Louisa May Alcott --the “good daughter”--

LMA at 25

and Little Women

Bronson Alcott

• Abolition of slavery• Women’s rights• Critic of fashion

extremes

Both Parents:Social responsibilityNon-material values Christian compassion Self-sacrifice

• Transcendentalism• Fruitlands• Educational Reform•The Pilgrim’s Progress

Abba Alcott

Abba Alcott: Abolitionist

• How does this issue enter Little Women?

Abba Alcott: Advocate of Women’s Independence

• Women at workHow viewed in Little Women?

• Restrictive gender expectations– Lady-like appearance and

behaviorJo’s “burden” transformed

– Wifely dutyMeg: the new wife

– The “house-band”

Abba Alcott: Critic of Ostentatious Fashion

Extreme Fashion:• Enforces social inequities• Uses exploitive manufacture

– sweat shops

– cotton: slaves

• Promotes egotism and self-indulgence

Silk afternoon dress, 1868-78

Abba republished John Owen’s The Fashionable World Displayed

New Year’s Eve Ball

• Marches disapprove of vain fashion

• But without some show, the family would have no social presence

• Good breeding not enough

Winona Ryder in Little Women 1994

(Ch. 3)

Meg and Fashion

• Meg’s Wedding?

• The “violet silk”?

Cinoline period silks, 1863-67

Bronson Alcott: Transcendental Philosopher

• Nature (including people) is rooted in God

• People can know God through nature and intuition

• Self-reliance, compassion, self-sacrifice

Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits 1849

Bronson Alcott:Educational Reformer

• Education should draw out of the child his innate nobility and wisdom

“My father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child's nature, as a flower blooms, rather than crammed it, like a Strasbourg goose, with more than it could digest.” LMA

Where is Bronson Alcott’s educational

philosophy strongly reflected in LW?

Fruitlands

“The entrance to paradise is still through the strait and narrow

gate of self-denial” Bronson Alcott • Experimental commune 1840s

• Dress code:– simple work clothes– non-exploitive manufacture

• no cotton, wool, or silk

• Vegan diet (fruit-lands)• No animal labor or provision (manure, honey)• No trade with outer world; no surpluses• Failed: insufficient crops without animals; some

members failed to perform equal labor

“Experiments” (Ch. 11)

• “You may try your experiment for a week, and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that . . .” (LW 109)

• What did the girls try and what did they learn?

• How did their “utopian

community” compare toFruitlands?

The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bronson Alcott’s Favorite Book)

• The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come: Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream (1675)

• John Bunyan (1628-1688): poor,

uneducated tinker• Imprisoned 12 years/1 year

as unlicensed Nonconformist

preacher• Wrote PP during 2nd prison term

The Pilgrim’s Progress Opening

“As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back . . . As he read, he wept, and trembled . . . saying, ‘What shall I do?’”

Christian’s Journey

• Christian, instructed by the Evangelist, sets out for the Celestial City to escape destruction of world.

• Bogs down in the Slough of Despond; pulled out by Help

• Visits the House Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation, Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair (show of worldliness, materialism, feasting, etc.)

William Blake’s illustration of Christian

How does Little Women reflect the structure and themes of The Pilgrim’s Progress?

Mrs. March’s Proposal

“Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrim’s Progress when you were little? Nothing delighted you more than to have me tie my piece-bags on your backs for burdens, give you hats and sticks, and rolls of paper, and let you travel through the house from the cellar, which was the City of Destruction, up, up, to the house-top, where you had all the lovely things you could collect to make a Celestial City. . . . Now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play, but in earnest, and see how far on you can get before father comes home” (10-11)

Burdens

• Meg’s burden

• Jo’s burden

• Beth’s burden

• Amy’s burden

“I’ll try to be . . . a ‘little woman,’ not rough and wild.”

“Mine is dishes and dusters, and envying girls with nice pianos, and being afraid of people.”

“I am a selfish pig!”

“I think too much of my looks and hate to work”

Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful

• “The very big house did prove a Palace Beautiful, though it took some time for all to get in, and Beth found it hard to pass the lions. Old was the biggest one. . . . The other lion was the fact that they were and Laurie “ (Little Women 58)

• “Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee.” (The Pilgrim’s Progress, part I, stage 3)

• What courageous things does Beth do in this chapter?

Mr.Lawrence

poor rich

Amy’s Valley of Humiliation

“I should not have chosen that way of mending a fault . . . But I’m not sure that it won’t do you more good than a milder method. You are getting to be altogether too conceited and important, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it” (Little Women 70).

What had happened?

“’You don’t know; you can’t guess how bad it is! I get so savage, I could hurt any one, and enjoy it” (LW 79)

What had happened?

Christian Defeats Apollyon, Illustration in The New Amplified Pilgrim’s Progress

The Destroyer; -- a name used (Rev. ix. 11) for the angel of the bottomless pit, variant of the Hebrew Abaddon.

Jo Meets Apollyon

Meg Goes to Vanity Fair

• Belle Moffat’s soiree

• How does Med dress?

• How does she behave?

Champagne, flirting, silly talk: “I’m not Meg tonight; I’m ‘a doll,’ who does all sorts of crazy things. To-morrow I shall put away my ‘fuss and feathers,’ and be desperately good again” (LW 94)

Part I and Part II

Men are incorporated in a strictly non-patriarchal arrangement with males exhibiting the nurturing behavior conventionally reserved for women in “separate spheres” society.

Female-centered world (1 male pro-visionally admitted) where “burdens” are tackled and “Progress” achieved.

A New Vision of the Family

“Don’t shut your husband out of the nursery, but teach him how to help in it. His place is there as well as yours, and the children need him . . . That is the secret of our home happiness. [Father] does not let business wean him from the little cares and duties that affect us all. . . . Each do our part alone in many things, but at home we work together, always” (392)

Graphics Acknowledgements

• www.louisamayalcott.org• William Blake’s illustration of Christian:

http://library.uncg.edu/depts/speccoll/exhibits/Blake/pilgrims_progress.html

• apollyon: www.orionsgate.org• vanity fair: www.thebaptistpage.com• Fruitlands: www.esoteric.msu.edu/Tours/Alcott.html• Durand’s Kindred Spiris: www.artchive.com• movie stills: www.erasofelegance.com/littlewomenphotos.html and

www.romanticmovies.about.com• www.costumes.org/history• Bunyan, Allegorist: www.wmcarey.edu/carey/portraits• Violet silk dress:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/barnard/theater/kirkland/3136/Crinoline%20Gallery/pages/07.1865.1.htm

• Victorian schoolchildren: www.pembschool.org/uk