Analysis of Feminism in Little Women
Abstract:Little Women, written by American writer Louisa May Alcott, was regarded as the classic work about women growth. It mainly tells the growing-up experiences of the four March sisters in Massachutts New England during the American Civil War. The four March sisters cannot stand their poor life and go out to work, earn money for the family in order to lesn the pressure of their parents and pursue their economic independence, realize their lf-value. A lot of experience and life experience which brought different fates make them more mature step by step and become the little women. This thesis mainly analyzes the Feminism in Little Women from the following points. It introduces the definition of Feminism and Alcott’s life especially her literary career, analyzes the characteristics of female characters in Little Women, and shows the common points of the four sisters and complicated and changing emotion between mother and daughter. It makes a conclusion: the four sisters annotate the New Woman Ideology and Feminism by strong will, kind-heart and independence.
Key words:Little Women; love; independence; feminism
浅析《小妇人》中的女性主义
摘要：美国作家路易莎·梅·奥尔科特的作品《小妇人》是一部关于女性成长的经典之作。这部小说主要讲述了美国南北战争时期马萨诸塞州马奇家的四姐妹的成长故事。小说女主人公们不满足家庭主妇式的生活，要求走出家门、步入社会、追求经济上的独立，渴望通过发挥自己的才智以实现自我价值。种种感情体验和生活经历所带来的不同命运使她们不断走向成熟，成为真正的小妇人。这篇论文主要介绍女性主义理论和路易莎·梅·奥尔科特的文学人生，分析《小妇人》中的女性形象；阐述女孩们的在成长过程中的共同点以及复杂多变的母女情节。最后，四个女孩用自己的坚强，善良和独立诠释出新女性的形象和女性主义。
关键词：小妇人; 爱情; 独立; 女性主义
Introduction
Little Women is a novel published in 1868 and written by American author Louisa May Alcott. The story concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It was bad on Alcott’s own experiences as a child in Concord, Massachutts with her three sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth.
随遇而安近义词It is the story of the Marches, a family ud to hard toil and suffering. Although Father March is away with the Union armies, the sisters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth keep in high spirits with their mother name
d Marmee. However, despite their efforts to be good, the girls show faults: the pretty Meg becomes discontented with the children she teaches, boyish Jo los her temper regularly, while the golden-haired schoolgirl Amy is inclined towards affectation. However, Beth, who keeps the hou, is always kind and gentle. After certain happy times winning over the Laurence’s, dark times arrive as Maumee finds out about her husband’s illness. What makes matters wor is that Beth is infected with scarlet fever in her Samaritan efforts for a sick neighbor and becomes an invalid. This is the story of their growing maturity and wisdom and the arch for the contentedness of family life. It has become a much loved classic tale. It includes most problems which probably happen in the growth of young girls, such as the problems in first love, friendship between teenagers and the gap between the dream and the reality.
The rearch on the novel is mainly focud on the following aspects: Interpretation of American society from the traditional culture angle, Transcendentalism in Little Women, from the angle of family education, from the angle of characters. At prent, feminist studies often focus on the female to pursue the independence, freedom and equality and women’s independent consciousness. There are many rearches on Little Women and feminism, however this thesis will analyze Little Women from the perspective of feminism to guide people to pay attention to the growth of women. By descri
bing four girl’s experience and life experience brought different fates, this paper analyzes the different characters of the four March girls and also analyzes the factors that influence their characters. Through the paper, we can e the kindness, loyalty, lflessness, generosity, respect, tolerance, perverance and courage promoted in the book. They are also the virtues and beliefs that people always respect and pursue.
1. Brief Introduction to Feminism and Louisa May Alcott
The period in which Louisa May Alcott lived was the boom years of Feminism and women emancipation movement in America. Influenced by this, she tried to become the spokesperson of women at that time in her unique way. Her feminist ideas are embodied in her novels. In order to explore it, we must take feminism at that time into consideration.
1.1 Background of Feminism
The word “f eminism” appeared first in France in the 1880s, Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910. The Oxford English Dictionary listed “feminism” in 1894. Prior to that time “Woman’s Rights” was probably the term ud most commonly.
Feminism is a philosophy in which women and their contributions are valued. It is bad on social, political and economical equality for women. It is a revolution that includes women and men who wish the world to be equal without boundaries. The boundaries or blockades are better known as discrimination and bias against gender, xual orientation, age, marital status and economic status. (Simpson, Hillary 1992:35) Feminism began when women began to note the limited and condary roles allotted to fictional heroines, women writers and female critics, as mentioned above and to ask about rious questions about their own relation to literary study. In an attempt to answer the questions like “How were women repre nted in men’s literary texts? What was the relationship between the textual harassment of women and the oppression of women in society? And why were women abnt from literary history?” The Feminist Movement emerged around the late 19th century.Feminism, as a whole, came in three waves, each dealing with different aspects of the same issue. The first wave happened in the 19th century and it dealt mainly with the suffrage movement. The cond wave (1960s-1980s) dealt with the inequality of laws, and the unoffical inequalities. The third wave of feminism (1990s-current) aro from the perceived failures of the cond wave.There is no doubt that feminism is to strive to change the situation and status of women.
1.2 Alcott’s Life and Literary Career
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1.2.1 Alcott’s Life
Louisa May Alcott, a nineteenth-century American writer, retains her reputation as one of America’s best-loved writers of youth. That fame was established with the publication of Little Women (1868-1869), which has long been recognized as girls’ growing-up story and it is also
viewed as Alcott’s autobiographic novel, describing her and her sisters’ initiatory experiences.
山东潍坊风筝Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29th, 1832. She was the daughter of the transcendental philosopher and educator Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May, a descendant of one of Boston’s prominent families. Alcott and her three sisters were predominantly raid in Concord, Massachutts, just outside of Boston. They took in the practical Christianity from their mother and were educated by their father with unconventional teaching methods and high-minded idealism.
The Alcott family was always short of m oney. The eccentric Bronson Alcott’s various social and educational experiments, and his inability to maintain a stable income, often brought the family to the brink of poverty. While the material life was simple, the intellectual and family lives were exceptionally rich as the father brought his daughters into contact with some of the great intellectuals
of the day, including transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and great literary men like Nathaniel Hawthorne. Therefore, during Louisa May Alcott’s formative years, she often paid visits to Emerson’s library, made excursions into nature with Thoreau, and went to theatricals in the barn at Hillside. She also absorbed concepts about philosophical ideas and contemporary social movements such as Transcendentalism, women’s suffrage, coeducation, and the abolition of slavery.
Alcott’s family background of high-minded idealism often mixed with acute poverty. Often she was the only economic kingpin of her family and she found many jobs that would increa the family income, from wing to domestic rvice, from teaching to rving as companion to an invalid on a European tour. Meanwhile, Alcott kept writing and led a successfully literary life.
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1.2.2 Alcott’s Literary Career
Alcott was a shy person who did not understand why people were constantly trying to meet her. Also, as a woman, she was fond of adventures but afraid of boredom. She considered her contributions to American literature to be less than outstanding. She inhe rited her mother’s dark physical features as well as her volatile temperament and active approach to life. She grew up in a humble atmosphere and was taught to do the best she could, but not for anyone’s compliments or rewards.山的四字词语
Alcott was required by her parents to begin keeping a diary when she was ven. Bronson Alcott encouraged his daughters to record their daily obrvations and feelings in their diaries.
He and his wife would often read the diaries and make comments in the margins. Judging from her diaries and the writings of her biographers, her mother’s respon was “To the First Robin, you will grow up a Shakespeare”.
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Reading widely helped writing. The Alcott girls were encouraged to read. Bronson Alcott read The Pilgrim’s Progress, an all egorical tale by John Bunyan, to the girls as part of their moral and religious education. Books by the most respected and famous writers for children of that time were available to the Alcott girls. Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte were two of Louisa May Alcott’s favorite writers.
Alcott tried her ink-stained hand at a wide variety of genres for the periodical press: poetry, fairy tales, short stories of sweetness and delight. Her early career as a writer began with her frequent contributions of ntimental short stories and Gothic thrillers to diver magazines. Alcott also developed an early liking for writing for children when George Briggs of Boston published her Flower Fables in 1854. It was a collection of fairy tales which Alcott had written for Ellen Emerson, Ralph Wa
ldo Emerson’s daughter, when she tutored her. A milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches published in 1863. It was bad on the letters she wrote to her family about the men whom she nurd at the Union Hotel Hospital during the Civil War.
In 1867, Alcott’s editor, Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers, approached her about writing a novel for girls. Then the first volume of Little Women was written at Orchard Hou from May to July 1868. It was an overnight success when it appeared in print. A quel took Alcott another two months to write, which was also a success. Alcott followed Little Women’s success with numerous stories and novels (such as Little Men, Jo’s Boys) that continued to be come very popular among her reading fans. On the other hand, Alcott wrote a totally different type of stories called blood-and-thunder thrillers of passion and revenge published under the pudonym of “A. M. Barnard”. The most influential was entitled A Fatal Cha of Love.
Diaries, family encouragement, literary friends, extensive reading, lots of practice and her natural talent for story telling made Alcott a successful writer. In all, Alcott published over 30 books and collections of stories.
练胸Louisa May Alcott tried to become the spokesperson of women at that time in her own way. As a gre中国古代十大名剑
at and outstanding female writer, Louisa May Alcott vividly shows us fresh women images in Little Women through her unique and keen sight. We can conclude that Alcott is
