Little Women

Summary

Little Women follows the four March sisters growing up in a New England town during and after the American Civil War, while their father serves as an army chaplain. Meg, the eldest, is pretty and longs for fine things; Jo, a tomboyish aspiring writer with a quick temper, is the heart of the book; Beth is shy, gentle and musical; and Amy, the youngest, is artistic and vain. Their wise and loving mother, Marmee, guides them through their faults, using The Pilgrim's Progress as a model for their moral journey. The family is genteelly poor, and the girls befriend their lonely rich neighbour Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence and his gruff grandfather, who gives Beth a piano. Episodes of first part include Jo's burning anger when Amy destroys her manuscript and Amy's near-drowning on the ice, Meg's humiliating visit to wealthy friends, the sisters' secret Pickwick Club and newspaper, and Jo's first published story. When a telegram brings news that Mr March is seriously ill in a Washington hospital, Marmee goes to nurse him, and Jo sells her long hair to pay for the journey. While she is away, Beth catches scarlet fever from a poor family's baby, who dies, and comes close to death before recovering. Mr March returns home at Christmas, and Meg becomes engaged to Laurie's tutor, John Brooke. The second part, originally published as Good Wives, follows the sisters three years later. Meg marries and learns the trials of housekeeping and motherhood with twins. Jo refuses Laurie's proposal of marriage, goes to New York as a governess, writes sensational stories for money, and meets Friedrich Bhaer, a poor, kindly German professor who criticises such writing. Beth, never fully recovered, slowly declines and dies, nursed by Jo. Amy travels to Europe with Aunt Carrol, where she encounters a drifting, heartbroken Laurie and challenges him to make something of himself; they fall in love and marry. Jo, lonely after Beth's death, begins to write from her own life, and Professor Bhaer comes to find her. They marry, and Jo turns Aunt March's house, Plumfield, into a school for boys. The book ends with the extended family gathered at an apple-picking on Marmee's birthday.

Plot or Argument

• Part One, Ch. 1–8: Burdens and pilgrims

  Christmas, the Laurences, the girls' faults and early trials, Jo and Amy's quarrel and the ice.

• Part One, Ch. 9–14: Growing up

  Meg at Vanity Fair, the Pickwick Club, experiments in idleness, Jo's first story.

• Part One, Ch. 15–23: Illness and engagement

  The telegram, Marmee's departure, Beth's scarlet fever, Mr March's return and Meg's engagement.

• Part Two, Ch. 24–34: Marriages and departures

  Meg's wedding and housekeeping, Amy's art, Jo's writing and her move to New York.

• Part Two, Ch. 35–41: Heartbreak and loss

  Jo refuses Laurie; Beth's decline and death; Amy and Laurie in Europe.

• Part Two, Ch. 42–47: New beginnings

  Jo's grief and writing, Bhaer's arrival and proposal, and the founding of Plumfield.

Characters

• Jo March, protagonist

  Independent, hot-tempered aspiring writer, modelled on Alcott herself.

• Meg March, eldest sister

  Gentle, pretty sister who marries John Brooke and learns domestic life.

• Beth March, third sister

  Shy, selfless, musical sister weakened by scarlet fever who dies young.

• Amy March, youngest sister

  Artistic, socially ambitious sister who matures and marries Laurie.

• Marmee (Mrs March), mother

  Wise, moral guide who confesses she too struggles with anger.

• Laurie (Theodore Laurence), neighbour and friend

  Charming rich boy who loves Jo and marries Amy.

• Friedrich Bhaer, professor

  Poor, warm-hearted German scholar who marries Jo.

• John Brooke, Laurie's tutor

  Honest, modest young man who marries Meg.

• Aunt March, wealthy aunt

  Crotchety relative whom Jo serves as companion; leaves Plumfield to Jo.

• Mr Laurence, Laurie's grandfather

  Gruff old gentleman who befriends Beth.

Lessons

• Growing up is a moral journey

  Each sister must overcome a particular fault: vanity, temper, shyness or selfishness. The novel presents character as something built by effort and love.

  • Which sister changes most?
  • How does The Pilgrim's Progress frame the girls' development?

• Women's work and ambition

  Jo wants to be a writer and earn her own living, and the novel takes that ambition seriously while also steering her toward marriage. Readers continue to debate whether the ending fulfils or betrays her.

  • Should Jo have married Laurie? Married at all?
  • What does Bhaer's criticism of Jo's sensational stories mean?
  • How does Alcott's own career shape Jo's?

• Grief within a family

  Beth's long decline and death are handled with tenderness and realism. The book shows how families care for the dying and how grief can lead to creative renewal.

  • How does Jo change after Beth's death?
  • Why does Beth accept her fate so calmly?

Context

The novel is set during and after the Civil War in a Massachusetts town modelled on Concord. It reflects Transcendentalist ideals of self-improvement and simplicity, the war's absent fathers, and women's limited paths to independence. Scarlet fever was a major killer of children in the period.

Composition

Alcott's publisher Thomas Niles asked her for a book for girls. She wrote the first part quickly in 1868, drawing on her own family, and it was published by Roberts Brothers in September 1868. Readers demanded a sequel, and the second part followed in April 1869. Alcott resisted readers' wishes that Jo marry Laurie.

Reception

An immediate bestseller, the book has never been out of print and has been adapted repeatedly for film and stage. It has been claimed as a feminist classic and criticised for its domestic resolution, and Jo March became a model for generations of women writers.

Comparisons

• david-copperfield

  Both are domestic Bildungsromane about becoming a writer, with the deaths of beloved young women (Dora, Beth) as turning points.

• the-secret-garden

  Both classics of children's literature treat illness and recovery within the home and value nature and fresh air.

• testament-of-youth

  Alcott served as a Civil War nurse and Brittain as a First World War VAD; both wrote about women's wartime lives at home and in hospitals.

• persuasion

  Both explore family, marriage and women's choices with a heroine who must balance duty and desire.

• my-antonia

  Both are American novels of girls growing into women amid hardship, centred on resilient female characters.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The Pilgrim's Progress game in the opening chapters, when Marmee urges the girls to carry their burdens toward the Celestial City. Notice how chapter titles and episodes later return to Bunyan's places and figures.
• Each sister's particular fault: Meg's love of fine things, Jo's temper, Beth's shyness, Amy's vanity. Track how each is tested in Part One, especially Jo's anger after Amy burns her manuscript and Amy's fall through the ice.
• Marmee's confession to Jo after the ice that she too is angry nearly every day of her life and has learned to master it. It changes how the reader sees the book's moral guide.
• The telegram about Mr March's illness, Jo's sale of her hair, and Beth's scarlet fever caught from the Hummel baby. The family's charity and its cost arrive in the same chapters.
• Jo's writing: the Pickwick Club paper, her first published story, the sensational tales she writes in New York, Professor Bhaer's criticism of them, and her turn after Beth's death to writing from her own life.

Key terms and names

Marmee

The March sisters' name for their mother, who guides them through their faults with counsel drawn from scripture and Bunyan. Her admission that she struggles with anger makes her a fellow pilgrim, not a distant model.

The Pilgrim's Progress

John Bunyan's allegory of a Christian's journey to the Celestial City, which the sisters played at as children and which Marmee revives as a pattern for their moral growth. Several chapters borrow Bunyan's titles, such as Meg at Vanity Fair.

Pickwick Club

The sisters' secret society, named after Dickens's Pickwick Papers, for which they write a weekly newspaper. It is the first outlet for Jo's ambition as a writer, and Laurie's admission to it marks his place in the family.

Plumfield

Aunt March's house, which she leaves to Jo, and which Jo and Professor Bhaer make into a school for boys at the end of the novel. It shows Jo's restless energy finding a settled form.

Scarlet fever

The childhood disease Beth catches while nursing the poor Hummel family's baby, who dies of it. Beth recovers in Part One but never regains her strength, and her decline and death in Part Two grow from this act of charity.

Good Wives

The title under which the second part of the novel, set three years later, was first published in Britain. It follows Meg's marriage, Jo's refusal of Laurie and life in New York, Beth's death, and Amy's journey to Europe.

Friedrich Bhaer

The poor, kindly German professor Jo meets in New York. His criticism of sensational stories pushes Jo toward more honest writing, and after Beth's death he comes to find her.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does each of the four sisters say she wishes for on the first Christmas of the book, and what do the girls decide to do with their money instead?
2. Comprehension Why does Jo sell her hair when the telegram arrives about Mr March, and how does Beth come to catch scarlet fever while Marmee is away?
3. Comprehension Why does Jo refuse Laurie's proposal, and how do Amy and Laurie come to marry in Part Two?
4. Interpretation After Amy falls through the ice, Marmee tells Jo that she too struggles with anger every day. Why does Alcott have the novel's moral guide make this confession, and how does it change Jo's sense of her own fault?
5. Interpretation In Chapter 9 Marmee says she would rather see her daughters poor men's wives, happy and beloved, than queens on thrones without self-respect and peace. How does the rest of the novel test this claim through Meg, Jo, and Amy?
6. Interpretation Professor Bhaer criticises the sensational stories Jo writes for money in New York. What is wrong with them in his eyes, and why does Jo only find her real subject after Beth's death?
7. Interpretation Beth never wants to go anywhere or become anything, yet the family arranges itself around her. What does Beth's quiet life contribute to the novel's picture of a good life?
8. Big Question Little Women treats growing up as a pilgrimage of mastering one's faults. Is character formed mainly by such daily struggle, or by great moments of choice and suffering like Beth's death?

Faith Connections

• Ephesians 4:26-27 (Scripture)

  Paul tells believers to be angry without sinning and not to let the sun go down on their wrath. Jo's refusal to forgive Amy for burning the manuscript, and the near-drowning on the ice that follows, is almost a dramatization of the verse, and Marmee's counsel afterward follows its logic.

• Proverbs 31:10-31 (Scripture)

  The portrait of the woman of strength who manages a household, works with her hands, and opens her arms to the poor stands behind Marmee and behind Meg's hard first years of housekeeping. The novel asks what that ideal looks like in a poor New England family during the Civil War.

• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Great Conversation)

  Bunyan's Christian carries a burden from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, passing through Vanity Fair and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Alcott borrows the frame openly, and the chapter of Beth's death in Part Two takes its title, The Valley of the Shadow, from Bunyan's road.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Every person carries a burden of faults, and life is a pilgrimage in which those faults are mastered by daily effort, loving correction, and help from home. Wealth, fashion, and fame do not make a woman happy; self-respect, love, and useful work do. The March sisters, tested by poverty, war, illness, and death, each come to a settled and useful life by learning to govern themselves. Therefore a family that teaches its children to master themselves and serve others gives them a better inheritance than money.

Rhetorical device: allusion. From Chapter 1, when Marmee revives the girls' childhood game of The Pilgrim's Progress, Alcott names chapters and episodes after Bunyan, as when Meg goes to Vanity Fair at the Moffats'. The allusion lets ordinary scenes of a New England girlhood carry the weight of a spiritual journey.

Debate: Resolved: Jo was right to refuse Laurie.

Memory Work

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship

I’d rather see you poor men’s wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace

Writing Prompts

Essay: Marmee sets the sisters on a pilgrimage modelled on Bunyan in the opening chapters. Choose two sisters and argue how Alcott uses the pilgrimage frame to shape their growth, using at least one episode from Part One and one from Part Two.

Comparison with David Copperfield: Jo March and David Copperfield both grow up to become writers who finally find their subject in their own lives and losses. Compare how each novel connects a young writer's moral formation to his or her art, and argue which book makes the stronger case that a good writer must first become a good person.

Medical Lens

Illness drives the book's central crises. Mr March's serious illness in a Washington army hospital (he is described as very ill, generally read as pneumonia) sends Marmee to nurse him. Beth contracts scarlet fever from the Hummel baby, who dies in her arms, and the chapters of her illness give a detailed picture of home nursing, quarantine of the younger sister Amy, the family doctor's visits and the crisis of the fever. Beth never fully recovers and her slow decline and death in Part Two (often read as a sequel of rheumatic heart disease, though the text is vague) is one of literature's most famous deathbeds. Alcott's own service as an army nurse and her near-fatal typhoid pneumonia, treated with calomel (a mercury compound she believed damaged her health for life), give biographical context. Meg's twins add a note on motherhood.

• Part One, Ch. 15

  A telegram reports Mr March seriously ill in Washington; Marmee leaves to nurse him and Jo sells her hair.

  WAR WoundsNursing CaregivingFever Infection
• Part One, Ch. 16–18

  Beth nurses the poor Hummel family's sick baby, who dies of scarlet fever; Beth catches it; Amy is sent away; Dr Bangs attends.

  Fever InfectionPhysicians DoctorsDeath DyingNursing Caregiving
• Part One, Ch. 19–20

  The crisis of Beth's fever passes; Marmee returns.

  Fever InfectionNursing Caregiving
• Part Two, Ch. 28

  Meg's twins and her struggle with new motherhood.

  Childbirth Maternal
• Part Two, Ch. 36 and 40

  Beth's slow decline at the seaside and at home; her death nursed by Jo.

  Death DyingNursing CaregivingGrief
• Part Two, Ch. 42

  Jo's grief after Beth's death and her turn to writing from life.

  Grief

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  What did Beth die of? Weigh the evidence in the text and discuss the uses and limits of retrospective diagnosis.

• Fiction

  Write the chapter Alcott never wrote: Marmee's days nursing Mr March in the Washington hospital.

• Classroom

  Debate whether Jo's marriage to Bhaer is a fitting ending.

Further Reading

• Hospital Sketches, Louisa May Alcott

  Alcott's account of nursing wounded soldiers in 1862–1863.

• Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, John Matteson

• Little Men, Louisa May Alcott

• Little Women (film), Greta Gerwig (director)