Little Women

Christmas time has come to the March household. However, the four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—discuss the prospect that this year there will be no presents. Meg, Jo, and Amy lament: “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” “It’s so dreadful to be poor,” and “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all” (3).

Hearing their distress, Beth attempts to console her sisters that they are fortunate to have each other and their parents. The Civil War has caused a strain in the family; their father has joined the Union Army as a chaplain, and their mother has decided the family needs to live a spartan existence, amidst an atmosphere of suffering and scarcity.

The girls have each received a dollar, and they discuss the gifts that they wish to spend their allowance on. The conversation erupts into an argument over which sister works the hardest: Jo is caretaker to their elderly, irritable, and fickle Aunt March; Meg is governess for impatient children; Beth is consumed by grueling household chores; and Amy must keep up with homework and deal with bullies at school.

The sisters calm down and prepare to welcome their mother Marmee, setting her slippers to warm by the fire. Noticing how worn the slippers have become, Beth admits she has thought of using her money to buy Marmee a new pair. The girls argue again, each wanting to be the one to give their mother a present, until Beth suggests that they all spend their money only on their mother, instead of themselves. Having agreed to surprise Marmee, the girls turn to rehearsing and planning for their Christmas play, written by Jo.

As Marmee enters, the girls comfort her after her long day. Marmee has a surprise for them: a letter from their father. The girls become emotional as their father encourages them to focus on working faithfully through this difficult wait before they meet again:

I know they will remember all I said to them, that they will be loving children to [Marmee], will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women (11).

Upon hearing this, the girls promise to be better, with Amy wanting to be less selfish in her actions, Meg vowing to be less conceited about her beauty, Jo saying she will be more controlled in her temperament, and Beth professing to be more dutiful in her household tasks. Marmee then proposes that the children pretend to be pilgrims on a journey from the book Pilgrim’s Progress as they did when they were younger, adding that their “guidebook” for their new adventure will be ready for them Christmas morning (13).

Before retiring to bed, they sew bed sheets for Aunt March and end their work with their customary singing.

The girls awake Christmas morning to discover they each have a present, as promised by their mother: “true guidebook[s] for any pilgrim going on the long journey” (14). The girls vow to cherish their books. When they go downstairs to thank their mother, Hannah, the family servant, informs them that their mother has left to take care of a neighboring family, the Hummels, who appear in distress. Before their mother returns, they hurry to prepare breakfast and gather their gifts for her as a surprise.

When they greet their mother, Marmee asks the sisters to give their special holiday breakfast to the starving Hummel children as a Christmas present. The girls readily agree and help their mother bring their breakfast to the family, who are overjoyed at the sight of the Marches: “Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us!” (17). Although the girls and Marmee must return home to a meager breakfast of milk and bread, “there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfast” that Christmas morning (18).

Marmee receives her gifts from her daughters with pleasure and becomes emotional, with her “eyes full,” before they set off to work on the “evening festivities” (18). The girls enact their play, Operatic Tragedy, with Jo playing all the male roles and the remaining sisters in the female parts. Their friends arrive to watch the drama, which features the story of Zara and Roderigo, who must fight for their love against obstacles such as the villain Hugo, the witch Hagar, and Zara’s father, Don Pedro. After “tumultuous applause” from the audience despite a few technical troubles with their props and the actors, Hannah summons the girls for dinner (23). They are surprised when they find ice cream, cake, fruit, French bonbons and flowers at the table. They are gifts from Mr. Laurence, the Marches’ elderly next-door neighbor and an acquaintance of Marmee’s father. He heard of their good deed for the Hummels in the morning and desired to send the children “a few trifles in honor of the day” (24). Mr. Laurence prefers to live a private life with his grandson, whom the girls have encountered on multiple occasions but have never had a proper chance to speak to. Jo resolves, “I mean to know him some day, for he needs fun, I’m sure he does” (24).

Meg finds Jo in her “favorite refuge,” crying over the novel Heir of Redclyffe with her companion, a pet rat named Scrabbles. As Jo composes herself, Meg delivers the news that they have received an invitation from Mrs. Gardiner for a New Year’s Eve party. Unlike her exited sister, Jo is not very enthusiastic.

Meg asks, “Marmee is willing we should go, now what shall we wear” (25)? They have nothing but poplin to wear, and although Meg’s dress is in a presentable condition, Jo has a burn and a tear in her only dress. Furthermore, Jo has stained gloves, which bothers Meg, as “you can’t dance without them, and if you don’t I should be so mortified” (26). They each exchange a glove with the other, much to Meg’s reluctance, so as to have “one good one and carry a bad one” (26). The younger girls help the older sisters dress for the party. Jo burns Meg’s hair in an attempt to curl it. Amy tells her to hide the burned patch with a ribbon and Beth offers her solace. Jo apologizes for her mistake. When they are finally dressed, they head out for the evening festivities. Jo asks Meg to notify her if she sees her “doing anything wrong,” and Meg agrees to raise her eyebrows if the occasion calls for it (28).

At the Gardiners’ event, Meg immediately connects with the eldest daughter Sallie, while Jo finds herself out of place, as she “didn’t care much for girls or girlish gossip” (28). Instead, Jo wishes to join in the boys’ conversation about skates, which Meg disapproves of: “the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir” (29).

To avoid the possibility of dancing with one of the boys, Jo escapes the party and discovers the “Laurence boy” hiding behind the “curtained recess” that Jo herself is seeking solitude in (29). They exchange pleasantries as he introduces himself as Laurie. Jo thanks him for the Christmas gift. Laurie has been abroad and tells his stories to an enchanted Jo, whose “eager questions set him going” (30), and soon they warm toward each other. Laurie is close to Jo’s age, as he is about to turn 16 in a month. He confesses his apprehension to go to college, explaining he would rather “live in Italy, and to enjoy [him]self in [his] own way” (31).

Laurie asks Jo to dance; when she admits her frock is burned, he leads her to dance in the hall, where no one can watch them. By the end of the party, Meg has sprained her ankle and must go home. It is past nine p.m. and dark outside, and the girls have no money for a carriage. Hannah will come pick them up later, and Jo tries to alleviate the situation by running to get Meg coffee. She spills the drink on herself and again encounters Laurie, who has coffee and ice in his hands and offers to give them to Meg. When Hannah arrives, she reprimands Meg for her ankle. Meg cries in response. Jo decides to seek a carriage; Laurie proposes to drop them off in his own carriage, as he lives next door. The women thank him and the girls later tell the younger siblings of their night while Jo gives them some bonbons she has saved. Jo declares, “I don’t believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece, and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them” (35).

The daily grind of life has started to irritate Meg, who moans that “the holidays were over” and admits, “I’m so fond of luxury” (36). Meg wonders what is the point of a life where she has to “toil and moil” her days “with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I’m poor and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do. It’s a shame” (36).

On this particular morning, everyone seems “cross” (37). On their way to work, Jo tries to improve Meg’s mood by fantasizing about the day she will be rich and can bestow upon Meg “carriages and ice cream and high-heeled slippers and posies and redheaded boys to dance with” (38). Jo succeeds in making Meg laugh.

The narrator explains: “When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend, the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support, at least” (39). Upon being given the permission of their parents, Meg becomes a nursery governess for the wealthy King family and Jo becomes the companion of the elderly and widowed Aunt March. It is revealed that Aunt March even offered to adopt Jo, but the Marches declined, in order to keep their family intact. Although Jo finds Aunt March irritable and tiresome, she does not entirely dislike the woman and enjoys going to Aunt March’s house because of the large library.

Unlike the other sisters, Beth is shy and reserved, preferring the comfort of her home, choosing to assist Hannah with household activities, and “never thinking of any reward but to be loved” (41). In her spare time, she takes care of her sisters’ discarded and damaged dolls, showing affection to these “outcasts” who became her “imaginary friends” (41). Beth’s only sadness is that she cannot “take music lessons and have a fine piano” (41), as the piano the Marches possess is old and out of tune. Meanwhile, Amy laments her nose, which she wishes was “Grecian” and not “flat” (42). Further, Amy must wear her cousin Florence’s hand-me-downs, and Florence’s mother, according to Amy, “hadn’t a particle of taste” (43). Talented at drawing, Amy is known in the family as “Little Raphael.” Between the older sisters, they have a system in which “each took one of the younger into her keeping and watched over her in her own way” (47); Meg becomes Amy’s confidante while Jo is Beth’s.

Later that evening, as the March women gather to sew, they exchange stories: Aunt March catches Jo reading a novel and commands her to read it to her. The aunt finds the storyline intriguing, but she will not admit it. Meg discovers the eldest son of the Kings has shamed their family and perhaps lost his inheritance in the process. Amy initially wishes she was her classmate, Susie Perkins, who wears a carnelian ring, but changes her mind when Susie is publicly punished by the teacher for drawing a caricature of him. Beth goes to the market for oysters, where she sees a hungry woman beg for work in exchange for fish. When the woman is denied by the shop owner, the elderly Mr. Laurence buys her a fish. Marmee adds that as she was cutting jackets earlier in the day, she was worrying about her husband. A man with two sons in the army came in; one has been captured and the other is sick in a hospital. At the end of the session, each of the Marches find they have more blessings than they thought they had at the beginning of the day.

When Marmee is asked to tell another story, she turns it into a moral by recounting their own stories and the lessons they learned, which entertains and educates the girls:

One discovered that money couldn’t keep shame and sorry out of rich people’s houses; another that, though she was poor, she was a great deal happier, with her youth, health, and good spirits, than a certain fretful, feeble old lady who couldn’t enjoy her comforts; a third that, disagreeable as it was to help get dinner, it was harder still to have to go begging for it; and the fourth, that even carnelian rings were not so valuable as good behavior (47).

During a winter afternoon, Jo, in need of activity to channel her energies, declares, “I like adventures, and I’m going to find some” (48). Meanwhile, Meg chooses to stay inside and enjoy the fire and her book, Ivanhoe. As Jo goes outside to shovel snow and create a walking path, she notices Mr. Laurence’s mansion next door, which is separated from their home by a low hedge. Jo wants to be better acquainted with Laurie, and while Amy and Beth are playing in the snow, she catches a glimpse of Laurie’s “brown face at an upper window, looking wistfully down into their garden” at their merriment (49).

Convinced that Laurie “is suffering for society and fun,” Jo throws a snowball at Laurie’s window, grabbing his attention and a smile. Laurie opens his window and explains he has been suffering from a cold and although he is getting better, he is quite bored from staying in. Jo promises to give him company upon her mother’s permission, which Marmee does give. Laurie is excited at having a guest over. Jo arrives with love from Marmee, a blancmange dessert from Meg, and kittens from Beth. As they laugh and talk, Jo discovers that Laurie is lonely. He unintentionally observes the Marches from his window and admits he cannot help it because he does not have a mother. Jo then invites him to come over, as it would be good for him and her family would welcome his presence.

After discovering Jo’s love for Aunt March’s library, Laurie decides to take her to his grandfather’s library, where she becomes ecstatic. When Laurie has to slip away to see the doctor, Jo becomes engrossed in the atmosphere and comments on the portrait of Mr. Laurence out loud. Not realizing he is standing behind her, she becomes embarrassed before she composes herself and the two take a liking to each other. Mr. Laurence appreciates Jo’s frankness, while Jo appreciates his “kind eyes” (55). Mr. Laurence invites Jo to tea and notices that her presence has changed his grandson’s demeanor. He considers Jo’s proposal to allow the girls and Laurie to mingle. Before leaving, Jo asks Laurie to play the piano, which Laurie does beautifully; however, Laurie stops, as it appears to upset Mr. Laurence.

At home, Jo describes her time at Mr. Laurence’s to the March women, who are now keener on engaging with their neighbor. When Jo tells Marmee of the incident at the piano, she suspects it is because Mr. Laurence did not like Laurie’s mother, who was an Italian musician, and “fears that [Laurie] may want to be a musician” too (59). Regardless, Marmee mentions that Jo’s “little friend is very welcome” in their home (59).