When Money Beats Morality

It would probably be easiest, when analyzing this past reading of Little Women, to focus on the death of Beth as it was the most memorable moment from the past few chapters. That being said, I'm not sure what I could say about Beth's death that would be drastically different from what we have either already discussed in class or from what others have posted on the blog this week.

While reading Chapter 36, what was most interesting to me was analyzing the struggle that both Jo and Amy seem to be going through regarding morality. Both Jo and Amy have chosen life paths that have lead them to prioritize money over their own morals and comfort. Jo originally went to New York to make something of herself, but instead, found that her dream to live by her pen was rather unattainable and instead looks after the March children. Jo’s dream was ultimately to make a profit from her own writing. Amy is touring Europe, a trip sponsored by her aunt, to further master her artistic skills. Her goals is to be able to live off of her work and artistic genius, and it isn’t until Laurie arrives that she is forced to accept the reality of her situation and switch her focus.

To me, these reoccurring instances of failure are disheartening and as an adult reading this book for the first time, it’s hard to imagine small children reading this book. Regardless of the reality of a situation, aren’t we as a culture supposed to instill our children with the idea that they can do anything? To me it seemed odd that these two women, both with talent-oriented career goals, would so easily give up their dreams for a married life.

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.

Alas Poor Beth, We knew Her Well....Well, Kind of

Reading Beth’s death once again landed with me differently. We discussed in class that each March sister could possibly represent a path a woman may take in the 19th century. If that is true, what does that mean for Beth? She is the most passive of the sisters, and I would argue the least interesting. Even her flaw is timid- shyness. With a character that is so passive and sweet, I find it difficult to develop any emotional connection to her. Furthermore, Beth does nothing but suffer. “It was not fair, for she tried more than Amy to be good, but never got any reward - only disappointment, trouble and hard work” (Page Number). The other four sisters grew are at least gained something from the efforts they made towards maturity. Beth on the other hand, continually suffers and then dies. So when Beth dies I found myself much more upset for Jo than Beth. This is absolutely awful. Reading it now, I see Beth as more of a companion to Jo rather than a sister with her own plot line. I don’t remember exactly what I thought reading the novel as a child, just that I would read her sections very quickly because Jo was the “exciting sister”
What exactly do we know about Beth? She is sweet, virtuous and selfless to the point of her destruction. I hadn’t really learned anything about Beth besides the fact that she was just good. I wasn’t “rooting for her” or eager to know her story because Beth always suffers and in the way she is written as a ghostly figure, I can see now she was always doomed to die. Even her function in the novel is somewhat selfless. She essentially is Jo’s inspiration. I’m having a hard time mapping out exactly how Beth grows as a character.
So now I am asking myself, “Why Alcott?” I’m assuming she did this on purpose because the other sisters are written so vividly with action, so it could not just be her style of writing. Am I missing something reading this in the 21st century? Is there something I am not getting reading this as an educated adult? I’m getting less and less attached to the idea that Alcott was idolizing the idea of pure and chaste women. If she really believed this, why are the other sisters focused on more and written in a much livelier fashion?
Now I wonder how different the novel would be if Beth did not exist. Exactly how much would the novel change? I think the only character that would be devastatingly affected would be Jo. But still even without Beth, I think Jo would just have an attachment to Marmee and still be passionate and ambitious. That fire is so strong and present inside her that I think it is essential to her character and would exist even without Beth. As much as I want to focus on the happiness of the rest of the sisters I cannot help but be sad for Beth. Not necessarily because she died, but because she did not have something truly fantastic and exciting happen to her. She is doomed to be the ghostly subplot to the stronger more action packed characters.

Tolerance and Prejudice

There are subtle anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic scenes in Little Women. When Amy goes to Aunt March’s house while Beth has scarlet fever, she makes friends with Aunt March’s maid, Esther. Esther is French and she’s also Catholic. Esther tries to make Amy feel better about Beth by seting her up with a little closet shrine to pray in. She gives Amy a painting of baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and a rosary. Alcott is careful to point out that Amy never uses the rosary, describing it as “dusty” and “untouched” and emphasizing that Amy leaves it hanging on a peg. Looking to the painting for comfort is acceptable, however, even though I don’t think most Protestant sects use saint imagery. Amy doesn’t pray to the painting, she just looks at it, and I think that’s the distinction.

There’s another scene involving Amy that’s kind of anti-Semitic. She and Laurie are at a ball, and all these fancy but slightly ridiculous guests have arrived. One of them is a Jewish man who spends the whole time eating and smiling at everyone. This played on the stereotype of the greedy Jew.

These passages interest me because Alcott is expressing prejudice at the same time as she preaches tolerance. By saying that Amy’s shrine is only okay because she doesn’t use the rosary or pray to the Virgin Mary, she implies that doing these things is wrong, and that Amy is right for abstaining. But her portrayal of Esther is sympathetic, she is clearly a good person. Alcott is also open-minded enough to show that there is more than one way to connect with God. Amy combines elements of Catholic and Protestant traditions to create a personal way of worshiping. That’s a very transcendentalist idea. If it’s extended, it can mean that Catholicism is just as legitimate as Protestantism. Alcott doesn’t extend it, but she takes steps in that direction.

Similarly, although her portrayal of the Jewish guest at the ball is definitely anti-Semitic, it’s also not without kindness. By depicting a Jewish person being gluttonous, Alcott perpetuates negative stereotypes. She also makes sure to point out that the guest is Jewish. This immediately makes him “other” and strange. She doesn’t take the time to take away this otherness, either. Esther is initially other, because she is French and Catholic, but we get to know her, and this humanizes her. The Jewish man at the party doesn’t even have a name, he’s just a Jew, a type. He isn’t evil or repugnant, however. He seems friendly and content. So while Alcott is not friendly to Jews in this book, she’s not deeply hostile, either.

These scenes strike a weird balance between prejudice and tolerance, especially the one at the ball. They both made me uncomfortable. At the time, however, I’m guessing Alcott’s attitude would have been considered open and progressive. So she gets points for trying, but she still clearly had deeply embedded prejudices.

Beth Lives On!

I would argue that Beth is one of the strongest female characters in American literature. While I know she has been the subject of ridicule in our class discussions, I think a lot can be learned from her and that she shouldn’t simply be passed off as “weak” and “under-developed.”

One of the main details that made me regard Beth as a strong female character was the fact that Jo, who many consider to be the strongest of the novel, looks to her younger sister for courage and support. Specifically, I am recalling the part in the novel when Beth secretly reads the poem Jo wrote for her. “Give me, for I need it sorely, of that courage, wise and sweet… Give me that unselfish nature, that with charity devine can pardon wrong for love’s dear sake—meek heart, forgive me mine” (Alcott 401)! Here, Jo shares that she is baffled and inspired by Beth’s uncommon acceptance of death. This is an interesting moment, because for most of the novel Jo feels as if it is her duty to give Beth strength and courage. Now, in Beth’s darkest hour, it is Jo who ironically needs guidance. Who amongst us can say they’re not afraid of death? Now I don’t want to paint Beth as a closet badass (although she would be a great choice to star alongside Sylvester Stallone in some action flick). But I would stress the similarities that Beth shares with Jesus, as Jo indirectly recalls. While I am not religious and don’t want to present a single perception of Beth, I do think Alcott intended there to be some connection.

Although this idea is still in development, I think I liked Beth because I read her through the lens of disability studies. While Beth was not born with any physical disability, she was never truly recovered from her battle with scarlet fever. I don’t see Beth’s (arguable) desire to die as a weakness because I think she was being perfectly realistic. Since I Have worked with and read about people that from a wide range of developmental disabilities and inherited illnesses, Beth’s desire to die seems a bit more understandable to me. I am not necessarily condoning assisted suicide; I merely am recognizing the fact that some people are reminded of their fragile mortality every single day and thus some can wish for both the suffering to end and for perhaps a better existence afterward. While advanced medicine and therapy has helped people live easier and longer lives, they by no means have eliminated extreme suffering and mental strain. I do think Beth was a character purposely shrouded by ambiguity because Alcott was having difficulty comprehending her own sister’s untimely death. Perhaps Beth, like Alcott’s sister Elizabeth, was still suffering from symptoms of scarlet fever that were not easily treatable in the 19^th century.

“Then I don’t feel as if I’d wasted my life. I’m not so good as you make me, but I have tried to do right; and now, when it’s too late to begin even to do better, it’s such a comfort to know that someone loves me so much, feels as if I’d helped them” (Alcott 402). This quote from Beth is self-explanatory and pretty much sums up why I admire her, and why I think Jo aspires to be a better person and stronger character as the novel progresses.

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.

My family as the March's

I began writing this blog Tuesday, but thought it didn’t reflect on the reading enough. After our class discussion Wednesday, I couldn’t help but continue it. While reading this book on my own, I mostly thought of the family dynamic in it as something non-relatable for me personally because of several reasons. This is because their family is all and their father is off at war and they as a family seem to be pretty poor. Though I do not consider my family wealthy, I also would not put us in the category of poor.

I always related to Jo because she seems to be a bit of a tomboy and very bold in the sense that she is not afraid to express her opinion. What I had never realized is that this family is quite similar to mine. When we drew the comparison of the four sisters on the board the other day it was very eye opening for me. I have three older siblings, making us a family of four also.

As I looked closer at each sister’s personality traits and downfalls, I began to see similarities. Meg began to remind me a lot of my own sister: motherly, mature, responsible, but also focuses more than necessary on vanity. Jo, though I relate to her most, reminds me of my brother, Jordan: bold, passionate, ambitious, but has a temper. Beth is quite like my other brother, Tory: fragile, shy, and selfless. The only problem is this would mean I am Amy. While I do not deny that I share some of her characteristics, simply because we are both the youngest, I would say I am not quite like her. I believe I am a mix of her and Jo, but mostly Jo. This matches up with real life because my brother Jordan is most similar to me out of all my siblings. Another curious part of this comparison is that the characters match up exactly to my family in age. My sister, like Meg is the older, then Jordan (Jo), then Beth (Tory) and lastly, myself (Amy/Jo).

The part of the story that really got me thinking about this even further is right at the beginning of the chapter “Tender Troubles” where Marmee tells Jo that she is worried about Beth. This first caught my attention because she shows concern, just as all members of a family do but even more so here because in my family Tory is the one we all worry about most. And when we are concerned, we’ll firstly talk to each other about it. It almost feels like talking behind his back, but it is because we care about his well-being. Here Marmee first brings it up with Jo, and in my family my mother firstly would bring it up with my brother Jordan. This similarity is so striking to me.

A difference from the March’s to my family actually also pertains to Jo. Jo and Laurie are seemingly meant to be and have essentially been sweethearts since a young age. My brother began dating a girl at age 17 and it seemed right for all of us. Now they have been together almost 10 years and got married last year, which differs from Jo. It is interesting to me that the fictional book should go against what the general public would want, but in reality the happy ending actually occurred. Usually, the book ends blissfully and life doesn’t always agree with that.

I wonder if Alcott did not marry Jo and Laurie for the reason of going against convention, or because she actually believed they would not be a good match. Either way, the comparison to my family is still unbelievably similar to me and I am now curious to see where I will end up in life as the “Amy” of my family!