English 2033E Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Louisa May Alcott, Ladylike, Unit

• School: Western University
• Department: English
• Course: English 2033E
• Professor: Clarissa Suranyi

Document Summary

We begin this section of the course with one of the most domestic of domestic. Novels: little women is a prime example of the morally earnest quality of much nineteenth-century literature for girls. The march girls ardently pursue moral virtue, and the sins they avoid are things we would hardly think of as sinful now: imperfect resignation: the novel opens with jo"s complaint, christmas won"t be. Christmas without any presents! this opening sentence sets up the sisters as cinderella figures they"re even sitting by the hearth. In chapter 4, marmee points out the moral example of the old man who remains cheerful and does not complain even though his four sons have been killed or wounded in the civil war. The girls are expected to be entirely selfless any selfish desires are repressed as sinful. Amy wants to be pretty, to have pretty clothes and a nice nose.