Little Women (novel)
Little Women is a novel by the American writer Louisa May Alcott published in 1868/1869 in two parts .
Little Women I and II , which were published in England under the titles Little Women and Good Wives , formed the prelude to Louisa May Alcott's children's and youth literature (the last parts of the March trilogy Little Men and Jo's Boys as well as the novels An Old- Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Under the Lilacs and Jack and Jill were written between 1869 and 1886). Little Women I was written by Louisa May Alcott between May and July 1868; the publication followed in October of the same year. Due to the very surprising success for the author, she started the second part of Little Women in November , which she completed in January 1869 and published in April. The plot and theme of the first, strongly autobiographical part of Little Women is more likely to be set in the 1840s and 1850s. However, since it is told from the perspective of the late 1860s, i.e. after the end of the American Civil War (Civil War ), elements from the 1860s were also integrated.
action
Little Women tells the life story of sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy who grew up with their parents in New England . The clever, boyish Josephine ("Jo"), the pretty and docile Meg, the selfless and peaceful Beth and the baby, the selfish Amy, are accompanied by their childlike castles in the air until they become women. Marmee , mother of the four little women, carefully watches over the development and treatment of her children. The father is at war.
Meg, who, compared to her sisters , places the greatest value on adhering to existing conventions , marries early. With John Brooke, the tutor of the young neighbor and friend Theodore, called "Laurie", she starts a family that is soon expanded to include the two children John, Jr. "Demi" and Margreth "Daisy". Later Josephine "Josy", who is mentioned in Little Men , is added.
Beth, who devotes her life to her family and selflessly works in the household and with sick and poor neighbors, is selfless to the point of death. While unselfishly caring for a poor family in the neighborhood, she contracted scarlet fever . If she recovers from the illness temporarily, it will be decisive for Beth's untimely death.
Amy, the baby of the family, sees herself as an artist, can travel to Europe as a companion with an aunt and continue her artistic education there. She marries Laurie, the wealthy boy next door to her family, the long-time soul brother of her sister Jo, returns to America with him and has a daughter.
Among other things, Jo wishes for financial and individual independence, fame and recognition as a writer and a trip to Europe. The longed-for trip is not started by her, but by Amy. Although her writing talent is financially rewarded at times, it is regularly a cause for personal and social conflicts. Only after the abandonment of her (not selfless) writing, initiated by the father figure Professor Bhaer, does she find the life partner in Bhaer, whom she finally marries. Together with him, she opens a school on the property inherited from her aunt. Professor Bhaer becomes head of this educational institution; Her literary activities, which she resumes, are no longer motivated by a pursuit of fame and recognition after the marriage. They become an exclusively private activity, part of their new role as mothers. Jo has two sons: Rob, named after his grandfather, and Teddy, named after Jo's childhood friend Laurie.
Adaptations
Film adaptations
An early British film adaptation from 1917 is considered lost. The first US movie adaptation, with Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett , was made in 1933 under the direction of George Cukor (German as Four Sisters ). It was followed in 1949 a version with Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh directed by Mervyn LeRoy (dt. Little brave Jo ). A two-part US television version was produced in 1978. In 1994, Gillian Armstrong filmed the book with Winona Ryder (German as Betty and her sisters ). In 2019, another film adaptation by Greta Gerwig with Saoirse Ronan , Emma Watson , Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen was released .
Several cartoon series based on Little Women were created in Japan ; for the first time in 1977 as an episode in the series Manga Sekai Mukashibanashi under the Japanese title of the novel series Wakakusa Monogatari ( 若 草 物語 , dt. "Stories of young grass") and in 1980 the first complete series under the same title. 1981 followed with Wakakusa no Yon Shimai ( 若 草 の 四 姉妹 , German "the four sisters of the young grass") another. The internationally best known was made as part of the literary film adaptations of the World Masterpiece Theater (WMT) in 1987 with Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari , which was broadcast in Germany under the title A happy family . The continuation of the novel Little Men was also implemented in 1993 as the WMT series Wakakusa Monogatari: Nan to Jo-sensei , in Germany: Missis Jo and her happy family .
literature
In 2005, author Geraldine Brooks published her book March (German Auf free field ), a novel that examines the loopholes in Little Women and describes the story of Mr. March during the Civil War. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006.
literature
- Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women . 1868. London: Penguin Books, 1994.
- Alcott, Louisa May. Good Wives . 1869. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
- Alcott, Louisa May. The Journals of Louisa May Alcott . Joel Myerson & Daniel Shealy, eds. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1997.
- Auerbach, Nina. "Waiting together - Alcott on Matriarchy". In: Little Women and the Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays . Janice M. Alberghene and Beverly Lyon Clark, eds. New York: Garland, 1999. 7-26.
- Stern, Madeleine . Louisa May Alcott: From Blood and Thunder to Hearth and Home. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1998.
Web links
- http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/alcottguide.htm (Bibliography: very extensive overview by Elizabeth Blakesley Lindsay on the work of Louisa May Alcott; there is also an overview of published secondary literature, written dissertations and master's theses)