Little Women: Louisa May Alcott’s Duality Between the Intentional Lessons and the Unconscious Messages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1304.07Keywords:
Little Women, duality, society’s restriction, domesticity, patriarchyAbstract
Undoubtedly, Little Women can be considered one of the most influential literary texts in the history of American literature in general and children’s books specifically. This novel has many essential lessons and messages that may affect the development path of any girl. Louisa May Alcott cleverly presents different female characters to shed light on the issues and obstacles women faced during the 19th century in American society. The critics vary in their critical reading and examination of this novel and their understanding of the genuine intentions of Louisa May Alcott. Definitely, the reader can elicit a kind of ambivalence in this novel between the opposing attitudes and decisions Alcott offers in this novel. Throughout the different chapters and various incidents, Alcott clearly explains the suffering of both women and men in the patriarchal society and how both may live restricted life due to society’s expectations and imposing limitations.
References
Alcott, L. M. (1993). Little Women. Wordsworth Editions Limited.
Brodhead, R. (1993). Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America. University of Chicago Press.
Boyd, A. (2004). Writing for Immortality: Women and the Emergence of High Literary Culture in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fetterley, J. (1979). “Little Women”: Alcott’s Civil War. Feminist Studies, 5(2), 369-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177602 (Retrieved on 1 Dec.2023)
Freibert, L. M. (1987). [Review of The Wide, Wide World, by S. Warner & J. Tompkins]. Legacy, 4(2), 66–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25679004
Keyser, E. L. (1982). Alcott’s portraits of the artist as a little woman. International Journal of Women’s Studies, 5(5), 445–459.
Maibor, C. (2004). Labor Pains: Emerson, Hawthrone, and Alcott on Work and The Woman Question. Routledge.
Parille, K. (2001). “Wake up, and be a man”: Little Women, Laurie and the Ethic of Submission. Children’s Literature, 29(1), 34-51. https://doi.org/10.1353/chl.0.0794 (Retrieved on 1 Dec.2023)
Showalter, Elaine. (1989). Introduction to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Viking Penguin Inc.
Wadsworth, S. (2001). Louisa May Alcott, William T. Adams, and the Rise of Gender-Specific Series Books. The Lion And The Unicorn, 25(1), 17-46. https://doi.org/10.1353/uni.2001.0015 (Retrieved on 1 Dec.2023)
