Post for Monday

In class, we talked about how it can be assumed that Jo’s marriage with the professor was like a friendship, how it didn’t have to be sexual and she could focus on learning and literature instead. While I think it’s true that Jo’s relationship with the professor is based at least in part on their mutual love of books, I also think that the professor did love her in a sexual way. There is one quote in the book that really makes me think this. Jo is wondering why the professor came to “the city”: “If she had seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to be gazing darkly into futurity, it might have thrown some light upon the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the picture in the dark” (438). When I read this, I was like, it seems like he really does love her, and not in just a companionship kind of way. I don’t think he’d be kissing her picture if he wasn’t interested in being intimate with her. I think it’s significant too, that the description of the picture isn’t particularly flattering, but he obviously finds it attractive. I like Nicole’s idea that Alcott describes Jo with a lot of love; I think this description is a good example of that, because I think it makes you feel how much the professor loves her, even though it’s not helping you necessarily see Jo as physically attractive. It’s obvious at this point that we’re supposed to be in love with the description of Jo too – because she is familiar and likeable to us as a character. I kind of talked about this idea in my last blog post, but I think good literature does this, and I think at least one person I know said that children’s literature does it best – or at least something like, children’s literature is sometimes more memorable overall.