Ok, I’ve come up with a few questions – go ahead an answer some or all in the comment box. As I was telling the lovely Marsha, if a discussion gets particularly good, I’ll probably pull it out of the comments and make a new post. And, I’m taking some feedback requests – is anyone worried about spoilers? I’m worried about how this will feed into a Blog reader for those who haven’t read it before. Please let me know before we move on if you need me to come up with some filler…
On that note, a bit about Louisa May Alcott from The Louisa May Alcott
House website.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.
Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau and theatricals in the barn at Hillside (now Hawthorne’s "Wayside").
Like her character, Jo March in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy: "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, " and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences...."
For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays, "the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens."
At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"
Confronting a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Louisa determined "...I will make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world." Whether as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years Louisa did any work she could find.
Louisa’s career as an author began with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines. In 1854, when she was 22, her first book Flower Fables was published. A milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches (1863) based on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington, DC as a nurse during the Civil War.
When Louisa was 35 years old, her publisher Thomas Niles in Boston asked her to write "a book for girls." Little Women was written at Orchard House from May to July 1868. The novel is based on Louisa and her sisters’ coming of age and is set in Civil War New England. Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized stereotype then prevalent in children’s fiction.
In all, Louisa published over 30 books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
Ok – questions:
1) The first chapter ends with a discussion between the four girls and their mother about Pilgrim’s Progress and how it applies to their lives. For those who have read Pilgrim’s Progress – how does your recollection of it match up with the way that the March family approaches their lives? For those of us who have not, how does the family approach match our impression of the book. For all – does this make a good framework for the story?
2) What is your impression of the four March girls? Which one most closely matches how you see yourself? Are the characters realistic?
3) I’m intrigued by the character of Beth. My mental impression of her has been that she was always sickly, but upon this reading, I am seeing a different character. What has struck you about the character of Beth, and does it match your previous impression of her?
4) For those who have read the book before (spoiler alerts in this question and answer) – knowing how it unfolds, are you seeing foreshadowing? If you have not read the book before – what is your impression of where the novel is going?
5)What did you think about Marmee and Jo’s discussion about anger and besetting sins? Do you think what Marmee said about the continual wrestling with a passion resonated with you and your experience? What did you think about Marmee and Mr. March’s agreement that he’d help her learn to curb her anger?
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The first chapter ends with a discussion between the four girls and their mother about “Pilgrim’s Progress” and how it applies to their lives. For those who have read “Pilgrim’s Progress” – how does your recollection of it match up with the way that the March family approaches their lives? Fir those of us who have not, how the family approaches match our impression of the book. For all – does this make a good framework for the story?
ReplyDeleteI’ve never read “Pilgrim’s Progress” but I think I have a fairly good grasp on the basics of the allegory. I think that it is an excellent framework for the story and allows Alcott to unfold it as a series of vignettes that ultimately, I think help show the growth of the characters. I’ve also been pleased to see Biblical references in the story, and the way they are part of the characters essence. I realize this is indicative of the time that it was written.
What is your impression of the four March girls? Which one most closely matches how you see yourself? Are the characters realistic?
In many ways, I think that the characters are not that dimensional at first. I think that Meg is indicative of Vanity, Jo of Rashness, Beth of Gentleness, and Amy of Youth. But, I think that as the characters evolve, even though we do still seem the act within their framework, they are also shown growing. I think this ties in a lot with the framework of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” that Alcott introduced in the first chapter.
I would say the character I identify most with is Jo (especially with the rash speaking and with the bookworm attributes) – but I don’t discount that I see a lot of Meg in myself as well.
I’m intrigued by the character of Beth. My mental impression of her has been that she was always sickly, but upon this reading, I am seeing a different character. What has struck you about the character of Beth, and does it match your previous impression of her?
I am correctly remembering that she is sickly and very gentle. What I was surprised by is that she is portrayed as very anxious (unable to attend school due to her “delicateness”) and the way that she interacts with the dolls that have been outgrown by the other sisters. It is an interesting subtext and one that makes me wonder about how the society that Alcott lived in accommodated her “delicateness”. I’m very much looking forward to seeing others impressions of this character.
For those who have read the book before (spoiler alerts in this question and answer) – knowing how it unfolds, are you seeing foreshadowing? If you have not read the book before – what is your impression of where the novel is going?
For all of the joking about “why did Jo make the decision that she did” in my original post (and in Quindlen’s essay), knowing what marriage decision she and Amy make has helped me to note the subtleties of their relationships with Laurie.
What did you think about Marmee and Jo’s discussion about anger and besetting sins? Do you think what Marmee said about the continual wrestling with a passion resonated with you and your experience? What did you think about Marmee and Mr. March’s agreement that he’d help her learn to curb her anger?
I do not remember this aspect at all, but I really liked the way that Marmee was upfront about her struggle with the passion of anger – and the way that she counsels Jo to be on guard about her own sins. It very much matches up with the battling of the passions that we see written about in Orthodoxy (and Catholicism) and I definitely think another way that Alcott brings out the “Pilgrims Progress” theme.
I loved the way that Mr. March (I have no recollection of his first name) and Marmee have this understanding, and how Jo picks up on seeing their interactions. I also laughed at Marmee’s comment about struggling with anger when her kids were little and finances were tight – how true that is.
I have a copy of Pilgrim's Progress sitting on my bookshelf, but I've never read it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't relate well to the characters. Like your take on how the are written in the first part of the book, they seemed a little one dimensional to me.
Perhaps some of why I felt estranged by these characters is that most of my socialization has been around males. Although I do have one sister, we were never all that close. She was the youngest of our brood so we were separated by several years. I hung out with brothers as a kid and raised only sons. (I've jokingly said I've seldom been in a house with the toilet seat down.) Maybe I just don't get the girl thing.
I've thought some about the idea about struggling against the passion of anger... I don't have a lot of anger in my personal life, but there are times when it does rear it's head. More often, I can get rather excitable and incensed over certain social injustices. Because those are areas where it FEELS so "right" or "justified" to be angry I have at times allowed my emotions to go willy nilly where they want. I've rationalized it as a healthy sort of indignation against evil. But in retrospect, I'm not so sure.
Ever since I first read your question a month ago I have given it some thought. Is anger ever really healthy or appropriate? While I am not ready to say for sure it is not, I do suspect it is almost always a conduit to a whole cluster of judgments and responses that are less than ideal.
I've heard it said that anger is always a secondary emotion. We begin with either fear or hurt and then allow those primary emotions to turn to anger by presuming a SHOULD either on a situation or another person that is different from the painful circumstances we are experiencing. If I were to CHOOSE to deal with my fears and hurts in other ways WITHOUT anger, what different outcomes might I discover? I've thought about that quite a bit.
So even though I never finished the book, your qeustions have been good for me.
What did you think of the REST of the book?