See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/355808682

An Analysis of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women Through a Feminist Lens

Thesis · September 2021

CITATIONS READS
0 7,244

1 author:

Munia Islam
North South University
6 PUBLICATIONS 0 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Munia Islam on 01 November 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Islam, 1

ENG346 Research Paper

Name: Munia Islam

ID: 1711475015

Instructor: A.Q.M.A. Rahman Bhuiyan

An analysis of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women Through a Feminist Lens

Louisa May Alcott, an American author popular for her domestic tales for children, wrote Little

Women in 1868 as a reflection of her own domestic life projecting various social and personal

struggles through the characters in the novel. The novel is popularly regarded as a ‘woman’s

novel’ and is a coming-of-age novel that focuses on the March family during the time of the civil

war. The characters mainly involve the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy respectively

and the plot of the novel surrounds the four sisters and their struggles through life and age. Since

the novel consists and focuses mainly on all female characters, the aim of this paper will be to

explore all of the characters individually and analyze them to determine if Alcott kept any kind

of feminist movements in mind while writing these characters. With the first wave of feminism

formally beginning in 1848 and the novel written in 1868, this paper will try to analyze the novel

to find any sort of formal feminist implications made throughout the novel as an influence of the

first wave of feminism. The paper will try to answer the question of Little Women being a

feminist novel. It will then proceed to scrutinize to see if the novel really served a purpose in

terms of feminism during its time or did it just promote the domestication of women as a more

comfortable idea.
 Islam, 2

Little Women is not just another children’s novel that just talks about duty and conformity, it’s a

didactic novel that does not preach to the reader directly but leaves a lot of things open-ended for

the reader to ponder upon and reach a conclusion themselves. The novel provides a tied story for

all four sisters, true but for their characters to be analyzed, the novel leaves that part to the reader

themselves to decide. In order to analyze all four sisters individually, it is important for the

reader to keep an open mind to how the girls were being brought up, what their personal,

familial, and societal struggles were and the time and era the story was set in. Keeping that in

mind, a critical yet detailed analysis of the four March sisters is done as follows.

The first daughter of the March family and the Oldest of the March sisters, Meg March is

portrayed as the ideal daughter of the 19th century didactic novels. Her character is

sweet-natured, feminine, and also romantic. Similar to her mother in character, Meg was also

named after her. Meg is everything one would expect an ideal American daughter to be during

the 19th century. She is dutiful, responsible, and well-composed. Her feminine traits were what

would generally be expected of anyone worth being called a lady at the time. Being the only

child who remembered anything from the family’s wealthy days, Meg was sort of nostalgic for

the days of riches their family left behind and is always seen to be longing for everything fancy

and lavish. Amongst all her dream-girl traits, the one flaw that her character displays at the

beginning of the novel is avarice. Her struggle of overcoming her wants and her eventually

ending up with John Brooke for love and not for wealth shows major character development for

Meg throughout the novel. However, getting married and having children were the expected

outcomes of every girl during the 19th century. Even though the development of Meg through

her realization of what’s important in life was spectacular, it still falls pale considering how

women who were not choosing the path of life chosen by Meg were looked down upon. For a
 Islam, 3

brief period in the novel, Meg’s character can also be considered as a push-over. Her lack of

protest at being dressed up like a doll at the Moffat’s is an example that shows how Meg allows

her yearning for a certain lifestyle to derive her from things that her family taught her were

important.

Jo, short for Josephine, is the second March sister and the protagonist of the novel. With her

tomboyish nature and disappointment over not being born as a boy, Jo March’s character was

somewhat based on Louisa May Alcott, the writer herself. The whole domestic life of the March

family was somewhat based on Alcott’s family life considering how Alcott had an older sister

and two younger sisters as well. Alcott, like Jo, was also very much frustrated at the gendered

world and what it meant to be a woman in the 19th century. Jo is also portrayed to be very

outspoken about what she wants throughout the novel. Even though the readers anticipate

something happening between Jo and Laurie, Jo turns Laurie down by establishing her

independence and lowering her possibilities of being predictable. Jo’s passion for writing and

becoming a writer also shows great resilience as a character. Her headstrong personality is also

very different from what conventional female characters from the 19th century usually looked

like. Her stance as a man shows how she wanted to go about the world and take it by his horns

by being one of them in a man’s world even after being a woman. Alcott drew Jo out to be a very

original character with her bold, brave, daring but most importantly, real nature. Her annoyance

with not being able to go fight in the war alongside her father also expresses her annoyance at the

gendered world with its gendered roles. Even her preference of going by a more masculine name

like ‘Jo’ rather than her feminine name ‘Josephine’ shows her overall irritation in confining

herself to everything that came with being a woman. Her unladylike behavior throughout the

novel acts as a silent protest towards everything the society stood for when it came to women.
 Islam, 4

Her having to become a man to compete in a man’s world and feel empowered might come off as

off-putting to feminists of the present times but it is through this phase of her life that she later

finds out that having space for love and being feminine does not take that power away from her.

Beth is the third March sister with a very shy and quiet nature. She would be the “angel in the

house” if described in Virginia Woolf’s words. Beth is always trying to please people and works

hard to keep the family together. In terms of her character, Beth is closer to Jo than the other two

sisters. She is like an old-fashioned heroine one would find in the typical 19th-century novels.

However, her character is not strong enough and is too angelic for the world Alcott had created

so she is killed off in a natural death while the other three sisters survive in the said realistic

fictional world. In a way, Beth and Jo are close because of their antisocial inclination and also

their frustration at women having to bend according to social conformations and conventions.

However, the nature of their protests was different. While Jo was more bold and outspoken in her

approach, Beth was more soft-spoken and delicate in her approach. However, Beth did not really

think much about what the other sisters usually thought about. Her only priorities included music

and other than that, she was more or less content with where she was and what she had. Her

constant thoughts about God and Heaven and her being portrayed as the angel in the house were

like a foreshadow of her death that hung over her head. Her character did not bring forth any

kind of premonition of anything happening with her life by the end of the novel which also

hinted towards the death of her character.

Last but not the least, the youngest of the March sisters, Amy March. Amy’s character is a

classic contrast to the character of Jo. As easy as it is to love the character of Jo, it is as easy to

hate the character of Amy because of her snobbish and spoiled nature. Being the youngest, her

nature of being spoiled comes almost naturally if not stereotypically. Even though Amy grows up
 Islam, 5

to be a fine woman later on by the end of the novel, her character proves it very hard for the

common reader to like her as is. A significant event that seals the deal is when Amy decides to

burn Jo’s manuscript because she was left alone at home while all the other sisters went to the

theatres with Laurie. Her interest to live and be involved in high society comes off as very

snobbish in the beginning but being their mother’s daughter she soon realizes the value of love

and family over money. In this regard, Meg and Amy are very much alike. As a result, in terms

of this, the two sisters are closer to each other than the other two sisters. Their ability to find their

places in a gendered world also proves their triumph in an unconventional way for now but a

very conventional and ideal way for the 19th century.

Feminist movements in a vast sense are usually divided into three waves. The first wave started

in the 19th century and focused on political equality which eventually gave women the right to

vote. Then came the second wave during the ’60s and 70’s which focused on legal and

professional equality for women and last but not least, the third wave that has been going on for

a while now has been focusing on social equality for women. Being divided into these three

waves, feminism has since seen different categories and types that included a more concentrated

and focused set of beliefs to be included in these more vast categories. In the novel Little Women,

the main focus was put on the characters to emphasize the growth of human life and the nature of

human life while the characters went through their individual personal journeys and struggles.

However, in the process of doing that, the novel also ended up displaying certain traits that fall

under different kinds of feminism. Through the analysis of the March sisters done above, it

becomes easier for the reader to judge all four characters as their own individual person and what

kind of feminist characteristics they display throughout their lives in order to survive in the

19th-century society. Each of the sisters possesses a unique yet original method of survival under
 Islam, 6

their sleeves and uses it to their advantage whenever needed as per their wishes and interests.

This itself displays a kind of feminist notion that shows how all the sisters eventually choose

what they want for themselves rather than being influenced or coerced into choosing something

they do not want for themselves as seen in other 19th-century novels. Moving on to the specific

types of feminism that are upheld in the novel -- upon analysis of some specific events that

occurred in the novel, it is safe to conclude that Little Women carried and met the requirements

of Liberal feminism, Marxist Feminism, Radical feminism, and Existentialist feminism. A

further detailed discussion is provided as follows.

Liberal feminism, or more popularly known as mainstream feminism focuses on achieving

freedom from gender oppressive roles and equality for women. This kind of feminism can be

seen in the novel in how the March daughters work hard to provide for themselves and also for

their mother at times. This brings the sisters out of the assigned gender role that states that a man

should be the one providing and the woman should be the one being taken care of. By stepping

up in absence of their fathers and also contributing their hard-earned money to things like buying

their mother a Christmas gift, the March sisters fight the typical gender roles set during the 19th

century. The sentiment is expressed when Jo makes the following comment,

"Mother didn't say anything about our money,

and she won't wish us to give up everything.

Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun;

I'm sure we work hard enough to earn it," (3)

 Islam, 7

The quote by Jo displays her nature and ability to fend for herself. Her mentality of working hard

and fulfilling their own needs themselves satisfies the requirements for it to fall under liberal

feminism.

Marxist feminism believes that a woman is defined by her social existence which in turn is

defined by the nature of work she does or the role she plays in society. When their father goes off

to war, Jo can not help but feel annoyed at the fact that she is a woman which prevents her from

joining her father in the war. However, in the absence of their father, the role of being the head of

the family falls onto one of the four sisters which Jo eventually ends up taking. This change in

family roles and a woman being in charge of the family as well as the breadwinner satisfies the

criteria of the Marxist feminist movement. Meg tries to take on the ropes of the family when Jo

cuts in to announce herself as the ‘man of the family’ with the quote --

"I'm the man of the family now Papa is away.” (6)

This change in ‘who wears the pants’ and a woman taking charge of the whole family while

changing her social roles on top of Jo being the tomboy she is, breaks a few societal gender

norms of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the novel, in a scene where Jo puts her hands in her pockets and starts

whistling, the following exchange takes place between Jo and Amy --

‘Don’t, Jo. It’s so boyish!’

‘That’s why I do it.’

‘I detest rude, unladylike girls!’

 Islam, 8

‘I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!’

Jo’s adamant and clear nature at being boyish and her preference of being bold and staying

outside rather than staying home all day gets expressed in the lines above. This particular nature

of Jo hints towards Existentialist feminism. This type of feminism focuses on freedom,

interpersonal relationships, and the overall experience of living as a human body. This again

throws light on how Jo does not mind coming across as unladylike with her clothes, body

language, and slang which further establishes her independence and her reluctance towards

bedding as per societal norms. This does not only define her freedom of expression but also her

objection towards oppression from men by taking control of her own body and language.

When Amy gets punished from school because of the ignorance of her friends, Mrs. March

makes the following comment,

“I don’t approve of corporal punishment, especially for girls.

I dislike Mr. Davis’s manner of teaching and

don’t think the girls you associate with are doing you any good” (121)

Mrs. March’s disapproval of Amy’s punishment hints towards the clauses of Radical feminism

which states the oppression of women is closely related to their biological orientation. It also

rejects the idea of how the female body is considered to be weak and is seen as a symbol of

oppression. Through this disapproval of Amy’s punishment, the mentality of condemning any

such behavior especially towards women is a sign of radical feminism. The event itself was not
 Islam, 9

ordinary given how the March family were from the 19th century but then again, nothing about

the March family was all that ordinary.

All in all, it can be concluded that traces of feminism can be found in the novel through the

struggles of the characters and the survival of the March sisters in a men’s world by actively

placing themselves in it rather than staying behind the curtains. Little women might not be a

feminist novel in the conventional definition provided by the present time but is a ‘woman’s

novel’ from its own time that reflected several types of feminism by placing the female

characters in a man’s world to survive on their own, in their own ways. It served its purpose of

being a didactic novel without directly preaching to its readers and gave women a window of

expression and inspiration in domestic life in the 19th Century. Even though it can not be

considered as a novel of feminist empowerment for the present time, it has still justly served its

purposes during its time.

Bibliography:

1. Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women (Puffin in Bloom). Puffin Books, 2014.

2. Wikipedia contributors. “History of Feminism.” Wikipedia, 28 Aug. 2021,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism.

3. “Liberal Feminism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, 31 Dec. 2020, plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal.

View publication stats

Islam, 10

4. “Feminist Perspectives on Class and Work (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 28 Sept. 2016,

plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-class.

5. “Self-Dependent and Self-Sustained Women in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.”

Adalya Journal, vol. 9, no. 10, 2020. Crossref, doi:10.37896/aj9.10/023.