Introduction
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Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
The following entry presents criticism on Alcott's novel Little Women. See also Louisa May Alcott Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism.
What is now known as Little Women includes both the original work by that title and its sequel, Good Wives. Written by Louisa May Alcott in 1868 and 1869 respectively, together these works have been long established as primary within the canon of juvenile literature and are considered by many to be the first children's books in America to break with the didactic tradition. Alcott introduced realism and entertainment to American children's literature, thereby achieving commercial success unknown to her moralizing contemporaries. Little Women is still read worldwide today.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1832, and raised in Concord, Massachusetts, and Boston. She was the second of four daughters of Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, a Transcendentalist, educational reformer, and well-known writer. Louisa, though more commercially successful than her father, faced many obstacles to the literary career she envisioned for herself. As a woman writer, she was expected to write sentimental and moralizing tales, and in order to earn a living as a writer, she was expected to cater to the sensational cravings of her audience. Although she did both successfully until her death in 1888, many critics argue that with Little Women, Alcott countered sensationalism with realism and subverted the moralizing purpose she often appeared to embrace.
Plot and Major Characters
In Part I, while Mr. March is away as a volunteer chaplain in the Civil War, the March girls, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, embark on "pilgrimages" toward selfimprovement, with the inspiration of John Bunyan's religious allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Their journeys, though, are largely determined by their own consciences and will rather than by dogma. Meg learns to overcome her vanity, Jo to overcome excessiveness and temper, Amy, greed and selfishness. Beth is already saintly and seems not to need change, but ironically, it is an act of charity—a visit to a sick infant—which results in the scarlet fever that weakens her health and precipitates her death.
Welcomed into this haven are neighbors Theodore Laurence (Laurie) and his grandfather, who are far from stock patriarchal figures; they are, rather, admirers who crave and aspire to the domestic peace enjoyed by the Marches. Laurie and Jo develop a close friendship that intrigued Alcott's readers, but she avoided the conventional romantic plot by refusing to have them marry. Jo, an unconventional girl who thinks of herself as the "man of the house" while her father is away, is more interested in developing her art and financially supporting her family than marrying.
Part II of Little Women, originally published separately as Good Wives, focuses on the girls' transitions into adulthood. Meg marries John Brooke, Laurie's tutor—a financially difficult but happy match. Amy loses some of her passion for art and marries Laurie after he has been refused by Jo and has recovered from the blow. Beth dies before she can reach adulthood, but her loss inspires Jo to take up her domestic role. Jo eventually marries Professor Bhaer, a middle-aged academic with whom she shares philosophical interests. They open a boys' school, where she, no longer a tomboy, becomes a mother-figure for the students.
Major Themes
Alcott's earlier work, often published under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, is generally characterized by sensational characters and plots, violence, melodrama, and romance—all consistent with the expectations of her readers. When asked to write a "girl's book," Alcott was yet again forced to write according to others' interests, but in this case she opted for more realism than sensationalism by choosing the only girl-hood she knew for her subject—her own. Based on her life, and that of her sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, Little Women follows the adolescence of the girls into adulthood, captures their private, domestic experience concretely, delineates their matriarchal haven of comfort and frugality, dramatizes their creative play, and explores their struggles to become artists, good sisters, and eventually happy wives. Although the culture of her time demanded that Alcott produce moralizing tales, she displayed a certain amount of resistance to that mandate in Little Women, preaching moderation rather than excessive religious molding. The girls are guided less by rigid moral strictures than by their strong sense of family, sometimes conveyed by words of wisdom from mother Marmee, but more often by a need to get along as a sisterly community. In part II this theme of sisterly love expands to include marriage and the formation of new families, with new roles for the three surviving sisters as good wives. Self-improvement, social responsibility, domestic cooperation, and matriarchal power, as well as the importance of play and artistic development, all serve as prominent themes in Little Women.
Critical Reception
The influence of Little Women has been vast, but historically limited to a female readership. Early critics received the novel with sentimental praise and an appreciation of Alcott's ability to meet the minds of her child readers, a view shared by Angela Brazil in her 1922 review. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Alcott was appreciated, like many American women writers, as merely a local colorist with a talent for portraying the domestic sphere concretely. In academia, her novel was studied only by the scholars of children's literature until the 1960s and 1970s, when it came under closer scrutiny by feminist critics, some of whom were frustrated with its outdated sentimentality, others of whom dismissed it because it seems to uphold the traditional separation of men's and women's spheres (public vs. private). In the 1980s, the new emphasis on expanding the canon to include marginalized writers and works associated with popular culture brought more attention to Little Women. It has achieved importance within Women's Studies and the American literary canon in general for its detailed descriptions of nineteenth-century family life and of female struggles for social identity. As Carolyn Heilbrun suggests, Little Women has been particularly influential on female readers in the twentieth century who, craving models of female autonomy, found one, at least briefly, in Alcott's character Jo. Recent critics have continued in this positive vein, calling further attention to the subversive elements in Little Women, recasting Jo as an early feminist who, like her creator, made the most of the limited possibilities open to women in her time.
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Alcott prefaces Little Women with an excerpt from John Bunyan’s seventeenth-century work The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical novel about leading a Christian life. Alcott’s story begins with the four March girls—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—sitting in their living room, lamenting their poverty. The girls decide that they will each buy themselves a present in order to brighten their Christmas. Soon, however, they change their minds and decide that instead of buying presents for themselves, they will buy presents for their mother, Marmee. Marmee comes home with a letter from Mr. March, the girls’ father, who is serving as a Union chaplain in the Civil War. The letter inspires the girls to bear their burdens more cheerfully and not to complain about their poverty.
On Christmas morning, the girls wake up to find books, probably copies of The Pilgrim’s Progress, under their pillows. Later that day, Marmee encourages them to give away their breakfast to a poor family, the Hummels. Their elderly neighbor, Mr. Laurence, whom the girls have never met, rewards their charitable activities by sending over a feast. Soon, Meg and Jo are invited to attend a New Year’s Party at the home of Meg’s wealthy friend, Sally Gardiner. At the party, Jo retreats to an alcove, and there meets Laurie, the boy who lives with Mr. Laurence. While dancing, Meg sprains her ankle. Laurie escorts the sisters home. The Marches regret having to return to their daily routine after the holiday festivities.
Jo visits Laurie when he is sick, and meets his grandfather, Mr. Laurence. She inadvertently insults a painting of Mr. Laurence in front of the man himself. Luckily, Laurie’s grandfather admires Jo’s spunk, and they become friends. Soon, Mr. Laurence meets all the sisters, and Beth becomes his special favorite. Mr. Laurence gives her his deceased granddaughter’s piano.
The girls have various adventures. Amy is caught trading limes at school, and the teacher hits her as punishment. As a result, Mrs. March withdraws her daughter from school. Jo refuses to let Amy go with her to the theater. In retaliation, Amy burns Jo’s manuscript, and Jo, in her anger, nearly lets Amy drown while ice-s-kating. Pretty Meg attends her friend Annie Moffat’s party and, after allowing the other girls to dress her up in high style, learns that appearances are not everything. While at the party, she hears that people think she intends to marry Laurie for his money.
That year, the Marches form the Pickwick Club, in which they write a family newspaper. In the spring, Jo smuggles Laurie into one of the club meetings, and he becomes a member, presenting his new circle with a postbox. At the beginning of June, the Marches decide to neglect their housework. At the end of a lazy week, Marmee takes a day off too. The girls spoil a dinner, but everyone ends up laughing over it. One day, Laurie has English friends over, and the Marches go on a picnic with them. Later, Jo gets a story published for the first time.
One dark day, the family receives a telegram saying that Mr. March is sick in the hospital in Washington, D.C. Marmee goes to tend to him, and Jo sells her hair to help finance the trip. Chaos ensues in Marmee’s wake, for the girls neglect their chores again. Only Beth goes to visit the Hummels, and after one of her visits, she contracts scarlet fever from the Hummel baby. Beth teeters on the brink of death until Marmee returns. Meanwhile, Amy spends time at Aunt March’s house in order to escape the disease. Beth recovers, though not completely, and Mr. Brooke, Laurie’s tutor, falls in love with Meg, much to Jo’s dismay. Mr. Brooke and Meg are engaged by the end of Part One.
Three years pass before Part Two begins. Mr. March is home from the war, and Laurie is nearly done with school. Soon, Meg marries and moves into a new home with Mr. Brooke. One day, Amy decides to have a lunch for her art school classmates, but poor weather ruins the festivities. Jo gets a novel published, but she must cut it down in order to please her publishers. Meanwhile, Meg struggles with the duties of keeping house, and she soon gives birth to twins, Demi and Daisy. Amy gets to go to Paris instead of Jo, who counted on the trip, because their Aunt Carroll prefers Amy’s ladylike behavior in a companion.
Jo begins to think that Beth loves Laurie. In order to escape Laurie’s affections for her, Jo moves to New York so as to give Beth a chance to win his affections. There Jo meets Professor Bhaer, a poor German language instructor. Professor Bhaer discourages Jo from writing sensationalist stories, and she takes his advice and finds a simpler writing style. When Jo returns home, Laurie proposes to her, but she turns him down. Beth soon dies.
Amy and Laurie reunite in France, and they fall in love. They marry and return home. Jo begins to hope that Professor Bhaer will come for her. He does, and they marry a year later. Amy and Laurie have a daughter named Beth, who is sickly. Jo inherits Plumfield, Aunt March’s house, and decides to turn it into a boarding school for boys. The novel ends with the family happily gathered together, each sister thankful for her blessings and for each other.
怎么写开题报告呢？
首先要把在准备工作当中搜集的资料整理出来，包括课题名称、课题内容、课题的理论依据、参加人员、组织安排和分工、大概需要的时间、经费的估算等等。
第一是标题的拟定。课题在准备工作中已经确立了，所以开题报告的标题是不成问题的，把你研究的课题直接写上就行了。比如我曾指导过一组同学对伦教的文化诸如“伦教糕”、伦教木工机械、伦教文物等进行研究，拟定的标题就是“伦教文化研究”。
第二就是内容的撰写。开题报告的主要内容包括以下几个部分：
一、课题研究的背景。 所谓课题背景，主要指的是为什么要对这个课题进行研究，所以有的课题干脆把这一部分称为“问题的提出”，意思就是说为什么要提出这个问题，或者说提出这个课题。比如我曾指导的一个课题“伦教文化研究”，背景说明部分里就是说在改革开放的浪潮中，伦教作为珠江三角洲一角，在经济迅速发展的同时，她的文化发展怎么样，有哪些成就，对居民有什么影响，有哪些还要改进的。当然背景所叙述的内容还有很多，既可以是社会背景，也可以是自然背景。关键在于我们所确定的课题是什么。
二、课题研究的内容。课题研究的内容，顾名思义，就是我们的课题要研究的是什么。比如我校黄姝老师的指导的课题“佛山新八景”，课题研究的内容就是：“以佛山新八景为重点，考察佛山历史文化沉淀的昨天、今天、明天，结合佛山经济发展的趋势，拟定开发具有新佛山、新八景、新气象的文化旅游的可行性报告及开发方案。”
三、课题研究的目的和意义。
课题研究的目的，应该叙述自己在这次研究中想要达到的境地或想要得到的结果。比如我校叶少珍老师指导的“重走长征路”研究课题，在其研究目标一栏中就是这样叙述的：
1、通过再现长征历程，追忆红军战士的丰功伟绩，对长征概况、长征途中遇到了哪些艰难险阻、什么是长征精神，有更深刻的了解和感悟。
2、通过小组同学间的分工合作、交流、展示、解说，培养合作参与精神和自我展示能力。
3、通过本次活动，使同学的信息技术得到提高，进一步提高信息素养。
四、课题研究的方法。
在“课题研究的方法”这一部分，应该提出本课题组关于解决本课题问题的门路或者说程序等。一般来说，研究性学习的课题研究方法有：实地调查考察法(通过组织学生到所研究的处所实地调查，从而得出结论的方法)、问卷调查法（根据本课题的情况和自己要了解的内容设置一些问题，以问卷的形式向相关人员调查的方法）、人物采访法（直接向有关人员采访，以掌握第一手材料的方法）、文献法（通过查阅各类资料、图表等,分析、比较得出结论）等等。在课题研究中，应该根据自己课题的实际情况提出相关的课题研究方法，不一定面面俱到，只要实用就行。
五、课题研究的步骤。
课题研究的步骤，当然就是说本课题准备通过哪几步程序来达到研究的目的。所以在这一部分里应该着重思考的问题就是自己的课题大概准备分几步来完成。一般来说课题研究的基本步骤不外乎是以下几个方面：准备阶段、查阅资料阶段、实地考察阶段、问卷调查阶段、采访阶段、资料的分析整理阶段、对本课题的总结与反思阶段等。
六、课题参与人员及组织分工。
这属于对本课题研究的管理范畴，但也不可忽视。因为管理不到位，学生不能明确自己的职责，有时就会偷懒或者互相推诿，有时就会做重复劳动。因此课题参与人员的组织分工是不可少的。最好是把所有的参与研究的学生分成几个小组，每个小组通过民主选举的方式推选出小组长，由小组长负责本小组的任务分派和落实。然后根据本课题的情况，把相关的研究任务分割成几大部分，一个小组负责一个部分。最后由小组长组织人员汇总和整理。
七、课题的经费估算。
一个课题要开展，必然需要一些经费来启动，所以最后还应该大概地估算一下本课题所需要 的资金是多少，比如搜集资料需要多少钱，实地调查的外出经费，问卷调查的印刷和分发的费用，课题组所要占用的场地费，有些课题还需要购买一些相关的材料，结题报告等资料的印刷费等等。所谓“大军未动，粮草先行”，没有足够的资金作后盾，课题研究势必举步维艰，捉襟见肘，甚至于半途而废。因此，课题的经费也必须在开题之初就估算好，未雨绸缪，才能真正把本课题的研究做到最好。
