little women
The novel little women is a novel written by American author Lousia May Alcott, published in 1868. The story is set in the American Civil War in 1860s, telling a story of four girls in the March family turning into four women and searching for the values of life.
Each of the four little women have distinctive characteristics. Meg, is a beautiful, virtuous but a little peacockish. As the eldest sister in the family, she takes the responsibility to take care of her sisters. Born in a poor family, sometimes she envies what rich people have, but as she grows up, she gradually understand that she should cherish what she have. Jo, is the main character of the novel. She is independent extroverted and impetuous.She loves writing and keeps chasing her dream of being a writer. She also yearns for freedom, and despises the traditional marriage, refusing to marry a rich guy and live a normal life. But she choose to marry who really understands her. And Beth, the third daughter in this family, is a caring, tranquil and self-possessed girl. She always wants to devote herself for others, but she cares about others too much that she can’t see the values of herself. Unlike others, her dream is to become a mother, although it didn’t come true at last, which suggests that she is a woman who love others too hard that she forgets to love herself.And the youngest one, Amy, is a prim,grace and sophisticated woman, thinking highly of what other people think of her. She firmly believed that she is going to marry someone rich and she achieve it at last. The four of them represent different kinds of women in that period of time.
The main idea of this novel is prompting women to break the constraint of the traditional social norm. The traditional social norms ask ladies to be elegant, to act with good manner, to do well in sewing, to marry a rich guy and be a supported wife. But the main character of this novel Jo, she doesn’t agree with it. When she her paid a visit to her neighbour with her sister Amy, she ignored her sister’s word of being polite and act like a elegant lady, but chose to stay silent or speak loud as she liked. She always says what she wanted to say worrying little about what others think. She acts like a boy and has a boyish characteristic, completely different from the stereotype of traditional ladies. She teaches all the women to be who they truly are.
Many of the readers are not satisfied with the ending of the novel, they think that Jo and her old friend Laurie are true love and that they should get married. But I think it is a good ending. Jo and Laurie can become good friends , but it’s hard for them to become lover. Jo has a easy-going characteristic, she is often the one who brings the tension up in the March family. Laurie finds his missing part of a warm family when staying with Jo, so he is willing to spend time with Jo. But Laurie actually doesn’t understand Jo, when he proposed to her, he said that she could quit writing after they got married. From this word, I consider that Laurie didn’t understand that Jo really love writing from deep inside her head, he thought that she was just writing to earn money. But professor Beral is different. When he read the story published written by Jo, he knew that it was not what she wanted to write, she just did so to satisfy the publisher and readers. And he is also the one who encourage Jo to write what she really wants to tell with sincere. A best lover is someone who can make you better and make it possible for you to be yourself.
From the story of these four little women, we can find shadow of our own. All in all, we are all little women of ourselves.
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