Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

1. What is the genre?

Global—Status > Admiration

Secondary—Love > Courtship

2. What are the conventions and obligatory scenes for the genre?

Conventions

Strong Mentor Figure: Marmee (the mother of the March Girls): Marmee councils her daughters. She teaches her daughters the importance of self-sacrifice, kindness, and charitable giving. She encourages Jo to embrace her “gift” and go to New York. She tells her that how “can you expect to live an ordinary life with such extraordinary gifts?” This prompts Jo to go to New York and meet Professor Bhaer. After Aunt March dies, Jo is left Plumfield (her aunt’s house) and Marmee encourages Jo to turn it into a school. This echoes Jo’s character arc throughout the book. Jo becomes Amy’s teacher and after a male teacher had beat Amy. The teacher didn’t believe woman could learn or could teach. Jo reluctantly teaches Amy, and then tries to further her writing career. It’s only after Jo realizes that she shouldn’t sell out as an artist, that she also embraces teaching with Marmee’s encouragement.

Big Social Problem as Subtext: Society tells the March girls that woman can’t be educated or learn. When Jo goes to NYC, she is told that she should only publish in woman magazines because she is a woman. Jo challenges the norms of her world and rises above it. She learns not to sell out with her writing.

Shapeshifters as Hypocrites:  Amy, Jo’s pesky younger sister, transforms from a very immature girl who dreams about romance and love to being the only March girl who is artistically inclined and who doesn’t sell out ever. Amy states throughout the later half of the novel that she doesn’t want to do art for other people; she wants to do art solely for free expression.

The Herald, or Threshold Guardian is a fellow striver who sold out: Professor Bhaer hints that the publishers Jo meets were writers when they first came to NYC. However, they changed once they were in the city and essentially sold out.

A clear Point Of No Return/Truth Will Out moment, when the Protagonist knows they can never go back to the way things used to be: After her sister (Beth) dies, Jo realizes that she can’t go back to New York and continue to sell her work under a male name.

Ironic Win-But-Lose or Lose-But-Win bittersweet ending: Jo sells her work to a publisher but remains home and becomes a teacher. She becomes the thing that she continually said she would never become: a teacher. Jo is not a full-time writer like she wanted to be.

Obligatory Scenes

An inciting opportunity or challenge: After Amy’s professor thrashes her; Jo is selected by their mother to teach Amy. Amy’s former professor doesn’t believe women are smart enough to learn or teach.

Protagonist leaves home to seek fortune: Jo goes to New York to become a writer.

Forced to adapt to a new environment, Protagonist relies on old habits and humiliates himself: Jo goes around to publishers and tries to sell her work. All of the publishers tell her to try for woman’s magazines. She hears them laughing at her.

The Protagonist learns what the Antagonist's Object of Desire is and sets out to achieve it for himself: Jo knows that publishers won’t look at her writing because she is a woman. She starts publishing under a different name (a male one) and writing racy novels (pulp fiction).

Protagonist's initial strategy to outmaneuver Antagonist fails: Jo publishes a short story and shows it to her friend, Professor Bhaer, who doesn’t seem pleased. She confronts him, and he finally admits that she can write better than this and that she is selling out.

During an All Is Lost Moment, Protagonist realizes they must change their definition of success or risk betraying their morality: After Beth (Jo’s sister) dies, Jo falls into despair and debates about giving up writing. She remembers what Professor Bhaer told her that she can write better and that she should write from the heart.

The Core Event—Protagonist chooses to do what's necessary to attain status or reject the world that they strived to join: Jo choose to write again, and goes from wanting to just write to wanting to change people with her writing.

Protagonist saves or loses him/herself based on their action in the Core Event: Jo chooses not to sell out with her work and writes about her sisters and growing up. It is published under real name.

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3. What is the point of view and narrative device?

Third Person; the March Girls POV

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4. What are the objects of desire?

External/Conscious wants: All of the March girls are looking for their own place.  Beth: wants everyone to stay and live together and nothing to change. Meg: wants love. Amy: wants love. Jo: wants to be a writer.

Internal/Subconscious Needs: Love meaningful connection to another human. Beth: needs to understand that everyone changes and eventually people grow up. Amy: needs to mature and learn not to compromise her values when it comes to love. Meg: needs to learn not to compromise her values when it comes to love. Jo: needs to accept herself, step out of her comfort zone, and challenge herself as a writer. She goes from wanting to become a writer to wanting to make a difference with her writing. When she finally challenges herself and embraces her gift, then her heart opens to love.

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5. What is the controlling idea / theme?

Success results when woman follow their true natures and express their gifts for the benefit of others.

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6. What is the beginning hook, middle build and ending payoff?

Beginning Hook: When their father goes off to fight in the Civil War, the four March girls struggle to survive and make the best with the little money they have. After Amy (the youngest March girl) is struck by a professor (who doesn’t believe woman should be educated), the mother decides to take her out of school. The mother wants Jo to teach her. Jo must decide whether or not she wants to teach her sister. Jo takes on the responsibility to educate her sister, and Amy becomes her pupil.

Middle Build: After Jo becomes Amy’s teacher, they decide to write a play to further her education but then they get news that their father has been injured in the war. Mother is called away and Jo chops off her hair to pay for her mother’s passage on the train. Meanwhile, Beth gets sick with scarlet fever and recovers. (The book jumps forward five years) Jo finds out that Amy is going to France with Aunt March. Will Jo decide to stay home, marry Teddy, and lead an ordinary life, or go to New York? Jo decides to go to New York and meets Professor Bhaer. 

Ending Payoff: While in New York, Jo gets some of her stories published, however Professor Bhaer tells her that she can write better and should not sell out. When Beth becomes sick again, Jo goes back home and her sister dies. Will Jo’s despair stop her from writing, or will she take a chance and unleash her gift? Jo writes about her sisters, completes her manuscript, and send it off to a publisher. She is left Aunt March’s house and decides to turn it into a school and marries Professor Bhaer.

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