Abstract
This paper relates the story of "Little Women" which centers around the character Jo who is Alcott's impersonation. This paper points out that Alcott uses certain symbols to heighten her message in the novel such as umbrellas, used by men to protect women from inclemencies of the outside world. The author feels that, through her works, Alcott advocates feminism, political equality and the dignity of work, represented by her feminist and psychosexual themes, which jibed with the American social reformers of her time.

From the Paper
"Alcott first wrote sensational short stories from the 1840s to the 1860s, published anonymously through a pseudonym in New England periodicals. The publishers were in agreement that the characters are colorful and well conceived and the plots, tightly woven and complex. In most of her anonymous stories was a mysterious and vindictive woman who seeks to manipulate and to destroy. Alcott also includes ghosts, opium eaters and mercenaries in her series. She took advantage of writing these very popular works as means of steady income for her family. Then she wrote the series on "Little Women", which was most successful in illustrating the life-sized struggles between adolescence and maturity among the sisters. It was the novel's faithful and lifelike depiction of the March family in a realistic way and Alcott's representation of New England manners and beliefs with accuracy that brought it fame and victory. Critics ascribed its success to the organization of the novel, wherein each chapter had an entire episode with a moral commentary, as one whole treatise on adolescent psychology. These critics praised Alcott's characterization and viewed as the strongest basis for its popularity then and even now."

Tags:reform, psychosexual, equlaity, work, symbolism

Abstract
This paper explains that Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women", which is about four sisters growing up during and following the Civil War, entertains and instructs the reader about many issues such as true love, charity and family loyalty. The author points out that the most powerful comment Alcott makes throughout the book is her argument that marriage should be motivated by love and not money. The paper describes the marriages of the parents and three of the sisters to illustrate that people can be happy without money as long as they have love. The paper includes several quotations from the book.

From the Paper
"All that is left is for Jo's feelings to become clear. She was never in any danger of marrying for money as appearances and finery had never held any attraction for her. She had also had the earlier chance of marrying the well-off Laurie and had turned him down because she was not in love with him. Her new suitor, Professor Bhaer, takes the chance of proposing to Jo and confessing, "It was not easy, but I could not find the heart to take you from that so happy home until I could have a prospect of one to give you, after much time, perhaps, and hard work.""

Tags:love, money, family, happiness, characters

Abstract
This paper discusses the main influence in Louisa May Alcott's life-- her parents. During the 1800s, her father was one of the major leaders of the transcendentalist movement and her mother worked for equal rights and other worthy causes of the time. Her parents' beliefs were passed on to their daughters. This paper shows how Alcott's parents influenced her writings and her life.

From the Paper
"She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful" (Alcott, Little 14). The author of this passage, Louisa May Alcott, describes Jo, one of the characters in her novel Little Women. The character she describes in this passage is modeled after herself. The other characters in the novel depict her mother, father and sisters as they were in her own home. The novel deals with the four sisters' struggles, modeled after her own sisters and herself, of becoming women in the mid-1800s. After repeated suggestions from her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, Alcott published this autobiographical story of her family and childhood in 1868. The publication of this novel was an immediate success and made her an important American writer. Since her time, the novel has never been out of print and ranks in the top ten bestsellers of all time (Powers). Alcott's success can be traced back to the influences she had in her childhood. It is clear that Alcott's father and mother had the most influence on her success and her writings."

Tags:amos, bronson, transcendentalism

Abstract
This paper discusses some of the writings of Louisa May Alcott, which are some of the most widely read and reproduced of any early American author. The paper looks at her writings that are described as children's literature, for which she is most famous and then focuses on her writing that was published under a pseudonym. The paper describes the connections between the two seemingly incongruent voices of her literature published under her name and that published under a pseudonym.

From the Paper
"Louisa May Alcott, recently recognized more appropriately as a critic of her time has become even more widely read and popular as a result of the recognition of her pseudonyms. Alcott had a message, not unlike those who came before her, the Mary Wollstonecraft of her day, that the position of people needed to be analyzed and she utilized her pen to do so. (Johnson ii) Within the work she gives her protagonist the power to influence people, almost to a point that she is a mesmerist, the incongruence of these two feared but real characteristics of women give the character a valid representation of female power, in its feared and real state. (Gaul 835)"

Tags:Victorian, Little, Women, characters

From the Paper
"Louisa May Alcott was a true "modern" American of the late 1800's, influenced by and embodying the beliefs of some of the strongest people and trends of her time, and managing to create her own long-lasting influence on American culture through her writing. The universal appeal of her characters allows her books to continue to influence readers today, as she brings to them knowledge of the realities of her life, as well as her beliefs regarding family, transcendentalism, women's suffrage, and abolition. Trends of the day, such as these, affected her greatly and made their imprint upon her work, which in turn immortalized those trends through its unending popularity."

Tags:david, emerson, henry, influences, little, ralph, thoreau, transcendentalist, waldo, women

Abstract
Both Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, written in 1911, and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, written in 1868, have remained among the most read and best loved children's classics for decades.

From the Paper
"Both Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, written in 1911, and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, written in 1868, have remained among the most read and best loved children's classics for decades. Although both novels are set in the times in which they were written and therefore do not provide modern readers with an intimately familiar setting, the characters and values the novels present are as real and as relevant today as they were when first created, and it is this quality which charms children of the 1990's as much as it charmed their great-grandparents. This research will explore the similarities between The Secret Garden and Little Women and identify the factors which make them such enduring children's classics.

One reason the books likely remain so popular is that both of them feature strong, independent-minded girls as their central ..."

From the Paper
"Louisa May Alcott is best-known for her novel Little Women, but she wrote many other novels and was a very popular author in her time. She was also a member of a famous family and knew many of the important literary figures of her day. Alcott derived elements of her novels from her own life and often included herself autobiographically, notably in the character of Jo in Little Women.

Her father was Bronson Alcott, a member of the Transcendentalist movement whose best-known adherent may have been Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott was also an educator who implemented his ideas about education at several schools, such as the Temple School at Boston that he founded in 1834. Later, he was school superintendent at Concord and elsewhere. In his educational structure, he tried to create the harmonious ..."

From the Paper
"The novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott stands as an archetype of feminine writing from the nineteenth century, a story emphasizing the choices facing women in terms of home and family, career choice, and aspirations. Much of the sense of choice is placed in the hands of Jo, the strongest female in the novel and the one who becomes the center for her family as well. It is this power of choice and inner strength that has attracted generations of readers and that was the attraction for filmmakers recently when they produced a new version of Little Women and successfully shaped the story for a feminist age.

Little Women is not a complex novel nor a complex study of human nature. It is largely about Jo and her struggle to be good and to improve herself in the world, and as such it is believed to represent Louisa's own struggle with the same issue..."

Abstract
The paper describes how the novel "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott is about a family and shows the development of the individuals within that family and of the family as a whole. The paper explains that certain characters have a stronger hold on the imagination of readers, notably Jo, but all members of the family are given their due. The paper notes that the father is not present for most of the book, though he has certainly contributed in shaping the character of his daughters and remains a presence for each of them.

From the Paper
"The novel "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott is about a family and shows the development of the individuals within that family and of the family as a whole. Certain characters have a stronger hold on the imagination of readers, notably Jo, but all members of the family are given their due. Little Women is the story of a family. The father is not present for most of the book, though he has certainly contributed in shaping the character of his daughters and remains a presence for each of them. The girls live in a world in which they experience a number of disappointments but are compensated for each with some form of spiritual growth. This is in keeping with the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was a friend of..."

Tags:alcott, novel, characters

Abstract
This paper will compare and contrast the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and seek to understand this textual relationship with the film's made on the book in 1933 and 1994.

Tags:little women, alcott