From Rags to Riches When one thinks of Louisa May Alcott’s works, a reader will automatically recall her seminal piece, Little Women. The plight of a family is followed within the context of the book, and the themes found within the pages discuss the concept of being poor and how it is mostly a state of mind. Based on this background, the basic precept shown through the text is the mantra that someone is always worse off, and each and every person should be thankful for what s/he has in life. Louisa May Alcott’s life is as interesting as it is variegated; the influences one can find in her works bubble slowly in the background, which make a reader think about what is actually being said. As one looks at Louisa May Alcott’s life, the following …show more content…
Louisa May Alcott’s writing was impacted by her parents and how they raised her, her protest against superior manhood, and the place that started it all. Alcott’s father may have let her down in more ways than anyone can imagine, but she did not let that hold her back. That experience shaped her, it did not determine her. If he had not been so obsessed with the idea of celestial nature, then maybe her childhood would have been salvaged. But then again, maybe we would not have the literary artwork we have today. In order for her to escape him, she had to do the unthinkable. She went as a woman out into the big bad world to attain an occupation and earn money. People did not approve of her efforts and regularly turned her away. Alcott looked on the bright side and made use of her talent. She wrote and wrote and wrote even if it was only the publisher's words and not hers. Alcott contorted her work in order to appease those with power. After a while she got tired of people not seeing the true her and decided to write honestly for herself and about herself. “Hospital Sketches” was one of her most edited pieces. Portions that were seen as unprofitable were expunged from the paper. Alcott refused to be stepped on so she published the original version all by herself. Alcott wrote “Hospital Sketches” not with the intent of selling it. The novel was simply a compilation of experiences. That military hospital had an unforeseen guise of death. On the other hand, “Work” was meant to be an informational piece that grabbed people’s attention. Alcott was purposefully exploring the depths of her decisions while simultaneously sharing them with the world.“Little Women” is an autobiography of Alcott’s most enjoyable childhood years. However, she was not inclined to write it. Her publisher told her to because it would sell splendidly. Sure enough, that publisher was correct, even if the novel made Alcott uncomfortable.
Ella was born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25, 1917. When alled “The First Lady of Song” by some fans. She was known for having beautiful tone, extended range, and great intonation, and famous for her improvisational scat singing. Ella sang during the her most famous song was “A-tiscket A-tasket”. Fitzgerald sang in the period of swing, ballads, and bebop; she made some great albums with other great jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. She influenced countless American popular singers of the post-swing period and also international performers such as the singer Miriam Makeba. She didn’t really write any of her own songs. Instead she sang songs by other people in a new and great way. The main exception
Steinbeck is very successful in creating sympathy throughout her character change and he presents her in this way to prove that the majority of women went through similar situations. This leads us to sympathise with all people society deems to be ‘inferior’ and we can even apply this lesson to today’s society.
In the late 1800s, women were considered to be brought up under male superiority. Women were not required to have a decent education or seek a professional career, their expectation was strictly revolved in the interest of their home and family. In addition after marriage, women had embodied a purpose as a wife to have little to any rights: women could not keep their own wages, own property titled under their name, or sign a legal document. As of this, women developed an alternative method of expression which was writing. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton are core examples of this attempt, and assisted the audience to interpret the voice and position of women by exhibiting their perspective of women by pointing out the prolonging cruel and unjust treatment men applied over them and the social complexity that pressure women to make misleading choices.
Louisa Ellis can be viewed in two different ways. For one, she can be seen as a feministic hero who feels she is better off without a husband. For second, she can be viewed as a selfless person. There is evidence that this story takes place in a different time. A time where women did not have the right to vote, or to sustain themselves. By examining the clues throughout the story, one can say the story takes place in the late 1800’s. Some of the clues are revealed when the narrator points out certain things which are unusual to today’s world. For example, the narrator says, “she lighted her lamp” (). This story takes place in a time when were women counted on their husbands for financial support and protecting. When the reader knows this, the reader can come to the conclusion that Louisa Ellis was not so much a feminist, but instead was a selfless woman who worked for “the greater good”.
How does one compare the life of women to men in late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century America? In this time the rights of women were progressing in the United States and there were two important authors, Kate Chopin and John Steinbeck. These authors may have shown the readers a glimpse of the inner sentiments of women in that time. They both wrote a fictitious story about women’s restraints by a masculine driven society that may have some realism to what women’s inequities may have been. The trials of the protagonists in both narratives are distinctive in many ways, only similar when it totals the macho goaded culture of that time. Even so, In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing we hold two unlike fictional characters in two very different short stories similar to Elisa Allen in the “Chrysanthemums” and Mrs. Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”, that have unusual struggles that came from the same sort of antagonist.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
Throughout time women have been written as the lesser sex, weaker, secondary characters. They are portrayed as dumb, stupid, and nothing more than their fading beauty. They are written as if they need to be saved or helped because they cannot help themselves. Women, such as Daisy Buchanan who believes all a woman can be is a “beautiful little fool”, Mrs Mallard who quite died when she lost her freedom from her husband, Eliza Perkins who rights the main character a woman who is a mental health patient who happens to be a woman being locked up by her husband, and then Carlos Andres Gomez who recognizes the sexism problem and wants to change it. Women in The Great Gatsby, “The Story of an Hour,” “The Yellow Wall Paper” and the poem “When” are oppressed because the fundamental concept of equality that America is based on undermines gender equality.
There are a couple of similes the author uses in the poem to stress the helplessness she felt in childhood. In the lines, “The tears/ running down like mud” (11,12), the reader may notice the words sliding down the page in lines 12-14 like mud and tears that flowed in childhood days. The speaker compares a...
Little Women shows the independence of the March sisters, what actions make them independent, and how they become independent women. The Laurence and March family show every different kind of love in this story, from love of family to romance. The March girls and Laurie Laurence face challenges and are taught that, in the end, experiencing problems in life are there to teach them to learn from their past mistakes, ultimately helping them grow and make wiser choices in the future. Unbelievably different from when they were teenagers, Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, and Laurie grow tremendously by learning happiness, love, and independence. In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott depicts female independence, love, and coming of age through the lives of the March family.
Watson, N. (2009) ‘Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-9) Introduction’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.13-17
In Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria and Mary Robinson’s The Natural Daughter, women are subject to many hardships economically, simply because they are women. Women are not given sufficient opportunity, as men are, to pursue a living. Even if she is a woman of taste and morals, she may be treated as though she is a criminal and given no means to protect herself.
“Captured the nuances that still move me to laugh and cry” (Delamar xiii). Louisa May Alcott is such a wonderful woman who was known not only as a great writer, but also a fighter for justice and advocate of human rights. No matter how many difficulties Louisa faced in her life, she had succeeded in achieving her dream. She wrote one of the greatest books of her era, Little Women. She participated in anti-slavery activities, and was a non-official feminist. She worked hard for fans and neither for fame nor money. Louisa May Alcott is example for all of the people in the world.
The story Little Women takes place at a time when women were taking on uncustomary roles like physical laborer, family protector and provider, and military volunteer while their husbands served during the Civil War. Keeping within the boundaries of the time, Louisa May Alcott uses herself and her own three sisters to create this classical novel from personal experiences. Each sister is different. They each set goals and dreams for their selves whether it goes along with their contemporary society or not. With the assistance of their mother, friends and experiences, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy struggle between their personal expectations and society’s expectations as they plan for their future and choose their destinies.
the disabilities of women are social and economic; the woman writer can only survive despite great difficulties, and despite the prejudice and the economic selfishness of men; and the key to emancipation is to be found in the door of a room which a woman may call her own and which she can inhabit with the same freedom and independence as her brothers. (144)
...s. The foremost condition for the creation of fiction is motivation and the imagination of the author. Even Virginia Woolf’s books resulted from such urge and willingness to express her ideas. Unlike, Woolf’s statement of how women need the private space of their own, financial affluence to write fiction, so many things motivate and encourage people to write without considering such circumstances. Woolf argues on the significance of financial affluence in its relevance to social equality. She even states, “Of the two — the vote and the money — the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important”. However, money can’t represent the ideals of equality. As for women writers, their ideas and stories is the condition that motivates them to write fiction. Thus, the “500-pound a year” cannot replace the innate essence of writer’s passion in writing fiction.