Sorrow is the spice of life.

Right from the start, chapter 42 struck me. The title of the chapter itself was heart wrenching: “All Alone.”

Who can’t recall a time in their lives when they exactly as Jo does in this chapter? Her immense suffering revealed so much emotion in her character, something little before seen. Often, people find sadness and heartache to be signs of a weak character. I find them to be extremely humanizing.

When Jo is trapped inside her own head thinking, “‘I can’t do it. I wasn’t meant for a life like this, and I know I shall break away and do something desperate if somebody don’t come and help me’ she said to herself…” (Alcott, 416), I feel for her pain.

She seems to reference suicide in this excerpt, as doing something “desperate” usually meant self-harm in those days.

As Jo was closest to Beth and thus cannot adapt to her departure, she grieves visibly harder than the rest of the family; “Often she started up at night, thinking Beth called her; and when the sight of the little empty bed made her cry with the bitter cry of an unsubmissive sorrow, ‘Oh Beth! Come back! Come back!’ she did not stretch out her yearning arms in vain…” (Alcott, 416).

As bad as I felt for Jo in her mourning, I really enjoyed the passages describing her pain. I know it sounds sadistic, but Alcott’s different style of writing in these passages was so refreshing. This reminded me of the novel Wuthering Heights. There was so much morbid pain and raw sorrow vividly described in Bronte’s novel; Alcott’s description of Jo’s suffering mirrored her imagery. I also recalled Alcott’s other novel, Moods. It is obvious that Alcott has the dark capacity to write tragic and emotion-driven scenes, which is what keeps me reading Little Women. I so enjoy these more morbid passages by Alcott; they are so much more intriguing and vivid. Yes, they are more depressing, but they also have so much more life than any other chapter in Little Women.

Not everyone can relate to religious piety and goodness, but everyone can relate to some sort of suffering and heartache.