Louisa May Alcott --the

1
Louisa May Alcott --the good daughter--
and Little Women
LMA at 25
2
Bronson Alcott
Abba Alcott

• Abolition of slavery
• Womens rights
• Critic of fashion
• extremes

Both Parents Social responsibility Non-material
values Christian compassion Self-sacrifice

• Transcendentalism
• Fruitlands
• Educational Reform
• The Pilgrims Progress

3
Abba Alcott Abolitionist

• How does this issue enter Little Women?

4
Abba Alcott Advocate of Womens Independence

• Women at work
• How viewed in Little Women?
• Restrictive gender expectations
• Lady-like appearance and behavior
• Jos burden transformed
• Wifely duty
• Meg the new wife
• The house-band

5
Abba Alcott Critic of Ostentatious Fashion
Abba republished John Owens The Fashionable
World Displayed

• Extreme Fashion
• Enforces social inequities
• Uses exploitive manufacture
• sweat shops
• cotton slaves
• Promotes egotism and self-indulgence

Silk afternoon dress, 1868-78
6
New Years Eve Ball
(Ch. 3)

• 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
7
Meg and Fashion

• Megs Wedding?
• The violet silk?

Cinoline period silks, 1863-67
8
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. Durands Kindred Spirits 1849
9
Bronson AlcottEducational 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 Alcotts educational philosophy
strongly reflected in LW?
10
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

11
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 to
• Fruitlands?

12
The Pilgrims Progress (Bronson Alcotts
Favorite Book)

• The Pilgrims 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

13
The Pilgrims 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?

14
Christians 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 Blakes illustration of Christian
15
How does Little Women reflect the structure and
themes of The Pilgrims Progress?
16
Mrs. Marchs Proposal

• Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrims
  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)

17
Burdens

• Megs burden
• Jos burden
• Beths burden
• Amys burden

I think too much of my looks and hate to work
Ill 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!
18
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 Pilgrims Progress, part I,
  stage 3)
• What courageous things does Beth do in this
  chapter?

Mr.Lawrence
poor
rich
19
Amys Valley of Humiliation

• I should not have chosen that way of mending
  a fault . . . But Im not sure that it wont 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?

20

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

• You dont know you cant 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 Pilgrims Progress
21
Meg Goes to Vanity Fair

• Belle Moffats soiree
• How does Med dress?
• How does she behave?

Champagne, flirting, silly talk Im not Meg
tonight Im 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)
22
Part I and Part II

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

Men are incorporated in a strictly
non-patriarchal arrangement with males exhibiting
the nurturing behavior conventionally reserved
for women in separate spheres society.
23
A New Vision of the Family

• Dont 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)

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Graphics Acknowledgements

• www.louisamayalcott.org
• William Blakes illustration of Christian
  http//library.uncg.edu/depts/speccoll/exhibits/Bl
  ake/pilgrims_progress.html
• apollyon www.orionsgate.org
• vanity fair www.thebaptistpage.com
• Fruitlands www.esoteric.msu.edu/Tours/Alcott.html
  
• Durands Kindred Spiris www.artchive.com
• movie stills www.erasofelegance.com/littlewomenph
  otos.html and www.romanticmovies.about.com
• www.costumes.org/history
• Bunyan, Allegorist www.wmcarey.edu/carey/portrait
  s
• Violet silk dress http//www.columbia.edu/itc/bar
  nard/theater/kirkland/3136/Crinoline20Gallery/pag
  es/07.1865.1.htm
• Victorian schoolchildren www.pembschool.org/uk