Little Women Sunday
Feb. 13th, 2022 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerLittle Women is flying by! I remembered it being a longer book than this, but when you're doing a chapter a night it zips past. Today we reached the part where the Marches get a telegram informing them that Mr. March is very ill in the hospital, and Mrs. March must come at once, and in order to fund the trip (or rather get some extra funds for the trip) Jo sells her hair - her "one beauty"! - to a barber.
In at least one of the movie versions - I can't remember which - Aunt March refuses to lend the money for the trip, and only Jo's sacrifice of her hair makes it possible for Mrs. March to rush to her husband's side. But in the book, Aunt March gives the money, so Jo's haircut is a gallant but unnecessary sacrifice. There is probably a lesson here about the Inherently Virtuous Nature of Sacrifice in Alcott's fiction: even if giving something up is unnecessary, even if it's actually useless and doesn't help anyone, it's still inherently virtuous.
Maybe it's good training for the days when you have to give up your fresh hot Christmas breakfast to the poor starving Hummel children down the street. (Which is a useful sacrifice that actually does help someone!)
The girls have also just had a conversation about their dreams for their lives. Poor Meg really gets a raw deal, doesn't she? Jo gets her writing fame (and finds it rather a poisoned chalice; but nonetheless she gets it!), Beth gets to stay home with her sisters, and although Amy does not become the best artist in the world she DOES get to travel and study art and marry a rich man... whereas Meg gets none of the things she asks for. No gorgeous mansion, no beautiful dresses, no legions of servants! Just a husband. And John Brooke is fine I guess, but how many girls dream of falling in love with fine I guess?
littlerhymes and I were talking about March sister identification - you have lots of Jos and a fair smattering of Amys and even some Beths (you'd think that as a writer I would be a Jo, but in fact I have always considered Beth my Alcott alter ego), but I don't think I've ever met someone who identifies with Meg, and I think it is, in part, because none of her dreams come true.
In at least one of the movie versions - I can't remember which - Aunt March refuses to lend the money for the trip, and only Jo's sacrifice of her hair makes it possible for Mrs. March to rush to her husband's side. But in the book, Aunt March gives the money, so Jo's haircut is a gallant but unnecessary sacrifice. There is probably a lesson here about the Inherently Virtuous Nature of Sacrifice in Alcott's fiction: even if giving something up is unnecessary, even if it's actually useless and doesn't help anyone, it's still inherently virtuous.
Maybe it's good training for the days when you have to give up your fresh hot Christmas breakfast to the poor starving Hummel children down the street. (Which is a useful sacrifice that actually does help someone!)
The girls have also just had a conversation about their dreams for their lives. Poor Meg really gets a raw deal, doesn't she? Jo gets her writing fame (and finds it rather a poisoned chalice; but nonetheless she gets it!), Beth gets to stay home with her sisters, and although Amy does not become the best artist in the world she DOES get to travel and study art and marry a rich man... whereas Meg gets none of the things she asks for. No gorgeous mansion, no beautiful dresses, no legions of servants! Just a husband. And John Brooke is fine I guess, but how many girls dream of falling in love with fine I guess?
littlerhymes and I were talking about March sister identification - you have lots of Jos and a fair smattering of Amys and even some Beths (you'd think that as a writer I would be a Jo, but in fact I have always considered Beth my Alcott alter ego), but I don't think I've ever met someone who identifies with Meg, and I think it is, in part, because none of her dreams come true.
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Date: 2022-02-13 07:33 pm (UTC)Oh, interesting— as you said, I definitely would have guessed Jo, because of the writing. What in particular drew you to Beth?
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 12:47 am (UTC)I kind of love that Jo's genderfuckery (short hair!) occurs in the service of Self-Sacrificial Womanhood, and she's just so desperate to help her father she winds up becoming less feminine to get money. (Altho, aww, the bit where she's crying, and " -- My hair!" Jo loves being laddish but I think she's very aware of all the ways in which she fails at Being A Girl, not least because Meg is there to tell her so.)
Amy is the one who winds up with Meg's dream, really -- "I should like a lovely house, full of all sorts of luxurious things—nice food, pretty clothes, handsome furniture, pleasant people, and heaps of money. I am to be mistress of it, and manage it as I like, with plenty of servants, so I never need work a bit. How I should enjoy it! For I wouldn’t be idle, but do good, and make everyone love me dearly." Then Jo is the one who pins her down with "Why don’t you say you’d have a splendid, wise, good husband and some angelic little children?" altho yeah, I don't think anyone would call John "splendid and wise." Good husband? Maybe. Meg and John really aren't that romantic at all.
Laurie's wrong about Amy's dream too -- he says they wall want to be "rich and famous, and gorgeous in every respect," and she says "the pet one is to be an artist, and go to Rome, and do fine pictures, and be the best artist in the whole world" (unless that sort of includes "rich and famous," which is reasonable to assume).
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:12 pm (UTC)And YES, Amy does get Meg's dream! (That actually ran through my mind as I was reading Meg's description of her ideal life.) I think Amy always wants those things too, actually, (going to Rome in particular implies riches, given the time period) - she recounted her "shoot for the moon" dreams to the group, and ended up landing upon the stars instead.
And it's interesting the Amy & Laurie fail to achieve their dreams in the exact same way: they both decide they're not geniuses, and toss their dreams aside on that account. Although Amy at least continues art as a hobby, as is evident in the quote below about modeling baby... does Laurie continue to compose on the side? Something to look out for as I continue the reread.
(It is sort of telling that Laurie considers the dream of artistic success to be a dream of being "rich and famous and gorgeous in every respect," isn't it?)
I've seen Amy setting aside her artistic ambitions described as a gendered action - a commentary on Alcott's Thoughts About Women Artists or something like that - but given how very close the Amy & Laurie parallel is, I think perhaps it's meant to be a Gender Neutral Commentary on the Development of Young Artists, some percentage of whom do realize that they either don't have the talent to continue, or at least not the talent to succeed as they would like.
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:35 pm (UTC)Amy's the one sister who really kind of dissembles to get along in society, too -- Meg just sort of does it naturally, and she's innocent and wholesome, but Amy and Jo have that interesting proto-feminist conversation where Amy is like, I don't rock the boat and get my own way. So maybe she's boosting her artistic ambitions to join Jo and Laurie, altho Alcott always portrays her as (somewhat comically) obsessed with art even as a child. I wonder if it's possible to read Amy as having a crush on Laurie for a lot of the book ("That boy is a perfect Cyclops," &c). Jo and Amy are also the ones who come closest to violating the March moral codes, Amy for marrying for money, and Jo for writing trash for money.
And it's interesting the Amy & Laurie fail to achieve their dreams in the exact same way: they both decide they're not geniuses, and toss their dreams aside on that account.
And she influences him to do it, too! -- which is sort of the reverse of the typical "Art is not the business of a little woman's life" in the Victorian era, and Alcott is always in favour of the practical. Deciding to hang it up because you can't be a genius is sort of an odd mix of idealism and realism -- if you can't be really Great, what use is there in cluttering up the world with yet more mediocre art? (Which not coincidentally buys into Talent as Genius, and doing art for your own pleasure is foolish if not a hobby.) I don't think Jo ever gets that treatment, though -- I don't know if she's seriously called a genius, but nobody ever doubts her talent, even when she's writing silly plays or hack fiction. I guess that could be because Jo is so obviously Louisa's self-insert, but the twin goals of Making Great Art and Making a Living are always in interesting conflict. I have known A LOT of pretty good painters and musicians (especially musicians) and writers who have to deal with not writing the NYT bestseller or not getting into Julliard or not having one-artist shows or whatever, and it's kind of a big Hoop Dreams moment. But I haven't met very many people who are then like "I'll just quit, then." But Amy and Laurie do have a lot of money and social capital to be influential with. Alcott is always very aware that art needs financial backing.
I thought the bit with the Professor suddenly began to sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys sang with all their hearts the little song that Jo had written, Laurie set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best effect was in the next book, but it's at the end of this one! I guess he dabbles (like he always did, lol). I also forgot the end is a big celebration of Marmee's 60th birthday and she's the one described as sowing and reaping to harvest all her descendants. Amid an apple festival no less -- she's like Pomona (Demeter)! I think we've talked before about how Alcott looks feminist and not-feminist to modern eyes, because she was of course of her own time, and the ending reminds me of that. It's really conventional (gahh) from one view, but it's also a total matriarchy.
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Date: 2022-02-15 03:08 pm (UTC)And yes, Jo's writing is always taken seriously. I don't think the book ever straight out calls her a genius - in fact, there's a scene where Jo comments to herself that she ISN'T a genius - but, on the other hand, the other characters sometimes ask her, "Does genius burn, Jo?" So it's at least hinted that she is.
Whereas Amy's artist talent is always referred to as talent, and when she gives up her art, she comments, "talent isn’t genius, and no amount of energy can make it so." And then Laurie straight-up quotes her when he decides to give up his composition.
Although clearly they both do keep up their artistic endeavors as a hobby! So in the end their quitting didn't really stick. In the 2019 adaptation, Amy gives this speech with a certain crabby "I should've become an accountant!" energy, as any artist may when the art isn't going well; she's venting, not seriously giving up her art.
It strikes me that looking at Alcott's musing about Art and Artists solely through a feminist lens can have a flattening effect: given the parallel journeys of Laurie and Amy, she's clearly talking about Artists in General rather than just Women in Art, and yet modern critics tend to read her argument as gendered.
And Beth tends to get entirely left out of these conversations, even though she's part of the talent/genius circle, too; Laurie himself, the other musician, tells her that she has a really remarkable talent, and everyone listens to her playing as eagerly as Jo's stories. But she has no professional ambitions for her music.
(And poor Meg, like the cheese, stands alone! It makes sense that some of the adaptations would emphasize her theatrical talent: you don't want her to be the ONLY sister without a talent.)
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Date: 2022-02-16 12:21 am (UTC)Although clearly they both do keep up their artistic endeavors as a hobby! So in the end their quitting didn't really stick. In the 2019 adaptation, Amy gives this speech with a certain crabby "I should've become an accountant!" energy, as any artist may when the art isn't going well; she's venting, not seriously giving up her art.
Whereas Jo does give up her writing at least a couple of times, IIRC (after not!Moods is published I think, and after Bhaer's scolding, and so on) and has the success when she just basically writes something for herself. Jo not being a writer is sort of impossible. Which is totally different from what happens to Laurie and Amy! I wonder what May felt about the book, since it helped send her to Europe but also basically says she doesn't have the real genius to make it.
It strikes me that looking at Alcott's musing about Art and Artists solely through a feminist lens can have a flattening effect: given the parallel journeys of Laurie and Amy, she's clearly talking about Artists in General rather than just Women in Art, and yet modern critics tend to read her argument as gendered.
Yeah, I personally think that partly happens because as the feminist interpretations rose, the historical background of a work ethic you couldn't dent with a missile -- and even the Puritan background of NE, altho Alcott's circle was so boho -- faded out. And honestly Laurie seems like a lesser character? He's vivid -- emotional, musical, sensitive, temperamental, teasing, very generous and good-hearted, &c &c -- but he is def a part of the sisters' story, not the other way around. So nobody really cares much about him giving up his grand dream of being a famous composer, altho in any other novel he'd probaly angst for many chapters about it!
And Beth tends to get entirely left out of these conversations, even though she's part of the talent/genius circle, too; Laurie himself, the other musician, tells her that she has a really remarkable talent, and everyone listens to her playing as eagerly as Jo's stories. But she has no professional ambitions for her music.
OMFG I can't believe I forgot about Beth's piano playing, when it's so much a part of her. And she doesn't bring it up at all! And neither does anybody else! I guess she's just seen as such an invalid there's no question of her having a career, or even just practicing to get good. And that was also a period where a lot of people sang and played instruments at home for entertainment, at an amateur level, from what I remember, so perhaps she doesn't stand out that much.
Beth is just so eerily posthumous. Everyone's basically waiting for her to die young, and then she gets horribly sick, and then it still takes a while for her to die young, and she's such a perfect angel after she dies. Did you ever read this? https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/08/29/the-real-tragedy-of-beth-march/
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Date: 2022-02-16 02:37 am (UTC)Beth loves her piano and is clearly quite talented but has no professional ambitions at all, zero, zilch. Going out of the house and playing in front of strangers? NO THANK YOU. As you say, this is still the era of home music production, Pa playing his fiddle in Little House etc., and also an era before people were pushed so hard to turn their hobbies into a side hustle... Why shouldn't Beth just enjoy her music on her own terms?
If she did have professional ambitions, presumably the family would support them, as they support Jo's writing and Amy's art - but no one pushes her in that direction when she doesn't go that way on her own.
I think that article is a bit hard on Louisa, honestly - not to mention hard on literary Beth: "It's weirdly hard to dislike Beth," Machado says, like she's been earnestly trying and is annoyed she can't manage it. We all have characters we dislike from time to time, but I don't think trying to dislike a character is a firm foundation for literary criticism.
Also, let's be real, if it was possible to kill a child sheerly through piling words and emotional projections onto her head, none of Bronson Alcott's daughters would have reached adulthood. It was complications of scarlet fever that killed Lizzie/Beth, not the fact that her family thought she was a darling.
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Date: 2022-02-16 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-16 02:42 am (UTC)Perhaps Meg is, in fact, the true rebel. Meg cares not for your Protestant work ethic! Meg just wants to laze around and eat bon bons all day! Take THAT, New England Puritanism.
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:45 pm (UTC)I know Anne Boyd discusses in Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy how the "IRL Meg" Alcott sister had wanted to be an actress, but Alcott hadn't given book!Meg this aspiration because it wasn't ~proper~ (not sure if this was her decision or her publisher's?) although she does end up giving it to Meg's daughter Josie in Jo's Boys. I think the 2019 movie might lean into it? (Possibly comes up when Jo tries to convince Meg not to marry Brooke??? Unclear.)
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Date: 2022-02-15 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-16 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 12:53 am (UTC)“And yet your life is very different from the one you pictured so long ago. Do you remember our castles in the air?” asked Amy....
“Yes, I remember, but the life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely, and cold to me now. I haven’t given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I’m sure it will be all the better for such experiences and illustrations as these,” and Jo pointed from the lively lads in the distance to her father, leaning on the Professor’s arm....
“My castle was the most nearly realized of all. I asked for splendid things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these. I’ve got them all, thank God, and am the happiest woman in the world,” and Meg laid her hand on her tall boy’s head, with a face full of tender and devout content.
“My castle is very different from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don’t relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myself to helping others fulfill their dreams of beauty. I’ve begun to model a figure of baby, and Laurie says it is the best thing I’ve ever done. I think so, myself, and mean to do it in marble, so that, whatever happens, I may at least keep the image of my little angel.”
GACK. LOUISA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. It's so conventional and disappointing! altho it does end with the girls still grouped around their mother, and she gets the last word, and there's even a Beth.
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:16 pm (UTC)I suspect that Louisa is gritting her teeth and Giving the Readers What They Want, which is all the characters paired off like salt and pepper shakers and having adorable babies! She sneaks in the bit about not relinquishing all artistic hopes or confining oneself to helping others fulfill their dreams of beauty as a salve to her own conscience, which wanted to make Jo a spinster writer.
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:37 pm (UTC)LOLOL
Who will also be DEAD soon. Meg of all people is a single mother! Did Real!Meg ever remarry? I don't remember.
I totally forgot Jo has A BABY at the end of the book under her arm, and he gets kind of tossed around like a football and she's fine with it and of course he was perf OK, because "Jo loved her babies tenderly." In fact as a kid I don't think I realized Jo had any kids of her own at all, which is some interesting denial on Wee Moi's part.
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Date: 2022-02-15 02:37 pm (UTC)And it's striking that she didn't list that dream for herself, although that's probably maidenly modesty rather than actually not wanting it. I'm remembering a bit in one of L. M. Montgomery's Emily books (which is a later time period - I think Montgomery can write about it because the convention is breaking down) where Emily & Ilsa talk about what their marriages might be like, and Montgomery is like "Now this was very wrong of course." A good nineteenth century girl is supposed to seem sternly uninterested in all that sort of thing until He shows up with a ring.
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Date: 2022-02-16 12:23 am (UTC)//facedesk
I bet we all know what Louisa would think of that!
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Date: 2022-03-06 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 11:45 am (UTC)It's all very well to give up your hair, but I wish Meg didn't have to give up ALL the frivolous things. A little frivolity is nice actually!
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Date: 2022-02-14 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 02:31 pm (UTC)I also note that there are a few Beth/Laurie fics. Why not! Pair him off with all the March sisters! All we need is a Meg/Laurie fic or two and we'd have the complete set.
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Date: 2022-02-16 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-16 02:16 am (UTC)Laurie in love with Meg would probably be FAR more in accord with Jo about how it's HORRID that Brook is keeping Meg's glove. Laurie and Jo team up to ensure that Brook can never pursue Meg... and Jo realizes ONLY TOO LATE that it's because Laurie wants to steal Meg away his own self!!!