Little Women Sunday
Feb. 27th, 2022 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerGalloping forward in Little Women! This week all the sisters have enjoyed/suffered Great Events, except for Beth.
First, Meg. She got married! In keeping with the general Little Women theme that family love trumps romantic love, “the minute she was fairly married, Meg cried, “The first kiss for Marmee!” and turning, gave it with her heart on her lips.”
Presumably Meg and John kissed as part of the ceremony, but nonetheless, a good way to make sure that young gentleman knows his place. Jo must approve. She seems overall to have mellowed on the idea of the marriage, and did not weep her way through the ceremony, which shows restraint and maturity and also perhaps a firm grasp of the fact that Meg is only moving down the road.
Meg has also had her first marital squabbles, first when John showed up for dinner with a friend without warning on the very day Meg’s attempt to make currant jam ignominiously failed, and then when Meg spent fifty dollars on a length of silk for the dress.
Jo’s Great Event is that she won a hundred dollars in a story contest! She uses that money to send Marmee and Beth to the seaside for a whole month. Fifty dollars therefore translates to two weeks at the seaside, which makes John Brooke’s ashen face over the whole affair more comprehensible.
(This trip to the seaside could have been Beth’s Great Event, but unlike the others she receives no showcase chapter; it’s dealt with in a few sentences in the chapter about Jo’s career.)
Encouraged by this experiment, Jo plunges into the dangerous yet lucrative world of writing sensation fiction. She also manages to publish her first serious novel, which the critics alternately laud and lambast, to poor Jo’s great confusion. “You said, Mother, that criticism would help me. But how can it, when it’s so contradictory that I don’t know whether I’ve written a promising book or broken all the ten commandments?” Jo cries, and authors everywhere nod along in great sympathy. If only all the critics agreed (and agreed that it was wonderful, of course!).
Amy’s chapter is nightmare fuel. She throws a party for the twelve girls in her art class, and no one comes. Well, actually, ONE of the girls comes, which is almost worse, because it means that Amy has to be cheerful and sociable and pretend they’re having a grand time instead of retreating to her room to cry her eyes out, which is what I would be doing if I threw a party and no one came. But Amy is made of sterner stuff. Her voice only quivers a little when she asks her family, with great dignity, “I’ll thank you still more if you won’t allude to it for a month, at least.”
But better things are in store for Amy: the chapter ends with Amy dragging Jo along on a series of calls, ending at Aunt March’s, where Jo makes herself disagreeable… right when a trip abroad hangs in the balance, though she doesn’t know it. Possibly it’s just as well - if Jo went abroad with Aunt Carrol it might well end in double homicide - but Jo is NOT going to be pleased next chapter when she realizes what she hath wrought.
First, Meg. She got married! In keeping with the general Little Women theme that family love trumps romantic love, “the minute she was fairly married, Meg cried, “The first kiss for Marmee!” and turning, gave it with her heart on her lips.”
Presumably Meg and John kissed as part of the ceremony, but nonetheless, a good way to make sure that young gentleman knows his place. Jo must approve. She seems overall to have mellowed on the idea of the marriage, and did not weep her way through the ceremony, which shows restraint and maturity and also perhaps a firm grasp of the fact that Meg is only moving down the road.
Meg has also had her first marital squabbles, first when John showed up for dinner with a friend without warning on the very day Meg’s attempt to make currant jam ignominiously failed, and then when Meg spent fifty dollars on a length of silk for the dress.
Jo’s Great Event is that she won a hundred dollars in a story contest! She uses that money to send Marmee and Beth to the seaside for a whole month. Fifty dollars therefore translates to two weeks at the seaside, which makes John Brooke’s ashen face over the whole affair more comprehensible.
(This trip to the seaside could have been Beth’s Great Event, but unlike the others she receives no showcase chapter; it’s dealt with in a few sentences in the chapter about Jo’s career.)
Encouraged by this experiment, Jo plunges into the dangerous yet lucrative world of writing sensation fiction. She also manages to publish her first serious novel, which the critics alternately laud and lambast, to poor Jo’s great confusion. “You said, Mother, that criticism would help me. But how can it, when it’s so contradictory that I don’t know whether I’ve written a promising book or broken all the ten commandments?” Jo cries, and authors everywhere nod along in great sympathy. If only all the critics agreed (and agreed that it was wonderful, of course!).
Amy’s chapter is nightmare fuel. She throws a party for the twelve girls in her art class, and no one comes. Well, actually, ONE of the girls comes, which is almost worse, because it means that Amy has to be cheerful and sociable and pretend they’re having a grand time instead of retreating to her room to cry her eyes out, which is what I would be doing if I threw a party and no one came. But Amy is made of sterner stuff. Her voice only quivers a little when she asks her family, with great dignity, “I’ll thank you still more if you won’t allude to it for a month, at least.”
But better things are in store for Amy: the chapter ends with Amy dragging Jo along on a series of calls, ending at Aunt March’s, where Jo makes herself disagreeable… right when a trip abroad hangs in the balance, though she doesn’t know it. Possibly it’s just as well - if Jo went abroad with Aunt Carrol it might well end in double homicide - but Jo is NOT going to be pleased next chapter when she realizes what she hath wrought.
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Date: 2022-02-27 09:32 pm (UTC)At some point I want to track down contemporary reviews/reactions to Little Women; I'm so curious how they reacted to the characters, particularly Amy, because I think that her ambitions to be ladylike might have struck readers as more comprehensible and sympathetic in the 19th century and then come to seem SO old-fashioned and priggish in the 20th. (Although Jo actually CALLS her a prig in chapter one, so maybe 19th century readers saw her that way too!)
And now in the 21st century, there's been a minor renaissance in Amy appreciation (I'm thinking particularly of the Gerwig movie) - although that tends to focus more on her artistic than her social ambitions. Like Jo, Amy has multiple facets, and different eras focus on different sides of her.
And yes, "the artist has not let her artistic pursuits spoil her womanly graces or distract her from her womanly skills!" is SUCH a 19th century trope. (Ofc Gaskell had the additional incentive of defending her dear friend from those jerks who thought Jane Eyre was the product of a coarse mind. HOW DARE THEY, Charlotte only ever thought the highest and most beautiful thoughts.)
Amy does eventually settle down to painting, doesn't she? Earlier in the book she's making lots of "mud pies" (sculpting with clay) but painting IS so much neater and more ladylike. Although only by comparison. Leonardo must have been an extremely neat painter not to muss his nice silk outfit as he painted! (Maybe that's why he finished so few paintings.)
Amy/Laurie is interesting because in the first part of the book it's definitely Laurie instructing/cajoling Amy (or straight up bribing her: "I'll visit you every day if you'll stay with Aunt March while Beth is sick!"). But by book two, Amy is the one scolding him for wasting his talents, such as they are, and then they both... well, as we've said before, they don't really give up art, do they? But they stop pursuing it professionally; they remain content to be talented amateurs.
(And, speaking of our last artist: Beth basically stops playing in part 2 of the book, because of her illness, presumably. Maybe that's why people never think to include her when they talk about the book's conversation about art: by the time the book is really in the weeds with it, Beth has fallen silent.)