Jo March's Pursuit of Liberty in Little Women
Jo March's Pursuit of Liberty in Little Women
In the nineteenth century a woman’s identity was that of housewife or caretaker. A woman could not vote or own property. She must marry to be deemed socially acceptable. Her future was set. The general public looked down upon any deviation, by a woman, from these social conventions. With Little Women, Louisa May Alcott challenged the stereotypical lifestyle expected of a woman in the late 1800’s. In particular, Jo March tries to reverse the role of women and stands as a nineteenth century quasi-feminist.
The scene in which Laurie proposed to Jo is a perfect example of this reversal. The reader is expecting, and wants, Jo to accept Laurie’s proposal, but she is resistant to the idea of marriage. She rejects the social convention saying that she will never marry. She loves the freedom and liberty that being single. Jo claims to dislike elegant society. She assumes the masculine role in the situation, while Laurie seems fragile and almost pathetic. When she is unable to let him down easy, she resorts to cruelty. She ends up hurting him to get her point across. Alcott plays with gender roles in this scene. Nowhere is the reader made more aware of masculinity behind Jo’s name and the femininity behind Laurie’s name, then in this scene.
Alcott not only asserts her feminism through Jo, but she breaks with the expectations of the genre. This is a huge turning point for the novel. The audience is expecting one thing, but Alcott delivers another. She is unwilling to surrender her artistic integrity to the “rules” of the genre.