Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Alcott wrote a book for several months at the request of his publisher. Following the lives of four sisters in March - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy - this novel details their journey from childhood to adolescence and is loosely based on the author and his three sisters.
Little Women is a direct commercial and critical success with readers demanding to know more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed the second volume (titled Good Wives in Great Britain, although the name was from a publisher and not from Alcott). It also works. Two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women.
Alcott wrote two sequels for his popular work, both of which also featured the sisters of March: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Although Little Women is a novel for girls, it differs mainly from the current writings for children, especially women. This novel deals with three main themes: "housekeeping, labor, and true love are all interdependent and each is necessary for the attainment of the hero's individual identity."
Little Women has been read as a romance or as a search, or both, it has been read as a family drama validating virtues of wealth, but also as a means to escape from life by women who know the limits the gender is too good ". According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new literary form, which takes elements of Romantic children's fiction and combines it with others from sentimental novels, producing an entirely new format. Elbert argues that in Little Women, the first vision of the "All-American Girl" can be found and that its various aspects are manifested in the different siblings of March.
This book has been adapted for cinema; twice as a silent film and four times with sounds in 1933, 1949, 1978 and 1994. Six television series were made, including four by BBC - 1950, 1958, 1970, 2017, and as a PBS TV show 2018. Two anime series were made in Japan during the 1980s. The musical version opened on Broadway in 2005. The American opera version in 1998 has been done internationally and filmed for broadcast on US television in 2001.
Video Little Women
History of development
In 1868, Thomas Niles, publisher Louisa May Alcott, recommended that he write a book about girls who would have a wide appeal. At first he refused, preferring to publish his short story collection. Niles pressured him to write a girl's book first, and he was assisted by his father Amos Bronson Alcott, who also urged him to do so.
In May 1868, Alcott wrote in his journal: "Niles, Roberts's partner, asked me to write a girl's book, I said I would try." Alcott arranges his novel in an imaginary Orchard House that mimics his own home of the same name, in which he wrote the novel. He then recalls that he did not think he could write a successful book for girls and did not like to write it. "I'm leaving," he wrote in his diary, "although I do not enjoy these things." Scholars classify Little Women as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.
In June, Alcott had sent dozens of dozens of first chapters to Niles, and both agreed that this was boring. But Niles' nephew, Lillie Almy, reads it and says he enjoys it. The completed script is shown to some girls, who agree it is "beautiful". Alcott wrote, "They are the best critics, so I must be satisfied." He wrote Little Women in the time note for money, but the immediate success of this book surprised him and his publisher.
Maps Little Women
Description of the title of the novel
According to literary critic Sarah Elbert, when using the term "little lady", Alcott draws on the meaning of Dickensian; it represents the period in a young woman's life where childhood and childhood "overlap" with young women. Each March heroine has a horrible experience that reminds her and readers that "innocent childhood" is the past, and that "the inevitable woman's problem" is all that remains. Another view suggests that the title is meant to highlight women's inferiority compared to men, or, alternatively, to describe the lives of simple people, "not important" in the social sense.
Plot summary
Four teenage sisters and their mother, Marmee, live in a new neighborhood (loosely based on Concord) in Massachusetts in a friendly poverty. After losing all his money, their father acted as a pastor, miles from home, involved in the American Civil War. The women face their first Christmas without her. Meg and Jo March, older, had to work to support the family: Meg taught the family of four children nearby; Jo helps his elderly aunt, a wealthy widow living in a mansion, Plumfield. Beth, too cowardly for the satisfied school stay at home and help with housework; Amy is still at school. Meg is beautiful and traditional, Jo is a tomboy who writes; Beth is a peacemaker and a pianist; Amy is an artist who yearns for elegance and a good society.
Jo impulsively and furious. One challenge is to try to control his anger, the challenge his mother faces. She advises Jo to speak with thought before leaving for a trip to Washington, where her husband suffers from pneumonia.
Their neighbor, Mr. Laurence, who was fascinated by Beth, gave her the piano. Beth had dengue fever after spending time with a poor family in which three children died. Jo tends to be Beth in her illness. Beth recovered, but never fully. As a precaution, Amy was sent to live with Aunty March, replacing Jo, while Beth was sick and still contagious.
Jo has been successful at making money with his writing. Meg spent two weeks with friends, where there was a party for girls to dance with boys and improve social skills. Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence, son's grandson. Laurence, invited to one of the dances, because her friends mistook her for falling in love with her. Meg was more interested in John Brooke, young tutor Laurie. Brooke went to Washington to help Mr. March. While with March's parents, Brooke confesses her love for Meg. They were happy but thought she was too young to marry. Brooke agreed to wait but enlarge and serve a year or more in the war. After he was injured, he went back to look for a job so he could buy a ready house for when he married Meg. Laurie went to college, after becoming smitten by Jo.
Three years later, Meg and John married and learned how to live together. When they had twins, Meg was a devoted mother but John began to feel abandoned. Laurie graduated from college, trying hard in her final year with Jo's encouragement. She realizes that she has fallen in love with Jo. Feeling his feelings, Jo confides in Marmee, telling him that she loves Laurie but because she will love her brother and that she can not love him romantically. Laurie proposed marriage to her and she refused.
Jo decided she needed a break, and spent six months with a friend of her mother in New York City, serving as a nanny for her two children. The family runs a boarding house. She takes German lessons with Professor Bhaer, who lives at home. He came to America from Berlin to take care of orphaned orphaned children. For extra money, Jo writes stories without morals, which disappoint Bhaer. Amy went on a European tour with her aunt. Laurie and her grandfather also went to Europe. Beth's health really worsened. Jo devotes her time to taking care of her dying sister. Laurie meets Amy in Europe. With the news of Beth's death, they meet to cheer and their romance grows. Aunt Amy will not allow Amy to return only with Laurie and her grandfather, so they marry before returning home from Europe.
Professor Bhaer arrived at the Marches and stayed for two weeks. On her last day, she proposed to Jo. Aunty March died, leaving Plumfield to Jo. He and Bhaer turned the house into a school for boys. They have two sons of their own, and Amy and Laurie have a daughter. At the time of apple picking, Marmee celebrated her 60th birthday at Plumfield, with her husband, three surviving daughters, their husbands and five grandchildren.
Margaret" Meg "March
Meg, the eldest sister, was 16 when the story began. She is referred to as beautiful, and organizes the household when her mother is not around. According to Alcott's description of the characters, he has brown hair and blue eyes, and has a very beautiful hand. Meg met expectations for the woman at the time; from the beginning, he had become a "little woman" almost perfect in the eyes of the world. Meg based in domestic household; he has no significant work or activity beyond it. Before marrying John Brooke, while still living at home, he often taught his sister to make sure they grew to realize the title of "little lady".
Meg was hired as a nanny for Kings, a rich local family. Due to the social standing of their father's family, Meg made her debut in upper-class society, but she was given a lecture by her friend and neighbor Theodore Laurie Laurie for being arrogant. Meg married John Brooke, teacher Laurie. They have twin sisters, Margaret "Daisy" Brooke and John "Demi" Brooke. The sequel, Little Men, mentions a baby girl, Josephine "Josy" Brooke, who was 14 at the beginning of the last book.
Critics have described Meg as lacking in independence, relying entirely on her husband, and being "isolated in her little hut with two small children". From this perspective, Meg is seen as a dutiful daughter who does not "achieve the ideal of an Alcott ideal woman". According to Sarah Elbert, "democratic independence requires maturity, strength, and above all the secure identity Meg does not possess." Others believe that Alcott did not mean to belittle Meg for his ordinary life, and described it in loving details, overwhelmed by sentimental light.
Josephine "Jo" March
The main character, Jo, 15 years old at the beginning of the book, is a strong and deliberate young woman, struggling to subdue her fiery temper and her stubborn personality.
The second eldest of four children, Josephine March is childish; his father had called him "son of Jo," and his friend and neighbor, Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, sometimes called him "my good brother", and he himself called him Teddy. Jo has a "hot" temperament that often brings him into trouble. With the help of her misguided sense of humor, her sister Beth, and her mother, she works to control it. It has been shown that many Louisa May Alcott is shown through this characterization.
Jo loves literature, both reading and writing. He made a drama for his sister to perform and write a short story. At first he rejected the idea of ​​marriage and romance, feeling that it would destroy his family and separate him from the sisters he admired. While pursuing a literary career in New York City, he met Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor. On returning home, Jo refused Laurie's marriage proposal.
After Beth died, Professor Bhaer greets Jo at his home, when "They decide to share the burden of life only when they share the burden of bundles on their shopping expeditions". He was 25 years old when he accepted his proposal. Marriage was postponed to the unexpected legacy of Aunt March's house a year later. "The first important point is that his choice is his, his uniqueness is another sign of his precious individuality." They have two sons, Robin "Rob" Bhaer and Teddy Bhaer. Jo also wrote the first part of Little Women during the second part of the novel. According to Elbert, "his narrative marks a successful adolescence".
Elizabeth "Beth" March
Beth, 13 when the story begins, described as good, gentle, sweet, shy, quiet and musical. She was the driest sister in March. Feeled with silent wisdom, he is the peacemaker of the family and gently rebukes his sister when they argue. When his sister grew up, they started to leave the house, but Beth did not want to leave her home or family. She was very close to Jo: when Beth had dengue after visiting Hummels, Jo did most of the breastfeeding and rarely left her side. Beth recovered from an acute illness but her health permanently weakened.
As she grew, Beth began to realize that her time with her beloved was about to end. Eventually, the family accepted that Beth would not live longer. They made a special room for him, filled with everything he liked best: his children, piano, dad books, Amy sketches, and his favorite dolls. He is never silent; he knit and sewed things for the children who passed on the way to and from school. But finally he put the sewing needle down, saying it grew "heavy." Beth's last disease has a powerful effect on her sister, especially Jo, who decides to live her life with more consideration and attention for everyone. The ultimate loss during Little Women is Beth's beloved death. His "self-sacrifice" is ultimately the greatest in the novel. He surrenders his life knowing that it has only a personal and domestic meaning. "
Amy Curtis March
Amy is the youngest sister and baby of the family, 12 years old when the story begins. Attracted to the art, he is portrayed as an "ordinary snow girl" with golden curls and blue eyes, "pale and slim" and "always carrying herself" like a proper young lady. She is a family artist. Often "stroked" because he is the youngest, Amy can behave in a futile and selfish way. He has Curtis's middle name, and is called by his full name, Amy.
He was chosen by his aunt and uncle to travel in Europe with them, where he grew up and made decisions about his talent level and how to direct his adult life. She meets Laurie Laurence and her grandfather during an extended visit. Amy is the most likely of the sisters to sacrifice and deny themselves. He behaves well in a good society, feels comfortable with himself. Criticism of Martha Saxton observes the author has never fully felt comfortable with Amy's moral development and her success in life seems relatively unintentional. However, Amy's morality seems to flourish throughout adolescence and early adulthood, and she is able to confidently and fairly put Laurie in her place when she is sure she is wasting her life on a fun activity. In the end, Amy is proven to work very hard to get what she wants in life, and to maximize her success when she has it.
For his books, Alcott is often inspired by elements he knows. Characters in Little Women can be identified from family members and friends. Anna's married sister is Meg, the pretty family. Lizzie, Alcott's beloved sister who died at the age of twenty-three, was a model for Beth, and May, a strong-willed Alcott sister, was described as Amy, whose arrogant pretense led to an occasional fall. Alcott describes himself as Jo. Alcott is ready to correspond with the reader who calls him "Miss March" or "Jo", and he does not fix it.
However, Alcott's depiction, though inspired by his family, is something idealized. For example, Mr. March is portrayed as a hero of the American Civil War, a minister employed, and, perhaps, a source of inspiration for women of the family. He is absent for most novels. In contrast, Bronson Alcott is very much present in his family's household, partly because of his inability to find permanent employment. Although he embraces many of the educational principles that are mentioned by the March family, he is harsh and dictatorial. Lack of financial independence is a source of humiliation for his wife and daughter. The March family is depicted living in poverty, but the Alcott family, relying on an impractical and impractical father, suffers from real poverty and sometimes starvation. In addition to his own childhood and his younger sister, scholars who had examined Louisa Alcott's mother's journal Abigail Alcott had suspected that Little Women was also deeply inspired by Abigail Alcott's early life.
Publishing history
The first volume of Little Women was published in 1868 by Roberts Brothers.
The first print of 2,000 copies sold out quickly, and the company found it difficult to meet the demand for additional prints. They announced: "The great literary hit of the season is undoubtedly Miss Alcott's Little Women, an order that keeps flowing to us in such a way that it is impossible to answer with timeliness." The last line of Chapter 23 in the volume The first is "So the curtain falls on Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.Whether it ever goes up again, depending on the acceptance given the first act of a domestic drama called Little Women." Alcott sent a manuscript for the second volume on New Year's Day 1869, just three months after the publication of the first part.
Versions at the end of the 20th and 21st centers combine the two parts into one book, under the title Little Women, with the later section marked as Part 2, such as the novel Bantam Classic paperback edition, the first published times in 1983 symbolize. There are 23 chapters in Sections 1 and 47 chapters in the complete book. Each chapter is numbered and has a title as well. Part 2, Chapter 24 opens with "In order for us to start over and go to Meg's wedding with free thought, it would be good to start with a little gossip about the Marches." Editions published in the 21st century may be original texts unchanged, original texts with illustrations, original text annotated to the reader (explaining the less common 1868-69 terms now), the original text is modernized and assembled, the original text is summarized.
The British influence, giving Part 2 its own title, Good Wives, has a book that is still published in two volumes, with Good Wives beginning three years after Little Women > ends, especially in the UK and Canada, but also with some USA editions. Some of the editions listed under Little Women appear to include both sections, especially in the audio-book version. Editions are featured in continuous prints from many publishers, such as the hardback, paperback, audio, and e-book versions, from the 1980s to 2015. These two-volume splits are also featured on Goodreads, which refer to the books as Little Women series, including Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men and Jo's Boys.
Reception
GK Chesterton notes that in Little Women Alcott "anticipated realism for twenty or thirty years," and that Fritz's proposal to Jo, and his acceptance, "is one of the truly human things in literature human." Gregory S. Jackson says that the use of Alcott realism belongs to the American Protestant pedagogical tradition, which includes various traditions of religious literature familiar with Alcott. He has a copy in his book on nineteenth-century children's meditation guides, which provide the background for the game of "pilgrimage" that Alcott used in his Book One plot.
When Little Women was published, it was well received. According to critics of the 21st century, Barbara Sicherman, during the nineteenth century, there was a "scarcity of models for non-traditional feminism," which led to more women looking towards "the literature for self-authorization, especially during adolescence." Little Women became a "paradigmatic text for young women today and in which the culture of family literature is clearly displayed." Adult female fictional elements in Little Women include the "necessary changes of heart" for female protagonists to evolve in the story.
At the end of the 20th century, some experts criticized the novel. Sarah Elbert, for example, writes that Little Women is the beginning of a "decline in radical fictional force of women", in part because women's fiction is idealized with children's stories "fireplaces and homes." Women of literary historians and fictional teen historians have agreed that Little Women is the beginning of a "downward spiral." But Elbert says that Little Women does not "underestimate women's fiction" and that Alcott remains faithful to his "Romantic birthright."
The popular audience of Little Women is responsive to the ideas of social change as shown "in familiar kinship construction". While Alcott was assigned to "write stories for girls", her main hero, Jo March, became a favorite of many different women, including an educated female writer during the 20th century. The girl's story becomes "a new publishing category with a domestic focus that aligns the story of a boy's adventures."
One reason the novel is so popular is that it appeals to different classes of women along with different national backgrounds, at the time of high immigration to the United States. Through the sisters in March, women can relate and dream where they may not have before. "The passion of the Little Woman has spawned diverse readers and her ability to survive from her time and go beyond the genre point to the text of unusual permeability."
At that time, young girls consider that marriage is their final destination. After the first volume publication, many girls wrote a letter to Alcott and asked him, "who is the little woman who married". Unfinished ends add popularity to Little Women . Sicherman says that the unsatisfactory end serves to "keep the story alive", as if the reader might find it ending differently on various readings. "Alcott specifically fought against the conventional marriage plan in writing of Little Women." Alcott did not tell Jo to take Laurie's hand in marriage; on the contrary, when she arranges for Jo to marry, she describes an unconventional man as her husband. Alcott uses Friederich to "subvert teenage romantic ideals", because he is much older and does not seem to be suitable for Jo.
In 2003 Little Women was ranked number 18 in The Big Read, a British public survey by the BBC to determine "Nation's Best-loved Novel" (not a children's novel); it is the fourth highest among the published novels in the US on that list. Based on the 2007 online poll, the US National Education Association named it one of the "100 Best Teachers for Kids Books". In 2012, it ranks 48th among children's novels of all time in a survey published by the School Journal Library, monthly with major US audiences.
Influence
Little Women has become one of the most read novels recorded by Stern from the 1927 report in the New York Times and quoted in Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essay . Ruth MacDonald argues that "Louisa May Alcott stands out as one of the great practitioners of girls novels and family stories."
In the 1860s, the gender segregation of children's fiction was the more recent division of literature. This division marks the beginning of the polarization of gender roles as social construction "as classroom improvements increase". Joy Kasson writes, "Alcott noted the arrival of young girls, their struggles with issues such as selfishness and generosity, the nature of individual integrity, and, above all, the question of their place in the world around them." Girls associated with a sister March in Little Women, along with following in the footsteps of their heroes, by assimilating aspects of the story into their own lives.
After reading Little Women, some women find it necessary to "get a new and more common identity", but to rely on other factors such as financial resources. While Little Women demonstrates the ordinary lives of American middle-class girls, it also "legitimizes" their dreams to do something different and allows them to consider possibilities. More young women began writing stories that had adventure plots and "stories of individual achievement - traditionally encoding the socialization of women challenged by men into the home." Little Women also influenced contemporary European immigrants to the United States who wanted to assimilate into middle-class culture.
On the pages of Little Women, young girls and teens read the normalization of ambitious women. This provides an alternative to the previously normalized gender roles. Little Women has repeatedly reinforced the importance of "individuality" and "women's calling". Little Women has a "continuing relevance to its subject" and its "longevity points for a surprising continuity in gender norms from 1860 to at least until the 1960s." Those interested in domestic reform can look into the pages of Little Women to see how a "democratic household" will operate.
While "Alcott never questioned the value of the household", he challenged the social construction that made the old maidens obscure and discredit the members of society solely because they are not married. "Small Women indisputably magnifies American folk myths by insisting that women's homes and neighborhoods value individuality and thereby produce young adults who can make their way in the world while keeping a critical distance from their social arrangements. "Like all teenagers, girls in March should grow up. These sisters, and especially Jo, are concerned about maturity because they fear that, in keeping with what society wants, they will lose their particular individuality.
Alcott "makes women's rights an integral part of her story, and especially to Little Women." Alcott's fiction became "the most important feminist contribution" - even considering all of Alcott's efforts to help facilitate women's rights. "He thinks that" democratic households can develop into feminist societies. "In Little Women, he imagined that such evolution might begin with Plumfield, a nineteenth-century feminist utopia.
Little Women has a timeless resonance that reflects Alcott's understanding of his historical framework in the 1860s. Novel ideas do not interfere with the reader because the author completely controls the implications of the structure of his imagination. Sexual equality is the safety of marriage and family; democratic relationships make a happy ending. This is an imaginative frame that unifies Little Women .
Adaptations
Movies
In addition to the silent versions of 1917 and 1918, Little Women was filmed by George Cukor in 1933, Mervyn LeRoy in 1949, David Lowell Rich in 1978, and Gillian Armstrong in 1994.
In January 2017, a Little Women movie was announced with a casting call. The film will be produced by Maclain Nelson and Jake Van Wagoner.
Television
Little Women was adapted into television music, in 1958, by composer Richard Adler for CBS. Little Women has been made into a series four times by the BBC: in 1950 (when shown live), in 1958, in 1970, and in 2017.
In the 1980s, two anime series were made in Japan Little Women in 1981 and Tales of Little Women in 1987. Both anime series are dubbed in English and featured in American television as well. In 2012, The March Sisters at Christmas , using the character of the novel, created in 2012, fears their homes will be sold, broadcast, directed by John Simpson.
In May 2018, the Masterpiece Theater on PBS featured a new Little < written by Heidi Thomas from Call the Midwife and directed by Vanessa Caswill.
The 2018 adaptation is from Balaji Telefilms in India. This web series is called "Haq Se". Set in Kashmir, this series is a mordern book adaptation. He has starring Rajeev Khandelwal, Simone Singh, Surveen Chawla and Rukhsar Rehman among others.
Music and opera
The novel was adapted to a musical of the same name and debuted on Broadway at the Virginia Theater on January 23, 2005 and closed on May 22, 2005 after 137 shows. A production was also staged in Sydney, Australia in 2008.
The Houston Grand Opera commissioned and performed Little Women in 1998, and NPR broadcasted it on radio in the US. The Opera was featured on television in 2001 and has been staged by other opera companies since its premiere. Stage
The one-stage stage version, written by Gerald P. Murphy in 2009, has been produced in the US, UK, Italy, Australia, Ireland and Singapore.
Myriad Theater & amp; The film adapted this novel as a long drama staged in London and Essex in 2011.
Marisha Chamberlain and June Lowery have adapted this novel as a full length game; The last drama was staged in Luxembourg in 2014.
Web video
A modern adaptation of the novel, titled The March Family Letters , produced by Cherrydale Productions and distributed by Pemberly Digital on YouTube, with original work commencing December 25, 2014.
Audio drama
The dramatized version, produced by Focus on Family Radio Theater , was released on September 4, 2012.
See also
- Hillside (later renamed The Wayside), Alcott's family home (1845-1848) and real-life settings for some of the scenes of this book
- Orchard House, the Alcott family house (1858-1877) and the site where it was written; adjacent to The Wayside
References
External links
- Little Woman in Project Gutenberg
- Lesson plans for Little Women in Web English Teacher
- "Top 100 Novel Son # 25". School Library Journal Blog . Retrieved 2012-05-20 .
- 1945 radio adaptation novel at the Theater Guild on the Air on the Internet Archive
- Little Women public domain audiobook on LibriVox
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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