Resumo de Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Little Women is set during the American Civil War in the 1860s. It describes the lives of the four March girls Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy who live with their mother (?Marmee?) while their father is away at the war. The girls live in reduced circumstances and struggle against the hardships and social humiliations of genteel poverty. As Little Women is a coming-of-age novel, the girls must also find their strengths and fight against their weaknesses. In this they are guided by the 17th century religious allegory The Pilgrim?s Progress which is an important intertext with the book. The tone of the novel is thus somewhat didactic and in that way very much of its time but this is offset by the book?s charm and good humour as well as the engaging characters of the four girls. Another positive feature of the book is the creativity and independence with which the girls keep themselves cheerful and fulfilled. They put on plays and form a literary society ?The Pickwick Club? and beyond marriage, nurture ambitions for themselves as writers and artists. The four contrasting characters of the girls form much of the narrative tension as does the role of handsome Laurie, the rich but lonely boy next door who lives with his seemingly curmudgeonly grandfather but is soon drawn into the lively world of the March girls.Meg at 16 is the oldest of the girls and perhaps the most conventional. She works as a governess for some spoiled children. She is pretty and good natured. Her main weakness involves a tendency towards vanity and coquetry. Along with Amy she perhaps finds the family?s straitened circumstances hardest to tolerate. She is drawn into temptation when she attends a fashionable ball with her friends who persuade her to dress up in the latest fashions and to drink wine and flirt. In so doing she faces the disapproval of Laurie and later feels sorry and ashamed for her frivolity and foolishness.Jo is the next in age and is the most vividly and sympathetically drawn of the characters being based on the author herself. Jo earns her living as a companion for irascible Aunt March. Determined to become a writer, Jo is slovenly and tomboyish, resistant to conforming to the ladylike demeanour required of her. She is impulsive loving and kind hearted but her fault lies in the destructive anger which she can find hard to control. This almost leads to tragedy on one occasion when after a quarrel, she ignores her youngest sister Amy as she follows her across a frozen pond and without warning her, allows her to walk over treacherous ice which cracks. Amy falls into the icy water and narrowly escapes drowning. This incident causes Jo to reflect remorsefully on the anger that consumed her and to resolve to be steadfast in fighting against it. Another side of Jo is seen when she selflessly cuts off all her beautiful long hair and sells it in a good cause.The third sister is Beth who is thirteen years old. She does not go to school because she is so painfully shy but instead learns at home with Marmee and busies herself about domestic tasks including the care of a band of ragged dolls. Sweet-natured Beth is also musically gifted. Frustrated by the lack of a decent piano to practise on, Laurie kindly offers her the use of his own. He assures the timid Beth that she can go in and out of the house unobserved and need speak to no-one. Unbeknownst to Beth however, her music is overheard and appreciated by Mr Lawrence, Laurie?s grandfather. This leads to his presenting Beth with a piano of her very own and her shyness is overcome by gratitude as she rushes forward and hugs the surprised and pleased old man.At 12 years old, Amy is the youngest of the March sisters. She attends school where she is popular and accomplished. Amy is pretty and has much confidence in her own abilities as an artist. She has tendencies to be vain, petty and self-centred. On one occasion, in a fit of spite, she deliberately destroyed Jo?s writing into which she had put much hard work and care. It was this action which provoked the rage which led to Jo leaving Amy on the treacherous ice. On another occasion, Amy meets her comeuppance when she is caned at school for surreptitiously eating pickled limes despite this being forbidden. Although Marmee thinks that Amy may have learned a salutatory lesson from this, the corporal punishment is disapproved of and Amy is removed from the school.Little Women is followed by a sequel Good Wives in which the readers discover which of the four March sisters the charming Laurie will eventually marry. 2 further books; Little Men and Jo?s Boys continue the story into the sisters? later life and their foundation of a progressive school.

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