BOOKS: Little Women, a Re-Reading

This summer, nostalgic about the beloved books of my youth, I reread  some childhood classics.

Why did I love Little Women?  Because it presented an idyll of family love and a safe journey across the straits of womanhood, each daughter finding her own life’s purpose and deep fulfillment in it. The daughters learned to value integrity and compassion, despite hardships which might have embittered them.  Their goodness is ultimately rewarded by happy marriages.   And they had a tender, patient mother who was sweet to them.

And who didn’t cry when Beth died?

The first book I ever read that made me grieve deeply, I felt worse about Beth’s death than when my grandfather died, truth be told; my first experience with literary catharsis.

But.  Consider this alternative narrative.

After losing his inheritance because he made a risky investment, a minister with 4 children goes to the Civil War to serve rather than going to work to support his family.  Marmee, his wife is left to care for them. Although they are very poor, even unable to afford Christmas presents for each other, Marmee doesn’t go to work to support the family, but continues to do volunteer nursing among immigrants.  She keeps a nanny, but the two eldest daughters leave school at 16 to become nanny/eldercare workers themselves.

Her third daughter, Beth, is deemed to shy to go to school, so stays home – did she have a learning disability? Why would a mother  let her child use that excuse to stay home? When Beth becomes ill, it’s just accepted that she’s dying,  and no doctor attends – she dies a “love death” for the sake of sentiment.

Amy is allowed to quit school when she is corporally disciplined by her teacher.  Marmee does nothing to intervene with school authorities, and the abusive teacher remains to continue his practices.  Amy’s rich talent for painting is not nurtured, and she paints china and sketches pretty scenes.

Jo befriends a rich neighbor boy and his father, who along with her aunt, conveniently give provident assistance when necessary, and permits the narrative to provide a wealth+ love match story.  Integrity is rewarded by wealth, in true Horatio Alger fashion.

The family lives in an isolated circle: no church welfare group supports the minister’s family while he is away serving his country, and no girlfriends supply emotional support or diversion, serving instead as instruments of unkindness and snobbery. 

Marmee allows her children their “space”, but she comes off as a remote household Madonna, despite the narrative content describing her relation with her children as close and nurturing. She provides them no encouragement to initiative or independence.

None of the girls go “bad” – the onset of their sexual maturity, with its budding breasts, awakened sexual desire, seems to occur without troubling them.  No bad boy no good suitors seduce, jilt, or and abandon the girls, no broken hearts ensue.

Jo earns enough money to live independently, but her gem in the rough boyfriend thinks her work is vulgar and sensational, so she quits that direction and writes a sentimental homily laden novel so she won’t set a bad example to readers.

Amy receives a European tour which polishes her and she marries Laurie; theirs is marriage that strikes the most true – a compromise in which both settle for the best they can do.

Meg marries a poor man when she wished for riches, but is fulfilled in wedlock and motherhood.  All three girl children, despite their early ambitions, receive their deepest joy in motherhood.   Their marriages have a certain righteous romantic pragmatism.

I see the merit of this lovely and enduring story, and in fact, would assert I hold similar “core” values today.  I know that my battle is about received gender identity and how it compromises women and mens’ individual natures. 

Female adolescent literature seems to service both false and honest authentic identity: it’s left to the awakening child to come to peace and grief with the costly process.