and justly put Laurie in his place when she believes he is wasting his life on pleasurable activities. Ultimately, Amy is shown to work very hard to gain what she wants in life and to make the most of her success while she has it. Also, Little Women has several textual and structural references to John Bunyan’s novel The Pilgrim’s Progress. [35] Jo and her sisters read it at the outset of the book and try to follow the good example of Bunyan’s Christian. Throughout the novel, the main characters refer many times to The Pilgrim’s Progress and liken the events in their own lives to the experiences of the pilgrims. A number of chapter titles directly reference characters and places from The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Three years after the events of Little Women, Meg and John marry and learn how to live together. When they have twins, Meg is a devoted mother but John begins to feel neglected and left out. Meg seeks advice from Marmee, who helps her find balance in her married life by making more time for wifely duties and encouraging John to become more involved with child rearing. Louisa M. Alcott Dead". The New York Times. March 7, 1888 . Retrieved April 2, 2018. The parents of the authoress removed to Boston when their daughter was 2 years old, and in Boston and its immediate vicinity she made her home ever after.

Table of Contents

People who have studied anything about Little Women know that the novel is based, roughly, on Louisa’s family, a clan of thinkers, artists, and transcendentalists who rubbed elbows with some of the premier minds of their time: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller. Here, we can see Bronson’s projections onto Lizzie, the way he views her as having plantlike passivity, her actions something akin to a Venus flytrap closing over its prey. Pure instinct.