Little Women Sunday

[osprey_archer]

Little 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.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

you'd think that as a writer I would be a Jo, but in fact I have always considered Beth my Alcott alter ego

Oh, interesting— as you said, I definitely would have guessed Jo, because of the writing. What in particular drew you to Beth?

[kore]

Yeah, I don't think even the writer who got assigned Meg in that "women writers write about the March sisters" book was very keen on her! And it's a bit weird she has no theatrical ambition, since IIRC her counterpart did, and she plays a role in the opening melodrama.

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).

[kore]

Oh man, I thought Meg had said something about acting at the very end, and looked it up, and they do talk about the castles in the air again! BUT

“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.

[littlerhymes]

Poor Meg - who would be a Meg? Studies show simply no one, even subconsciously, desires to be a Meg. [Source: online personality quizzes. Sample size: 4.]

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!

[oracne]

I wonder where the Meg fanfic is? And what it's about?