Not just for Little Women! (Little Women mini-book report)

    I have always said that my blog is about video games, movies, TV shows, and theme parks, but today, I'm doing something that I haven't done before. I'm here to talk about a book that I read, and more than that, I'm pleased to announce that as of today, a major hole in my education has been corrected, as I've finished reading the classic book, Little Women. It has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to finally finish what has rightfully been called a masterpiece for over 150 years at this point, and I now understand why there are so many movies, TV Shows and other forms of media based on it. One thing that I would like to say before we get started here with my short post here though, I really hope that I will be able to inspire more boys and young men to read this book. Fun fact about the book that I read from the foreword of the edition that I read, Teddy Roosevelt apparently loved this story, and he was probably the manliest president that we've had thus far. This book is far more important than I thought it would be, but as a younger boy, I was not particularly interested in giving it a try solely based on the title alone. I happily read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and took pride in all of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories that I read, but I never even really considered this book to be a good use of my time. The March sisters have earned their places among the literary heroes of history, and I hope that my writings will do Jo proud as I try to explain exactly why that is.

Meg, Amy, Jo and Beth (Portrayed by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan, and Eliza Scanlen respectively) from Greta Gerwig's 2019 film

Little Women, Big Personalities!

    It would be wrong of me to to discuss every plot point that this book has to offer, even though it is 150 years old, so let's begin with a discussion of the characters. The main characters of course are the Marches, with the titular Little Women being the sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. All of them are really well developed and have very different styles, ambitions, and even ways of talking. As you'd expect, Meg, being the oldest, has a natural maternal instinct to her younger sisters, though some of them are more resistant than others. Meg is the natural young lady who is all about being attractive and making a sensible match to support her poor little family. Jo is the next eldest in the family is very independent, and is also all about writing. She writes plays for her sisters to put on, short stories, and other writings as the book goes on. Clearly Alcott chose Jo to be her "self insert" character, because she's focused on slightly more than the other three, and overall is probably the best developed of the group. Next in line is Beth, the sweet one. This is a character that is so beloved by her friends and family, there's no way anything bad could happen to to her, right? Beth is very meek in temper as well as stature. Even though Amy is the youngest of the girls, Beth is quite content with being petted and loved by her friends and family while she works to make others happy. Amy is the youngest of the family, and as such she's more naive about what she wants and how to get it. She wants money for her family because she hates being poor and determines from a young age that she needs to marry a wealthy man and make things better for them. The sisters wouldn't be where they are in the story without Mrs. March, or Marmee, as the girls lovingly refer to her as. Marmee instills a strong moral compass in the girls, and acts as a nearly flawless character as far as we can tell, though she tells Jo that she gets angry nearly every day. She's constantly working on herself though, and doesn't let the girls see that side of her. Mr. March is fighting in the Civil War for a lot of the book, and so for the most part he doesn't have a huge presence. He is a beloved character by the girls for sure, and there are long periods of time where they just want to hear from him, and his letters are constantly met with cheers from the whole company. Laurie from next door is another major character, and is treated like the girls in terms of the narration of the book. He's essentially treated like a brother for the vast majority of the book, and is constantly referred to as "Our boy" by Jo, who is his best friend of the bunch. He lives with his grandfather in a mansion, they are quite wealthy and allow the March household to have some luxury in their lives, despite their apparent poverty. While the characters are all pretty great, there are far too many to talk about at great length in the same way that the girls have been, but potentially even more important than the characters are the lessons that Ms. Alcott inserted into the novel.

What is the moral for the story?

    There's certainly more than one lesson to be learned from this book. In the early chapters where the titular "little women" are, in fact, little, they learn fairly simple lessons about being kind to others and sharing. I was actually surprised at just how deep some later lessons were. Tons of talk about the importance of love, and how it can come about in the least expected ways and places. The importance of keeping a marriage balanced, even the pain of having to turn down a friend because you know that it won't work out the way that they hope. Of course, the toughest issues that the book deals with are those that pop up when life seems most unfair. When you feel that all hope is gone and you're doomed to a lonely, depressing life. When things that you held dearly to you as part of who you are suddenly turn into things that you know can never be. Most deeply and painfully, when a loved one leaves the world long before they should have. All of these topics and many, many more are faced by these characters, and incredibly they act like real humans would. They struggle with the hardship and unfairness inherent in life. How do they treat it though? Do they shut down, calling it quits and accepting that things will never get better? Of course not. The Marches continually march (get it?) onward no matter what setback or unfortunate situation happens, and they make it to the other side toward much better days. Jo is definitely my favorite character for several reasons, and for one she deals with a great bit of doubt in what she is doing and what she has done in the recent past. All of the Marches do this to some degree actually. When they're younger, they all have a very clear sense of what they want to do when they get older, and none of them really get what they want, but end up happy (for the most part) even with a result that they never could have imagined. Ms. Alcott is constantly offering words of wisdom, even as the narrator of the book, and one of my favorite notes is that Jo isn't a heroine of this book, she's just another human, dealing with the same things that many other people do. That's a paraphrase, of course, she put it in much better terms, but it's true. The characters here have difficult decisions to make. When they're young, many of the decisions come from a place of self-indulgence and enjoyment (not all, of course, Jo's haircut is purely to help others), but when the characters are much older, their decisions come from love, and from putting the ones you care about most first. It's truly a story of growing up, for better and worse.

    Ms. Alcott really hit the nail on the head with this book, and for all the lessons that are crammed into the pages, there's a lovely story here too. I found myself very emotionally invested in the characters kept in these pages. I spent my time with the book cheering for the triumphs and happy times in this little family, and grieving with them when there would be an unfortunate encounter with life's cruelties. Ms. Alcott achieved a massive feat in giving the characters well-defined flaws while also making them very lovable. I began this post by saying that I hope that boys will pick up this book and give it a read in the future, and I hope that by writing this, even though there are more than a few things that will probably go over their heads. I feel like I could have learned so much about everyday life at a younger age if I had given it a try, and I truly encourage basically everyone to read it at some point. Even though the book came out 150 years ago, the themes for the most part truly haven't aged a day. You may have some objections about where some characters end up and what they do, but that's strictly family business. I think Marmee would say that important to respect and honor the decisions of others, just as they would do for you. I could go on with this post for a long time, but I feel I should probably wrap it up here. No matter who you are, I think it's important for you to visit the March household at some point, I can guarantee that you'll enjoy your stay (just make sure that Jo hasn't set the pillow up, she won't have you sitting by her on the couch then).

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I should have read this book a long time ago, but I'm just happy to have read it now. I'm excited to read the sequels as well, which I hope to start soon! Have you read the book before? I would love to hear what you thought about it! Also, while I have the time to recommend something, Greta Gerwig's Little Women movie just came out a few years ago, and it is fantastic. That's when I started being interested in the book, which is why I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to get around to reading it! I really enjoyed that movie, and I think you will also if you enjoyed the book! Thanks so much for your support over the years, and I hope you have a great week. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed gentleman, and I'll talk to you again soon!