Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

First published: 1868–1869

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Didactic

Time of plot: Mid-nineteenth century

Locale: Concord, Massachusetts; New York City; and Italy

Principal Characters

• Meg, ,
• Jo, ,
• Beth, and
• Amy, the March sisters
• Mrs. March or Marmee,, their mother
• Mr. March, their father
• Theodore Laurence or Laurie, a young neighbor
• Professor Bhaer, a tutor, in love with Jo

The Story

The March family lives in a small house next door to the Laurence mansion, where young Theodore Laurence, known as Laurie, and his aged grandfather have only each other for company. Old Mr. Laurence is wealthy, and he indulges every wish of his grandson, but often Laurie is lonely. When the lamps are lit and the shades are up in the March house, he can see the four March sisters, with their mother in the center, seated around a cheerful fire. He learns to know them by name before he meets them, and, in his imagination, he almost feels himself a member of the family.

The oldest sister is Meg, who has to earn her living as the governess of a group of unruly youngsters in the neighborhood. Next is Jo, tall, awkward, and tomboyish, who likes to write and who spends all her spare time devising plays and entertainments for her sisters. Then there is gentle Beth, the homebody, content to sit knitting by the fire or to help her mother take care of the house. The youngest is curly-haired Amy, a schoolgirl who dreams of someday becoming a famous artist like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci. The sisters’ father is away, serving as an army chaplain during the Civil War.

At Christmastime, the girls are confronted with the problem of what to do with the dollar that Marmee, as they call their mother, has said they might spend. At first, each thinks only of her own pleasure, but all end by buying a gift for Marmee instead. On Christmas morning, they insist on sharing their breakfast with the Hummels, a poor family in the neighborhood, and for this unselfishness they are rewarded when Mr. Laurence sends over a surprise Christmas feast consisting of ice cream and bonbons along with four bouquets of flowers for the table.

Many happy days follow, with Laurie becoming a part of the March family circle after he meets Jo at a fashionable New Year’s Eve dance. In November, however, a telegram brings a message that the girls’ father is critically ill. Mrs. March does not know what to do. She feels that she should go to her husband at once, but she has barely five dollars in her purse. She is hesitant about going to her husband’s wealthy, irascible relative Aunt March for help. Jo solves the problem by selling her long, beautiful chestnut hair, which has been her only vanity, for twenty-five dollars. She makes the sacrifice willingly, but that night, after the others have gone to bed, Meg hears Jo weeping softly. Gently, Meg asks if Jo is crying over her father’s illness, and Jo sobs that it is not her father she is crying for now, but for her hair.

During Marmee’s absence, dark days fall upon the little women. Beth, who has never been strong, contracts scarlet fever, and for a time it looks as if Jo is going to lose her dearest sister. They send for Marmee, but by the time she arrives, the crisis has passed and her little daughter is better but severely weakened by the illness. By the next Christmas, Beth is her old contented self again. Mr. March surprises them all when he returns home from the front well and happy. The little family is together once more.

Then John Brooke, Laurie’s tutor, falls in love with Meg. This fact is disclosed when Mr. Brooke surreptitiously steals one of Meg’s gloves and keeps it in his pocket as a memento. When Laurie discovers the glove and informs Jo, he is greatly surprised at her reaction; she is infuriated at the idea that the family circle might be disturbed. She is reconciled with the idea three years later, however, when Meg becomes Mrs. Brooke.

In the meantime, Jo herself has grown up. She begins to take her writing seriously and even sells a few stories, which helps with the family budget. Her greatest disappointment comes when Aunt Carrol, a relative of the Marches, decides she needs a companion on a trip to Europe and asks the more ladylike Amy, rather than Jo, to accompany her. Then Jo, with Marmee’s permission, decides to go to New York City. She takes a job in New York as governess for a Mrs. Kirke, who runs a large boardinghouse. There she meets Professor Bhaer, a lovable and eccentric German tutor, who proves to be a good friend and companion.

When Jo returns home, Laurie, who has always loved her, asks her to marry him. Jo, who imagines that she will always remain unmarried, devoting herself exclusively to her writing, tries to convince Laurie that they are not made for each other. He persists, pointing out that his grandfather and her family both expect them to marry. When she finally makes him realize that she will not be persuaded, he stomps off, and shortly afterward he leaves for Europe with his grandfather. In Europe, Laurie spends a great deal of time with Amy, and the two become close friends, so that Laurie is able to transfer to Jo’s younger sister a great deal of the affection he previously had for Jo.

Jo remains at home caring for Beth, who has never fully recovered from her earlier illness. In the spring, Beth dies, practically in Jo’s arms, and after the loss of her gentle sister Jo is lonely indeed. She tries to comfort herself with her writing and with Meg’s two babies, Daisy and Demi, but not until the return of Amy, now married to Laurie, does she begin to feel like her old self again. When Professor Bhaer stops to visit on his way to a university appointment in the Midwest, Jo is delighted. One day, as they share an umbrella during a downpour, he asks her to marry him, and Jo accepts. Within a year, old Aunt March dies and leaves her home, Plumfield, to Jo. Jo decides to open a boys’ school there, where she and her professor can devote their lives to instructing the young.

So the little women have reached maturity and, on their mother’s sixtieth birthday, they all have a great celebration at Plumfield. Around the table, at which there is but one empty chair, sit Marmee, her daughters and their husbands, and her grandchildren. When Laurie proposes a toast to his mother-in-law, she replies by stretching out her arms to them all and saying that she can wish nothing better for them than this present happiness for the rest of their lives.

Bibliography

Alberghene, Janice M., and Beverly Lyon Clark, eds. Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein. New York: Norton, 2004. Print.

Crew, Hilary S. "Louisa May Alcott: The Author as Presented in Biographies for Children." Children and Libraries 10.3 (2012): 28–54. Print.

Delamar, Gloria T. Louisa May Alcott and Little Women: Biography, Critique, Publications, Poems, Songs, and Contemporary Relevance. Jefferson: McFarland, 1990. Print.

Elbert, Sarah. A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott’s Place in American Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. Print.

Keyser, Elizabeth Lennox. Little Women: A Family Romance. New York: Twayne, 1999. Print.

Keyser, Elizabeth Lennox. Whispers in the Dark: The Fiction of Louisa May Alcott. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1993. Print.

MacDonald, Ruth K. Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Print.

Matteson, John. "Little Woman." Humanities 30.6 (2009): 10–53. Print.

Reisen, Harriet. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. New York: Holt, 2010. Print.

Showalter, Elaine. Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Print.

Strickland, Charles. Victorian Domesticity: Families in the Life and Art of Louisa May Alcott. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1985. Print.

Trites, Roberta Seelinger. Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2007. Print.