Trigger warning, this post is about sexual harassment in LMA´s life and her novels. 

Sometimes I wonder if my views on Little Women would have been different if I had read part 2 as a child not as a 17 year old. I had seen the 1994 film so I somewhat knew what was going to happen but all I now remember thinking that on my first read of the second book, Laurie (who I had liked quite a lot as a child) was an immature fuckboy and Amy (who I had had conflicted feelings as a child) was graceful mature and I was very impressed by her character arc (which sadly was not included in the 1994 film) and that it was Amy who was able to get through Laurie and tell him that you are hurting yourself and people around you with your behavior. 

I think including Laurie´s character arc is key to everything. I have been very frustrated by the “choose your own narrative” of Greta Gerwig´s film. When I was watching the film I thought “this is great they actually show that Laurie is more immature than Fritz and Laurie is holding Jo back". Then I heard that  many previous Jo and Laurie fans moved on to root Jo and Friedrich and then I also heard there is now a whole new generation of Jo and Laurie shippers who think they are super romantic in this film.

Nothing new under the sun.

32- year old Louisa May Alcott was working in Switzerland as a companion to a wealthy American woman called Anna Weld. There she met a Polish composer and soldier. 21-year old Ladislas Wisniewski. Ladislas had turberculosis and Louisa who was a caretaker by nature  nursed him. He called him as his “Little Mama” and asked her to call him “Varjo” which was the name that his mother used to call him  she called him “Laddie” which was a name that Louisa called all the young “lads”. He was very sweet and romantic bringing Louisa roses, he played music to her and they spent lot of time together talking about the future.

Then something strange happens. Louisa writes to her journal.

 “Anna troubled about Laddie who was in a despairing state of mind I could not advice them to be happy as they desired, so everything went wrong and both worried”.

The previous diary markings suggest that Laddie had been flirtatious with Louisa and had even mentioned possible future together. Louisa had written that Anna Weld was whiny, needy, foolish “and didn´t have a clue about Goethe” (probably one of my favorite Louisa quotes). The tone of Louisa´s diary markings change. She begins to sympathize Anna and becomes more suspicious about Laddie. 

When Louisa writes  “could not advice them to be happy as they desired” what does she mean? Did Ladislas and Anna had suddenly become affectionate with one another? It is very unlikely because quite soon Ladislas announced that he was leaving and it seemed that Anna had asked him to leave.

Did Ladislas pressured Anna to have sex with him?

Notes from the time suggest that “he was overly-friendly with Miss Weld, which is why he had to leave the pension”. 

Louisa had seen the signs and felt powerless not being able to go back to the way things were. 

This reminds me the first part in Little Women when Laurie is cat-fishing Meg for "bit of a frolic" and Jo struggles to identify with Meg´s pain but then in second part in Little Women when Jo is four years older and Laurie began to harass her, now she knows how Meg was feeling when someone does not respect your boundaries.

In Little Women Laurie tries to kiss Jo in the first part, right after Beth has become sick Jo says no. In the second part, Jo travels to New York because Laurie´s actions are making her feel very uncomfortable. After Beth has passed away Laurie sends Jo another proposal, around the same time when he realizes that the has feelings for Amy. Is this actually a memory of Ladislas affection moving from Louisa to Anna?

Who could forget, Hannah describes Laurie as a "Weathercock".

Reflecting to Friedrich´s character, he never force himself to Jo and only is physically affectionate with her when he has her full consent.

At this point Louisa was not rich but poor as a church mouse. Anna Weld on the other hand was rich. Couple months later after her contract with Anna ended Louisa traveled to Paris where she spent a day with Ladislas and his friends. 

Diary markings are censored with lines “couldn´t be” written (Shealy). 

Was Ladislas Wisniewski a con artist like LMA biographer Harriet Reisen has suggested?

A year later after Louisa had returned home, her younger sister May met Ladislas in Paris and spent time with him. 

This has made MANY Alcott scholars believe that Louisa and May had some sort of argument over Laddie, which is also seen in the strange triangle loop that the Little Women adaptations repeat over and over. 

In the novel Little Women, both Amy and Jo are more mature than Laurie, when we move on from book 1 to book 2. Amy is four years younger than Laurie yet she is more mature than he is. 

Louisa describes in her journals that Ladislas was always making pranks on others. There is a scene in LW where Laurie who is a very wealthy young man,  gives stupid prank gifts for Meg and John, who really start their shared life with nothing. He is 23 year old behaving like a teen-ager. 

When Jo says that she doesn´t approve flirting, Laurie who has just been flirting with bunch of girls says that he does not approve flirtatious girls either. 

Reminds me the way in 1970 Little Women series, when Laurie forges letters to Meg in John´s name, the whole incident is framed to be Meg´s fault.

It seems that both Louisa and May got tired with Ladislas and that he wasn´t productive and preferred to live on other people´s wing. 

There are bank notes that show that Louisa had asked her publisher to pay Ladislas 400 dollars in 1873. Which was a lot of money back then. 

In her novel “only gossip prospers” writer Lorraine Tosiello suggests that Ladislas was blackmailing Louisa. Based to Louisa´s journal Ladislas had a family in 1873. Louisa supported many orphan organizations it is easy to imagine that she wanted to support his children.

In one of her letters to Louisa, May Alcott writes that Ladislas “never acknowledges his debt”. 
Were they talking about the 400 dollars and if not that would mean that they had given him more money which he hadn´t paid back? 

I once read that when May Alcott was living in Paris, she would sometimes get really frustrated by the Little Women fans who came to distract her and ask if there was a real-life Laurie. I used to think that May´s frustration was caused by the fact that Amy was already in the 19th century a character who divided opinions but in retrospective what if May was annoyed because she knew that the main model for the real-life Laurie was far from the book Laurie. 

In her letters to Laddie and Alf Whitman who was another real-life Laurie (and he and May were very close friends) Louisa wrote that she wanted to capture the “nature of boyhood” into Laurie´s character. 

It seems that Ladislas never lived up to Louisa´s expectations like Laurie never lived up to Jo´s. 

In Little Women in one moment Laurie is thinking how fortunate he is having four sisters always on his side and showing good example. Then he thinks about going to gamble and that Meg and Jo would be disappointed with him, and then he thinks that no matter what he does, girls always forgive him

and he goes to gamble. 

(Similar narrative is repeated in Jo´s boys when Nat is in Germany and tries to over come similar temptations). 

Another thing that has also raised eyebrows was Ladislas quick recovery from tuberculosis. Was he faking it all along? Was he traveling around Europe targeting wealthy women? first Miss Weld and then Louisa, after she had become a multi-millionaire. Did he used Louisa´s sympathies for his supposed illness for his own advances. In Rose in Bloom, Alcott novel that appeared 10 years later after Little Women, Charlie who is another literal re-carnation of Ladislas, wants to marry Rose, not because of love, but because she is about inherit lots of money. Why was Ladislas in Anna Weld´s pension in the first place? who had invited him? Did he lured Miss Weld to invite him? 

Ladislas called Louisa his "Little Mama". There are elements in this relationship that sound more parental than romantic, which is the case in Little Women as well, even though the book Laurie is few months older than Jo. For Jo he always remains as a boy and when he wants a relationship with her, it is not because he loves Jo but to escape his own demons, which he has refused to face.

A year after the publishing of Little Women, Louisa wrote an essay called "Happy women" where she writes:

"If love comes as it should come accept it in god´s name, If it does not come reject the shadow of it in God´s name for it can never satisfy the hungry heart"

Ladislas had took advantage of Louisa´s loneliness, and she was the one who had to pay the price. Letters to May reveal Laurie who was not who he said he was, and yet for the public Louisa could never tell the truth. When a woman gets played by a conman, there is lots of shame that comes with it. 

Louisa wrote Jo to be an idealized version of herself, and Jo has elements from many women who Louisa admired. In some ways Louisa is also Laurie. She had similar way to vent her emotions like Laurie does in the book, but Louisa´s Laurie grows, becomes an efficient member of society and even asks Jo to forgive him the way he behaved.

If Ladislas Wisniewski was a conman (and I am starting to believe that he was). His scam has been successful and has lasted over a century... and it´s still going. 

Harassment is a common theme is LMA´s novels. Often the harasser dies and in their death bed asks the protagonist to forgive them or in Laurie´s case they actually begin to question their own behavior. That Little Women adaptations from 1917 to 2019, never include this and how uncomfortable his behavior is for Jo, truly is The Laurie problem  and Louisa´s views on what a healthy relationship is is always relevant.

Sources:

Wedding Marches by Daniel Shealy
Louisa May Alcott, Woman behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen
Only Gossip Prospers (historical context) by Lorraine Tosiello
Louisa May Alcott, life, letters and journals by Edna Cheney

(Check out the story of the real life Fritz as well) 

You can get English subtitles from the low-left corner of the video. 
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Approximately a quarter of Finnish woods are spruce forest. The tallest spruce can be found from the national part of Vesijako and it is 45 meters tall. Finnish word for spruce, kuusi is a proto-finno ugric word. Pines in Finnish folklore are connected to the sun and day, where as spruces are connected to the moon and night. Perhaps the name has something to do with the Finnish word for the moon, kuu.

A young spruce can only grow in the shadow of the older spruces and it binds the sunlight better than any other tree. In Finnish folkore spruce is the tree of shadows and cool shade. Spruce was used to make musical instruments like kantele (Finnish traditional harp) and bells for the cows to wear. Travelers and hunters would sleep under the spruce in their journeys. 

Spruces that had unusual shape were considered to be sacred trees of Tapio, the god of forest and hunt. Spruce tree that grew wide, was called Tapion kämmen, Tapio´s paw and the huntsman had to eat the first gain from the paw and leave some rabbit flesh and a goblet of vodka as a sacrifice for the god. 

Before the Christmas tree tradition spread to Scandinavia from Germany in the 16th century, there was a custom to decorate homes with green branches during Winter Solstice. The custom of decorating homes with ever-green branches is believed to have symbolized the circle of life and nature´s awakening.

Spruce is seen as a masculine tree. It is connected to wisdom, old age and the elements of fire, earth and air. Roots go deep into the ground and top reaches the sky. 

It is connected to several forest deities Tapio (Finland) Porewit (Slavic) Baldur (Norse). In Finnish folklore spruce is connected to the land of the death, Alinen but it was also seen as a protective tree. When a family built a hose the spirit tree in the yard, might as well been a protective spruce tree. It was also believed that it kept ghosts and evil spirits away. 

In Finland we had a tradition called Karsikkopuu (pruning tree). This was a tree that had been pruned/marked in order to commemorate the death. Most common pruning tree was a spruce. When a person was buried people believed that their soul was still able to roam freely and spirit could crab the tree branches and pull themselves up from the grave. All the lower branches were cut away from the pruning tree so the spirit of the deceased would not leave their grave. Marking on the tree was usually a cross that was either carved or painted. As the time went on markings were turned into wooden boards where the time of death was written. Tradition started slowly vanish in the end of the 19th century. Another custom was to spread spruce branches to the cemetery roads so that the spirits would not follow the living. 

Sources:
https://www.taivaannaula.org/2012/08/06/puiden-juurilla/

http://noidankoto.blogspot.com/2011/10/kuusi-picea-abies_19.html

Kaarle Krohn: Suomalaisten runojen uskonto

The time when I visited Harry Potter studios in London <3

Ready for some spicy Jo and Fritz content. I have been thinking about this a lot. Lot of people go against Friedrich´s character because of the feedback scene and when they read the book they see him as a bully because they have been influenced by the adaptations (1994, 2017 do it horribly) (based to the reactions to the 2019 film viewers either see Fritz as a good or the bad guy).

The part in the book where Jo feels that those sensational stories are really having a bad effect on her mental health has never been adapted.

100 years of Little Women adaptations, it´s not there.

Weekly Volcano is a caricature of a New York magazine called Frank Lesley´s Weekly illustrated Newspaper, which is a newspaper where Louisa May Alcott used to send her sensational stories and Mr Dashwood is a caricature of Mr Leslie himself. Louisa didn´t particularly like Mr Leslie same way as Jo doesn´t particularly care about Mr Dashwood.

When Jo goes to work to the magazine, she is hired because the previous “hack” has left the job for higher paying position. She becomes part of a machine. There is no room for individualism and her stories must follow the magazine´s policy no matter how much they contradict with her own values.

Mr Dashwood asks Jo to cut moralities away from her story. Jo doesn´t like the idea but agrees, Dashwood also asks Jo to make the story more thrilling which once again makes Jo feel very uncomfortable. Finally when Jo sees the finished product she hardly recognizes it to her own. 

Imagine being Louisa. Writing thrilling tales was a way for her to vent her hyper-dramatic imagination at first, but same way as Jo, Louisa had her own code of morals. 19th century was both Christian and puritan, Louisa grew up in a home that supported humanitarian values, her mother for example being one of the  first American social workers.

Throughout her life Louisa practiced self-reflection which is a part of transcendentalist philosophy. You stop for a moment to look at your actions outside yourself. Sensational story sequence was one of those moments. Should she write more shocking tales about rapists and predators, women and children being hurt? stories that encourage discriminating marginalized groups because those were stories that were selling, and those went against Louisa´s own values.

It is when Friedrich reminds Jo  that the writer has either negative or a positive influence over her readership Jo realizes that, any work that she produces that goes against her own values can and will create harm. 

The chapter is called “Friend” because Friedrich encourages Jo to take the ownership of her own work. She is no longer going to sacrifice her own integrity for a badly paid job writing content that does not bring her satisfaction.
You can see this reflected in Louisa, because she wanted to cut her ties to these sensational stories entirely.

Friedrich is not the villain, he is Jo´s hero, reminding her about her own capacities. Which is why Jo doesn´t snap at him or defend her sensational writings because that doens´t happen in the novel either.

If you want Jo to shout at someone in the adaptations, that should be the editor. 

In our current times there are lots of young creative people who work in low paid jobs sacrificing their artistic skills to companies that have zero respect for them. Louisa knew what important lesson this was, which is why she captured it into Little Women 

In one of her diary markings Louisa writes that her friend Emerson had said to her that she should write something that pleases herself. Stories that come from her heart, will be the most successful ones.

As we know, this was the case.

​Thank you for reading and as always, if you enjoy my articles feel free to share them in your social media networks. 

Disney song challenge continues. Emma was trying to identify the Finnish versions of the songs and I tried to catch up with the English ones <3 we are nuts!

I made my first Laurie and Amy video :D Song is "Boys with emotions" by Felix Sandman.
​Clips from Little Women 2019, 1933, 1994 and 1978 (Richard Gilliland is hands down my favourite "emotional" Laurie)

Poet Ezra Pound said that literature does not exist in a vacuum, and semi biographical novels are exactly that, semi biographical. A work of fiction strongly influence by events in an author's life.

Writer Janet Manley describes Fritz Bhaer as a perfect mystery, a perfect crush, he is the perfect text, a space offering up multiple interpretations. In the spirit, I explore Frederic's historical and cinematic evolution through gender studies, his and Jo's relationship, and the development of their romance, and how it correlated with Louisa May Alcott's own life, Louisa's adoration towards German and German culture.

I will touch the fan culture as well and how certain themes that have been repeated in the movies again and again affect the way people see Jo and Friedrich. The key ingredient in understanding Friedrich's character lies within Louisa May Alcott's love for Germany, Germany people, German language, German philosophy, and most importantly German literature. We might even refer Louisa May Alcott as a Germanophile, a person who has a great deal of interest towards German culture. Make sure to give a like to this video and subscribe to my channel, Small Umbrella In The Rain, for in-depth Little Women content.
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There are multiple references to Germany in Little Women. On the very first chapter of Little Women, Jo receives a copy of Undine and Sintram as a Christmas present. Undine and Sintram is a collection of Scandinavian and Germanic fables written by a French-German author, Friedrich de la Motte Foque.

Beth catches the scarlet fever, which is terrible, but the Marches never blame the Hummels. Epidemic disease were rather common back then, and Louisa always writes about the Hummels with a great sympathy.

In the chapter Camp Lawrence, John Brooke translates a German song for Meg, and reads her parts from Mary Stuart, which is a play that was written by German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller. On Meg's and John's wedding, Laurie suggests that they dance like the Germans do.

When Jo stays in New York, her hostess in the boarding house, Mrs. Kirk. Kirk is an anglicized last name for German word Kirche, meaning church. When it comes to 19th century German culture and the influences of German immigration into American culture, Little Women saga is consistently favorable towards it.

​One of Louisa's favorite authors was the German poet Goethe. Goethe was one of the models for Friedrich's character. In Little Women, on her grand tour in Europe with Aunt March, Amy visits Goethe's house and writes home and tells about it.

On her first trip to Europe, Louisa herself made a pilgrimage to Goethe's house. Went to Wiesbaden first, a pleasant, gay place full of people. Saw the gambling hall and people playing, the fine grounds and drives. And then went to Frankfurt. Here I saw and enjoyed a good deal. The statues of Goethe, Schiller, Faust, Gutenberg, and Schaeffer, are in the squares. Goethe's house is a tall, plain building with each story projecting over the lower, and a Dutch roof. A marble slab over the front door recording the date of Goethe's birth. I took a look at it and wanted to go in, as it was empty. But there was no time.

The most obvious and most important German influence in Little Women is, of course, the love of Jo's life, Friedrich Bhaer. Little Women takes place in the feminine sphere, which is one of the biggest reasons why I and millions of other readers love it.

When it comes to main three male character, Laurie, Fritz, and John, Louisa did not write explicit backgrounds stories to any of them. To explore Friedrich's character and to get better understanding of him, we need to explore Louisa. Her personal life, philosophy, values, and of course her love for Germany.

Friedrich is introduced quite early on in the second novel, and Jo is curious about him from the moment she sees him. And she finds him to be a kindred spirit.

​As I went downstairs soon after, I saw something I liked. The flights are very long in this tall house and as I stood waiting at the head of the third one, for a little servant girl to lumber up, I saw a gentleman come along behind her, take her heavy load of coal out of her hand, carry it all the way up, put it down at a door nearby, and walk away. Saying with a kind note and a foreign accent, "It goes better so. The little back is too young to have such heaviness."

Wasn't it good of him? I like such things. For as Father says, trifles show character. When I mentioned it to Mrs. K that evening, she laughed and said, "That must have been Professor Bhaer. He is always doing things of that sort."

Mrs. K told me he was from Berlin, very learned and good. But poor as a church mouse and gives lessons to support himself, and two little orphan nephews who he is educating here. According to the wishes of his sister, who married an American.

​It is very likely that Louisa had Humboldt University in her mind. During the time when Louisa did her first visit to Germany, it was known as the University of Berlin. University was established in 1809, which makes it only fitting that Friedrich would have studied and worked as a professor there. University is known for producing some of the most well known German thinkers and philosophers.

We are not told a lot about Friedrich's family. We find out that he had a sister, Minna, who married an American and on her deathbed, she asked Fritz to take care of his nephews and raise them in America. It is not part of the canon, but I have read a couple fan fics where Minna's husband was an American journalists who abandoned his family and Minna was also quite possibly a journalist. This would explain why Friedrich does his best to look after the boys, wants to be a good role model, and someone who never abandons them. Book does imply that Friedrich and Minna were very close. This is a common narrative pattern in Louisa May Alcott's novels. In Work Story of Experience, the protagonist's love interest, David, has lost a connection with his sister. In Moods, the character of Jeffrey Moore takes care of his ill sister until she passes away. Of course, the loss of a sister is something that also bonds Jo and Fritz.

In the 19th century, German immigrants were the second biggest group of immigrants in the US, only surpassed by Irish immigrants. March family and the Alcotts in real life were descendants of Irish immigrants.
Between 1847 and 1855, German immigrants came to US in large numbers. Many came in the hopes of better way of life, others because of individual curiosity, economic hardships, political struggles, or religious persecutions. Many escaped the crop failure and famine.

When we first meet Friedrich, we find out that he has been living in New York for five years, which means that he arrived in 1860. In the early 1860s, many transportation across the Atlantic was made with sails and the trip could last one to three months. This would mean that Fritz would have arrived with a sailing ship that was designed for a cargo carriage. These ships were quite hazardous and accommodation were small and dark. The second wave of German immigrants arrived in the end of the 1860s, escaping the German wars. Friedrich's reasons for leaving his home country are family related. There are a couple occasions in Little Women that do give an impression that Fritz has faced oppression and discrimination, and Jo does make a note to herself that he must have had a hard life.

It is not a coincidence that Jo and Friedrich meet in New York, of all places. Many of the German immigrants moved into the cities in north, like New York, which already had established German communities. These communities were tight, and Friedrich comes to visit Jo in Concord, the reader finds out that he has German friends there. Louisa very intentionally included messages of social justice to her works. A lot of the details of Friedrich's backstory are not included in the movies and TV adaptations because of the screenwriters personal biases, xenophobia, and ignorance over the source material. Yes, this is going to be a video about Louisa May Alcott's inter-sectional feminism.

Louisa May Alcott was born into New England's transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism was very much an American movement, but its roots were within German philosophy and romanticism. Especially in the transnational ideas of Immanuel Kant and his new ethic of universal hospitality. There are a couple basic principles within transcendentalist philosophy. Human beings are inherently good and pure. Nature was the ultimate mediator and expression of God was present all around. Self-reflection and being true to one's self was encouraged.

​From a very early age, Louisa practice self-reflection and observance. And from her novels, Little Women and Old-Fashioned Girl, have biggest transcendentalist influences. Little Women film from 1994 is one of the rare adaptations with clear references to transcendentalism. When Jo meets Fritz, they talk about German philosophy. Jo mentions that her parents were part of a rather unusual circle in Concord, and she mentions that she adores Goethe. Friedrich quotes a poem from another transcendentalist, Walt Whitman, and Jo joins him.

Transcendentalists believe that it was through the observation and appreciation of nature that the human soul was enlightened. The idea of being true, authentic self becomes part of their conversation. Transcendentalist love for nature can be seen in the movie in the presence of flowers and plants in the outdoors and indoors. Proposal scene in the movie movie and in the book takes place in nature and it correlates the way in the book Friedrich has kept Jo's poem. Be worthy of love and love will come in the falling of summer rain. Louisa May Alcott was surrounded by the greatest thinkers of her time. Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Father Bronson Alcott showed her an idealistic and ultimately unworkable version of the movement.

Throughout Louisa's childhood, Bronson pursued philosophical ideas by establishing The Temple School, where he sought to teach children according to his transcendental ideas. Some of Bronson's ideas were too radical for the parents and eventually he was forced to resign when he took a black child as a student. Soon after the closing of The Temple School, the family moved to farmstead to establish a utopian society called Fruitlands. There they attempted to live off the land, follow a strict vegetarian diet, and more fully implement the ideas that Bronson deemed important.Fruitlands was a terrible failure. The Alcotts were subjected to backbreaking work, but barely survived the winter. After a little less than a year on the homestead, they left. Although Louisa had seen her father's transcendentalist projects fail, she still believed in the philosophy as much as he did, and blamed the setbacks on poor planning and execution.It was after this that they moved to Concord, where the transcendentalist movement started to take shape. Emerson was good friend of Bronson and Louisa frequently borrowed books from Emerson's library and learned about nature from Henry David Thoreau.

Margaret Fuller made an everlasting impression on Louisa with her philosophy and feminist ideas. It was unusual for the time for mother to work outside the home, but Abba Alcott did. Bronson had determination to give his daughters proper education, also unusual for the time. Abba had less interest towards the ideological side of transcendentalism, but more in what practical tools transcendentalism offered. Louisa had mixed emotions about transcendentalism. Intrigued and inspired by the ideal of self-reliance, she still knew from firsthand experience that self-reliance really meant reliance on others and required the self-sacrifice of family members. Louisa wanted to tie the two opposite knots of her parents ideas. This drew her to Ralph Waldo Emerson's theories and ideas, as the represented a more complete way of living out of the transcendental philosophy. Her journals illustrate her love for his philosophies, calling him the man who has helped me most by his life, his books, his society. Emerson's philosophy on how good deeds bring happiness and satisfaction to one's life deeply affected Louisa and her written works. Louisa was as well heavily affected by Goethe's ideas of self-reliance. Topic of self-reliance is a constant theme in Little Women and is essentially important when getting to know the characters.

Blogger Katie Rhone points out "As a German immigrant, Professor Bhaer understands and experiences hard work and struggle. He bears in mind the responsibility he has in caring for a woman, if he is to marry. He is more grounded and stable than Laurie, whose idealized hopes of marriage remind me of Louisa's own description of her imprudent father." Quote, "He was a man in a balloon, with his family holding the ropes trying to hold him down to earth."

Here's a quote from Little Women.

"In a minute, a hand came down over the page so that she could not draw, and Laurie's voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, "I will be good. Oh I will be good."
"But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest and tapping on the opposite hand with her pencil, said soberly, "Aren't you ashamed of a hand like that? It's as soft and white as a woman's and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin's best gloves and pick flowers for ladies."

Amy, being a working class girl, she doesn't have any problems reminding Laurie that he has not worked a day in his life.

Many Alcott scholars believe that the poor nutrition in Fruitlands might have affected on Louisa's hormonal balance. Same as Jo, Louisa was a tomboy. Louisa was very protective of her mother, who she adored, and her love for her family was fierce. From very early on, she took the role of the provider, or the way Jo describes herself as the man of the house.

Anna Alcott was 11 years older than her little counterpart, Meg March, when she married. Same way as Jo grieved Meg marrying, so did Louisa. Not because John, the real and the fictional one, was a bad person, but because it meant the change in the family dynamics.

In the book, Jo says that she'd rather marry Meg herself, which has led many to believe that Jo is a lesbian. But with Jo there is no context for her fear because Jo's childhood was quite safe and idyllic, whereas Louisa's was more unstable and turbulent. Family went through a lot together.

Louisa was upset when Anna announced that she was getting married. Anna was 28 at the time and Louisa was 27. It happened only three weeks after they had lost their sister Lizzie. Louisa wished to keep the family together and fear of losing it is understandable. If you do research on transcendentalist, you will soon find out that there was a great deal of gender fluidity. I would highly recommend Susan Bailey's article on the 19th century female relationship in Little Women. I'll add the link to the description.

We live in a culture in which it is common not to try and understand what the other says and means. In this case, the author. But to assume it is some preconceived idea or trope we have in our heads, we love something, that we hate, we love, or we want to think that we are. It is a pity that it is so, because when we erase the fragility and faults of characters, we deprive ourselves from seeing the reflection of our own in them, and learn and grow. Masculinity and femininity are social structures made of biological and culture factors. Jo struggles to find a balance between the two, during the time that the world between man and woman was separated. There's a stereotype that Jo is quite adventurous. Is she? She's quite adventurous inside her head and she's good at making up stories and likes acting. Writing is a safe escape to live vicariously, because she can do that from a safe place. With Laurie, she can live on boy's world through his masculine energy.

Jo likes to speak about sports and such, but because of her gender she's prevented to join any teams. In the first book, after Laurie pretended to be John Brooke and catfished Meg with letters and deeply hurt her, which is not never included in any movie adaptations, he asks Jo to go to Washington with him and surprise Mr. Brooke. Jo is tempted by the idea, but she sees that such a trip is Laurie's way of getting away from his grandfather.

Jo likes to dream but she knows that reality will be completely different, and Laurie never grows if he doesn't learn from his mistakes. Louisa's attempt, however, is not to make certain habits in a person clearly masculine or feminine, but to blur the lines. Jo is good at sewing and in fact she's a good dressmaker, likes to knit and mend clothes. Louisa herself liked sewing. We see all the girls sewing together in the beginning of the 1933 film, and the 1949 film Jo sews and knits. In the book, Jo sees that Mr. Bhaer is mending his own socks and she's both surprised and impressed about it. She's impressed how self-reliant he is.

Some readers have found it odd how Jo wants to start a school for boys. When Jo sees the hungry look in Laurie's eyes when he looks at her family, she practically adopts him. Louisa in her personal life was devoted to charity work and she worked as a nurse. Taking care of others was something that came naturally to her.
Gender fluidity continues in the sequels. Character of Nat is very sensitive, musical, and a lot like Laurie. Dan is almost too masculine and doesn't want to show his vulnerability. In Little Men, Jo's niece Daisy complains how boys won't include her into their games, and Jo privately thinks that in the house that is filled with boys the only girl is the most difficult to please.

She gets Daisy a small toy stove and teaches her to cook, while turning it into a play. This is not the 15 year old Jo who thinks that everyone should be like her. Instead, she supports Daisy's individuality. Daisy's femininity is balanced by Nan, who is another tomboy. Even her name is a mixture between Nan and Dan.Jo doesn't like to go to parties or social events, like Meg and Amy do. She'd rather stays at home and writes. Jo doesn't fit well to Concord or the traditional female role. She's allowed to be herself in her home. She does compare herself to Meg and the way she's treated differently for being traditionally feminine.

Same happens with Amy in the second book. Jealousy Jo sometimes feels is caused by the fact that her sisters are better accepted than she is because of her nonconformity, and this causes Jo feelings of isolation. In chapter Calls, she rather speaks to pets and plays with the children of the house then talks with the adults. Jo makes the assumption that the aunts take her to Europe, even after when she has blurted to Aunt Carol that she hates French. Neither she seemed to have put much effort to study languages, which would be quite important if she would have seriously wanted to go to Europe with the aunts.

Jo dreams about the foreign, but if she was abroad, especially with people like Aunt March who she had difficult relationship with, JO would be rather homesick.

In New York, Jo hesitates in the door of the newspaper quite a while when she tries to sell her first story. She rather spends time with Friedrich than goes to see new acquaintances. And in her letters to Marmee and Beth, she writes that she feels shy among strangers.

Friedrich is based on several people in Louisa's life, and I have traced Friedrich to five different men and I intend to talk about all of them in this essay. I agree with many Alcott scholars that philosopher Henry David Thoreau was the real life Friedrich. I have made an entire video about his and Louisa's relationship. Check it out after you have finished this one.

I am now going to read you some passages from Little Women and Walter Harding's Thoreau biography.

Thoreau invited the Alcotts in for the Sunday dinner. Thoreau quickly realized that Alcott provided a very different intellectual fare than did even the most stimulating Concord farmer. The two found much in common to talk about and Alcott often read to Thoreau from his correspondence with his English disciples on theories of education. While the rest of the world was denouncing Bronson Alcott as an impractical dreamer, Thoreau was able to overlook his faults and foibles, of which there were unquestionably meany.

Little Women, chapter Surprises. Mr. Bhaer's face had lost the absentminded expression and looked all alive with interest in the present moment. Actually young and handsome, she thought, forgetting to compare him with Laurie as she usually did with strange men.

Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be considered an exhilarating topic. Jo quite glowed with the triumph when Teddy got quenched in an argument, and thought to herself as she watched her father's absorbed face, how he would enjoy such a man as my professor to talk with every day.

This part reminded me the way Jo notices how Friedrich is helping the servant girl.

Even the household maids were delighted, for Thoreau was already ready and willing to mend what was broken, even before they would call them to his attention.

Henry appears in multiple disguises in Louisa's novels. He's Friedrich in Little Women, Dan Kean in Little Men and Jo's Boys, Adam Warwick in Moods, David in Work Story of Experience, and Mack in Rose In Bloom, just to name a few.

Many of Louisa's diary markings about Henry are censored. Still, 160 years ago people had right to their privacy.

Thank you for watching, guys. Next video is going to be all about the umbrella and the way Jo wishes that she would have someone to help her with her writings, much before she travels to New York. Make sure to tune back for it. 

You can find my full research here.

Emma and I had so much fun with the Disney song challenge. She was trying to identify the Finnish version and I tried to see if I recognized the English ones!