Essays on Little Women

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” (Louisa May Alcott, Little Women). It is a quote from character Amy March in Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women. I first fell in love with Little Women, when...

Around the time period of the Civil War, women in the U.S. had few rights but many expectations placed upon them. Women could not own land, vote, or sell property. Instead, society expected them to care for their families by cooking and cleaning, with little...

Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott composed soon after the Civil War in light of a publisher’s interest for a novel, which was initially distributed in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, as two books. Little Women transcends many of...

Louisa May Alcott’s best-known classic Little Women was published in 1869 and read and loved by a wide audience, consisting mostly of children and young adults, over the years, yet after more than almost 150 years it still retains its place among the most popular...

Everyone has to learn to grow up. Unfortunately, it was a lot harder for women in the past. Women had to find a husband in order to survive. There were not many jobs available. Women could become a teacher, governess, or they could sew. Some...

In the start of the novel, Little Women, the four March sisters struggle to understand that having very little could mean so much more. For instance, when Meg talks about how dreadful it is to be poor. It seems as if she has no positive...

While on the surface a straightforward story about the four March girls’ journeys from childhood to adulthood, Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig, centers on the conflict between two phases in a young woman’s life — that which she places on herself, which she places...

The influential 19th century novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott expresses didactic tendencies, as well as qualities of sentimentalism, allowing it to be a compelling read for adolescent audiences. Following the story of the March sisters, readers track the growth and maturity of Alcott’s...

According to Nina Baym, the heroine of woman’s fiction “brings into being a new kind of family life, organized around love rather than money. Money subsides into its adjunct function of ensuring domestic comfort” (39-40). Little Women is the epitome of this idea, and the...