Book Report- Little Women

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York. Random House Value Publishing, Inc.: 1987.

Reason, Type and Setting: I selected this novel because it is a classic and I would to be well versed in a variety of novels important to our American Culture. This is a novel about four young girls growing up into their personalities and learning more about themselves everyday. With a little drama, romance and some sad times this is an all around feel good story. Taking place in America these girls and their mother are struggling to survive until their father comes home from the war.

Plot: All the girls are very individual and have complex characteristics. They have all been raised to be as selfless as they can and yet they still remain as unique as ever. The girls wish to fall in love and to stay true to the things they believe in. Beth one of the younger sisters falls ill and dies and all the sisters and family and friends miss her and her ability to make everyone happy. Jo constantly fights the stereotype of a woman and takes pleasure in “boyish” activities. Meg is a beautiful and slightly vain young woman but she learns to be more selfless and she respects everyone she is associated with. Beth is a peacemaker who is a musician as well. She brings everyone happiness through her actions and when she dies all the girls are devastated. Amy is the youngest and she strives to be as mature and sophisticated as she can. She grows up to be a gorgeous woman and the desire of many wealthy men. But Amy soon realizes that she cannot marry for money, despite how much her family may need it, she needs to fall in love.

Character: Josephine is the tom boy of the family. Often described that her only beauty was her hair, she was lanky and thin and introduced to the reader at the age of 15. She is also compared to a colt, in her features and spirit. She always longs to be free from her social chains and to run around galloping about with the boys. She would do anything for her mother and sisters but she is still very stubborn. If she isn’t wishing to be outside playing in the dirt then she would be reading or doing housework. She didn’t spend time worrying about trivial things like her wardrobe. Jo is the most drastically different from her sisters so her character was the more interesting to follow. She falls in love with an older man who is a professor at the school she is teaching at. She writes stories for the paper and with the money she earns she takes care of her mother and her sick sister Beth. Jo grows into a mature young woman but will always remain a free spirit like in her youth.

Evaluation: I did enjoy the story and it was fun to learn in such depth about the sisters’ different personalities. They were integral and spent much of their life doing things for others despite how little they themselves had to offer. Their qualities were admirable and genuine. Many people fiscally have so much more to offer than this small family, yet we tend to not care at all about other peoples problems but our own. We could all learn al lot from these little women and follow their example. I would recommend this novel to someone who is interested in opening up their minds to something bigger than themselves.

I think that even though this book takes places decades ago, we can still relate the timeless morals to our lives today. In school and at home we talk about how we want to help others and we may send a check here or there to some organization and that’s all. This poor family found ways to go out and find people who needed them and offered them everything they could. They realized how fortunate they were and there was no harm at all in providing for others what they themselves take so much for granted. How hard would it be for us to give up one lazy afternoon to helping someone who really needed it?

If I were one of these girls in their situation I would do the best I could to respond to life the way they did. They never knew if they would see their father again but they had a caring mother who would do anything for them and the cold really look up to her as an ideal role model. I enjoyed the end of the novel but I would have liked to know what happened to Amy’s daughter Beth who was ill. Other than that I think it would have been easy for me to act as selfless as the sisters, at least that is what I would hope.

Author, Context and Trivia: Louisa May Alcott also wrote the novels: A Garland for Girls, An Old-fashioned Girl, Behind A Mask or, A Woman's Power, Eight Cousins, Flower Fables, Hospital Sketches, Jack and Jill, Jo's Boys, Little Men, Little Women, Pauline's Passion and Punishment, Rose in Bloom, The Mysterious Key And What It Opened, Under the Lilacs, Work: A Story of Experience. She is most famous for Little Women, and she based the character Jo off of herself. Her life had many of the same experiences as the girls in Little Women. I haven’t read her other books but I have read Pride and Prejudice and there are some similar ideas and circumstances that overlap in both of these novels. I will keep an open mind when it comes to reading more novels of this type.