Louisa M.Alcott - Little Women

Louisa M.Alcott - Little Women

Little Women (or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy) is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—and is loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The first volume was an immediate commercial and critical success, prompting the composition of the book's second volume titled Good Wives, which was successful as well. The publication of the book in the form of a single volume first occurred in 1880. Alcott followed Little Women with two sequels, also featuring the March sisters, Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Little Women has been adapted as a play, a musical, an opera, a film, and animation.


Plot

Alcott's original work explores the overcoming of character flaws. Many of the chapter titles in this first part are allusions to the allegorical concepts and places in Pilgrim's Progress. When young, the girls played Pilgrim's Progress by taking an imaginary journey through their home. As young women, they agree to continue the figurative journey, using the "guidebooks" — copies of the New Testament, described as "that beautiful old story of the best life ever lived"; they receive on Christmas morning. Each of the March girls must struggle to overcome a character flaw: Meg, vanity; Jo, a hot temper; Beth, shyness; and Amy, selfishness.
In the course of the novel, the girls become friends with their next-door neighbor, the teenage boy Laurie. The book depicts the light hearted, often humorous activities of the sisters and their friend, such as creating a newspaper and picnicking, and the various "scrapes" that Jo and Laurie get into. Jo consistently struggles with the boundaries 19th century society placed on females, including not being able to fight in a war, not being able to attend college, and being pressured by her Aunt March to find a suitable husband to take care of her

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