Now that’s a thesis statement for Little Women if there ever was one: the primacy of mother love. Although all the living sisters are married by the end, and have children of their own, we end as we began, with the March sisters gathered around Marmee. It is, the chapter title tells us, “Harvest Time”; and all the fruits of Marmee’s labors have come to celebrate her birthday in the orchard. “Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms, as if to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility… “Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!”
I know I totally harp on this, but really, that last image of Mrs March as the matriarch who has sown and reaped and harvested her family, as some kind of apple harvest Pomona (fertility!) goddess, is really striking. Mr March and even Prof Bhaer have kind of faded away at that point. Louisa may have been a total daddy's girl, but it's so true that motherly love -- and mothering as an act -- is at the heart of the book. (I have that "Marmee and Louisa" book but haven't read it, yet. HOWEVER, I do actually know where it is!!)
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Date: 2022-03-13 11:30 pm (UTC)I know I totally harp on this, but really, that last image of Mrs March as the matriarch who has sown and reaped and harvested her family, as some kind of apple harvest Pomona (fertility!) goddess, is really striking. Mr March and even Prof Bhaer have kind of faded away at that point. Louisa may have been a total daddy's girl, but it's so true that motherly love -- and mothering as an act -- is at the heart of the book. (I have that "Marmee and Louisa" book but haven't read it, yet. HOWEVER, I do actually know where it is!!)