​Something I read today and I thought it was perfect.
​
“While Meg and John are the down-to-earth couple (Meg arguably even more so after John dies), Amy and Laurie are the Romantics, the artists. Jo and Friedrich combine the two. One of Friedrich’s most compelling qualities is that he combines domestic and romantic heroism. - Christine Doyle (Singing Mignon´s song)

Hello and welcome back to the Little Women podcast. 

Today´s comment shutout goes to Red who says:
 
​I’ve been recently getting into classic literature and I thought I was the only one who thought Friedrich was wayyy better than Laurie. All my friends judged it by the 2019 movie without ever reading the book and it’s a freaking shame. Their characters deserve so much better.

For somebody who never married Louisa May Alcott thought about marriage a lot. In the 19th century most people married because of money, and when Louisa was younger she considered marrying for money so she could lift her family from poverty and Louisa´s mother had told her that she would rather she her married to a poor and to be happy. 

In Little Women, it is Amy who considered marrying for money so she can financially help her family, and people still today judge Amy for that, should they be judging Louisa May Alcott? In Little Women Marmee says to the girls that she rather sees them to marry poor men for love than to be rich and miserable. 

When I read Little Women 2019 film guide Greta Gerwig was criticising the previous LIttle Women movies that they put too much emphasis on the romance and there was a whole sequence in the book where she was making fun of the "Under the umbrella chapter" and Jo´s and Friedrich´s relationship and in the movie she puts way more emphasis on girls wanting to make money and not to care about anything else and then wondered why Jo rejected "rich and handsome Laurie". 

That is in huge contradiction with the Little Women the novel, and the entire time period since Louisa May Alcott encourages young women to marry for love instead of money and Louisa was not a happy spinster. In her diaries from the time when she was is in her mid forties, she writes how she is lonely and envied her sisters marriages and Louisa was making about 2 million dollars a year at that time. She was one of the wealthiest women in America, so many did not make her happy. Not at all. 

In this episode Christina and I will be analyzing the different marriages in Little Women. It does seem that Louisa herself had similar goals what it came to marriage when she was younger. I have often also wondered how much the relationship that she had with the real-life Laurie, Laddie Wisniewski affected on her views about marriage, because she did seriously considered marriage with him and thought about their relationship a lot. He was a lot younger and apparently had proposed Louisa´s previous employee while wooing Louisa, I think Louisa had good reasons to reject him. 

Louisa writes in an article which was published the same year the following:

“If love comes as it should come, accept it in God’s name and be worthy of His best blessing. If it never comes, then in God’s name reject the shadow of it, for that can never satisfy a hungry heart”
Louisa says that only love that is worth it is based on true feelings and that love that is based to patch loneliness is self-deceiving and not real.

If you think about 2019 version of Little Women, it gives a very cynical view of romantic love. Gerwig says that Jo and Laurie could be a great couple and yet completely erases Laurie´s toxic behavior towards Jo, that is in the book. Then there is the other narrative that Jo is really  Louisa who hated marriage, but as you just heard, she wanted to marry herself and envied her sisters romances.  If you just show Laurie being in love with Jo and don´t give the actual reason why she rejected him, you will never see why Amy and Laurie and Jo and Friedrich´s relationships were written to be those that work.

Now we have a way lighter views on marriage than it was for Victorians and getting a divorce was difficult, and Louisa saw lots of very unhappy marriages because they were made because of money, but both of her sisters married for love and it worked out for them. Louisa did pay attention to her sisters marriages and she writes how they "blossomed" in their marriages. If you ask me, there has not been nearly not enough research made about the marriages in Little Women and how they fit with Louisa´s own observations about marriage. I talked with someone, in a Henry Thoreau discussion group actually, and they pointed out that there is this "pop culture" idea in movies what love is and it´s based on these very shallow ideas what romanticized Jo and Laurie represent in the movies, where as the transcendentalist like Louisa May Alcott, they saw love more as a spiritual experience. How different or how similar you are with the other person. What really matters is how your differences and similarities complement the other person and this is something that Louisa May Alcott really mastered the way she crafted the marriages in Little Women and many of her other novels too.

This is Small Umbrella In The Rain The Little Women Podcast Marriages in Little Women and why they work. 

(intro music) 

Christina: I remember you said...I´m pretty sure it was you, when you said that Meg and John were more grounded type, Laurie and Amy are the romantic type and then Jo and Friedrich are mix of the two. They are grounded in the sense of what is realistic but they are deeply romantic with each other and that it carries on through the years.

Niina: One of my friends said that Louisa writing all these things to her journals, how she was lonely and envied her sisters marriages and how she wanted to get married, it was not something that she could say to the public if she had this fear that people would pity her because she was a spinster but also that during that time it would not have been something even appropriate to tell that I am not married and I am lonely. She was always afraid that she would loose her face. I have been reading this from a couple different sources that she paid Laddie Wisniewski (the real life Laurie) some money that he would not go to the press and chat about their...I don´t know if it was an affair or a kiss or something more I think it is pretty clear that Louisa was afraid that people would find out that she had affairs with men. I think it was one of the Alcott studies that I read that Louisa and her publisher, they were the ones who came up with the "spinster image" that they could sell her books especially for the children because the children were her target audience. Even though nowdays a lot of people see Little Women as a young adult novel and some people even as an adult novel but back then it was really targeted for children. I don´t think Little Women is nessecarily a children´s book because I think it opens up a lot better when you have some years behind you but I think it explains a lot about why people have so many misconceptions about Louisa and marriage. There is a very big difference between this public image that Louisa and her publisher Thomas Niles created for her, so that they could sell her works and then there is this private Louisa who had these crushes to her older male friends and I think she did fell in love to Henry David Thoreau and she had a fling with Laddie Wisniewski. She was a very passionate woman who did want a career and romance and marriage. I also read that the early Alcott scholars, because they didn´t really want to admit the difference between the two, they cut out these certain parts about her diaries and didn´t include them to the public statements about Louisa May Alcott. It is really interesting when you go back to the Louisa May Alcott research and how in different time periods, certain elements have been removed from Louisa May Alcott studies. I read that in the 70s when the 1970 series came out, there was this big anti-Fridrich and anti-Laurie movement in Alcott research because of that series. The way it portraed Laurie and Friedrich and I kinda understand that because I don´t think that series does that great job portraying the male characters, but that is also really a shame, in terms of the research if you take this very angry feminist approach to the male characters.

Christina: The BBC version you are talking about?

Niina: Yeah. The one where Friedrich is really angry when he finds out that Jo has been writing sensational stories. 

Christina: That one is a very unusual version. I also remember that they did Mr March little weird. I was like that doesn´t seem right to his character, to be his character to be oblivious like that. The one scene that stands out particularly is the one when Friedrich comes to visit and he is like "Oh my God it´s you" and takes him to his study and doesn´t even realize that "Oh maybe Jo wanted to see Friedrich" I was like, that seems so totally not in character with Mr March. It is a very unusual version and not to say that the BBC couldn´t do a version of Little Women, because obviously they´re British and we are American. It almost felt that time it was making fun of it. It had moments where I was just like I don´t know if you are making fun of the story or not, like there is something very off about it, which I almost felt was a shame because it does have some good moments. I think the actress that plays Jo is good. She could have been a really good Jo. She seemed to "Laurie? hello jerk, just leave her alone". It´s tough, and for anyone who doesn´t know, I took the time, that is so far to day the only version that has an actual German Friedrich.


Niina: Half German, half English I think (the actor Frederick Jäeger) 

Christina: I am trying to find my list I made. One day I was just like "let me just see how  many of them are actual Germans". Yeah, I found it. For anyone that is curious Paul Lukas from the 1933 version is Hungarian. 

Rossano Brazzi from the 1949 version is Italian. 

Then Frederick Jaeger from the 1971 version that we are discussing is German. 

Shatner from 1978 two part series is Canadian. 

Gabriel Byrne from 1994 is Irish. 

Mark Stanley from the Masterpiece theater mini-series is English. 

Ian Bohen from the modern day one is American 

and Louis Garrel is French. 

I was curious one day, let me just research this and I got to say, as unusual as the 1970 version is, it had that going on but that is a shock, like seriously. Out of all of those the mainstream versions that is the only one that is closest how the book version is. It is very bizarre. 

Niina: It is not very loyal to the book. I think it did pretty good job with Amy and Laurie in Europe. The dialogue was very close to the book but then it also had that scene of Laurie catfishing Meg, which is also in the book, but then I got so mad because they framed it to be Meg´s fault. That would not run today because it was all Laurie´s fault. 

Christina: Right! and it is not fair to say that´s Meg´s fault when why would she ever suspect that Laurie would ever do such a thing? as harmless as his other tricks before, she was probably just like "oh whatever" but that was not harmless. That was very mean thing to do and that´s like the moment where you are kind of like "Laurie that was very low of you to go that way". Again I am not a fan of any version that has an adult playing Amy and I think as good as she was more mature in Europe, that is a good sequence but as a child, that actress got on my nerves. I couldn´t stand listening to her screetch that way. So it was the same thing with Amy in the 1978 version, it was just like "Oh my God! Just grow up. You are grown up so act like it. 

Niina: You can not have an adult woman playing a child without making the character looking immature. It happens every time. Every single time. 

Christina: and I do say I give props to 1949 version that obviously when you look at them Margaret O´Brien is younger than Elizabeth Taylor. In that one they actually switched it to  be that Amy is older than Beth. While that is not accurate I can appreciate that they did try to accommodate it that way, so that it doesn´t look wrong. Again you can´t convince me that Margaret O´Brien is older than Elizabeth Taylor. So far only the 1994 version and the 2018 modern day version actually did do a split between a child Amy and the adult Amy and it makes Amy so much more sympathetic when you kinda look at her. She is just a little girl. She wants to be with the older sisters, which is something I relate to. I am the youngest of four and my sister is five years older than me. So I always had that feeling "can I come too?" "No, you are not old enough for this". Let´s just say if I was 10 and she was 15 she was like "sorry, only teen agers can do this" or "you are not old enough for that". So I definitely can identify with Amy on that feeling of "I want to join too. It is not fair" and you feel bad because it´s like "she is just a little kid" but when you do get an older actress playing the part and doing the whole book burning scene, it doesn´t feel as sympathetic to Amy and you do have that sort of feeling like "Jo is right to be mad at her for as long as she has to, because she is an adult and she should know better". Whereas with a little kid it is like "It was really bad that she did that, but you got to understand she is a little kid. Be a little bit more forgiving towards her". I don´t know why they feel, they need to. The only thing I can think of is I am assuming in general Hollywood when they do casting and they take an older actress to play a younger person is that they think that somehow you are going to loose momentum or you loose something in that but I´m like I can´t buy, as much as I do like Lily James, I can´t buy Lily James being a young Natasha in War and Peace. She is a little bit too mature looking to be a 12 year old. If you told me 16, I´d be like, that´s a strech but whatever I can buy that more than 12. I don´t really understand it and it really looses a lot of the character for me. 

Niina: One of the things that came out about Amy in the book, is that  when she was 12, what she really wanted was Jo´s approval. She wanted Jo to like her and there is nothing wrong with that but I think Jo also resented that Amy was so feminine and there is nothing wrong with her being feminine either. One of the things that I really liked about part 2 was this description how Jo and Amy would fight about something and then they would burst out laughing when they realized that "this is really stupid, this argument we are having". Amy wasn´t anti-Jo. Jo wasn´t anti-Amy. They were just sisters. 

Christina: Again I sort of draw parallers between my sister and myself. I don´t know if we were very close when we were younger, and it is the same with every sibling, no matter who you are sibling wise. Whether it is two boys, two girls, one boy one girl type of situation, but when you reach certain age you are just like "I want to do things I want to do, when I have to spend all my time with my little sister or my little brother". The younger sibling kinda feels like "you are leaving me behind" and then for once you get into a certain age, you almost reconnect. I feel I am definitely closer with my sister now because now we are both adults and we have that better understanding of each other and not that there was never any love between us in all those years, there was. It was just in away, and I think in general children are unintentionally selfish and we just go like "I want to do what I want to do with in this age and I don´t care if my little sister wants to come along. It is what I want to do. Why should she? she can´t come along. I am not going to accomonate that because I earned my years to be able to do this and I am not going to be held back by her. So yeah I don´t think there was ever, like you said, anti-Jo, anti-Amy against each other. Whatever points they were in their lives it just did not need them to be as close as they were, but as they got older they understand themselves better as well as each other and that helped to create a more closer and more developed relationship where they can actually be more like friends. I think that people tend to pit them together because, they both do so well with Beth. Between the two of them, they have little bit more conflict. They grow out of it and particularly I felt with the Gerwig version, they put more attention on Jo´s and Amy´s relationship. "Oh it´s symbolism because they are so different and contrasting each other" and it´s like, I don´t know. I don´t feel like there is that much thought in it. Just in general that is just the nature how sibling relationships are. You start of being like "Oh my little sister, my big sister" and then you grow into that age of "I want to do  more the adult things I don´t want to be around my little sibling as much as I used to" and then re-connecting and now that we are closer, in the sense of age-mentality, we can do those things together. I think people over-blow Jo and Amy relationship as if it is this full on sibling rivalry which it really is not. Not at all.

Niina: I was really surprised because, when I did research on Louisa May Alcott´s relationship with May Alcott. Yes, there was some sibling rivalry between them when they were younger. Like I said about the angry feminists and the 70s version, I think a lot of the Alcott scholars...well not nessecarily Alcott scholars, but public in general, when they are interpretating Little Women in different times they always they always tend to go to the tv version or a film version, instead of the book. When I was doing the research about the sisters. It really buggled my  mind that there were so many Alcott scholars who were writing how Louisa envied May when she was living in Europe, and she was hanging out with Laddie Wisniewski (the real life Laurie). Then I read these letters between Louisa and May. It seems that they both were fed up with him and I also got this feeling that not only had Louisa given him money. I don´t know if it was shutting him down about their fling or if she wanted to help him financially. I don´t know. It seemed that May might have also borrowed him money because she writes in a letter to Louisa that "he never paid his debt back" and people always say to me "Niina you really shouldn´t hate Laurie that much". I don´t hate Laurie. Laurie he grows in his relationship with Amy and I really like that and that is a big part of his character but I can´t deny the fact that all these real life Laurie´s: Laddie Wisniewski and Alf Whitman, who was also friend of the Alcott´s. Laddie was an adult man and he seemed to have been borrowing money from his wealthy friends and didn´t seem to be very reliable or very interested in work and I think May also wrote about Alf ..."well he seems to be a bit lost in life and doesn´t really have a direction". That sounds a  lot like Laurie. I´ve read so many bad studies about Louisa and May and how they were "fighting" over Laddie, who was living in Paris same time as May. It doesn´t allign with the letters that the sisters wrote to each other and why on earth would they be fighting about this guy. I think Louisa wrote Laurie to be this aspiring character who actually grows out of that disillusion that he has about artist life. It´s not just Laddie and Alf who were models for Laurie. You can find it from all these different books that Louisa read and all these young men she liked to hang out with. I think it´s really dismissive for both literal Jo and Amy and then the actual Louisa May Alcott and May Alcott, to present them as these sisters who just were having this love and hate relationship and only fought about this guy who wasn´t always that great. I actually really like Laurie in Little Men and Jo´s boys when he brings these poor boys to Jo. He always says that Jo was the one who raised him. He doesn´t speak about Jo as his first love or girlfriend. I just don´t like the romantication of the young Laurie. I think a lot of these Alcott scholars who try to present Jo and Amy as these people who just fight over Laurie. It´s not based on the book. That is based on the adaptations. I say the same about the people who say that Jo and Friedrich just argue. They don´t argue in the book. They argue pretty much in every single adaptation.

Christina: I always have felt that out of all of them, Jo and Friedrich would be the ones with the best communication skills, because, like you said they never argue or yell at each other, they always just somehow manage to discuss the situation and I think people also just sort of think that "Oh Jo has a temper" and they think she carries that throughout. That she always has a temper, but like, she knows how to control it by the time when she goes to New York and most of the adaptations will have her to play out like "Oh there is that temper of hers" but no. She learns how to control it by thanks to Marmee and even Mr March, when he comes back, but it is also not in Friedrich´s nature to be argumentative either. He is not temperamental type of guy and as we find Jo has tempers when she reacts to something negatively in a very strong way, but we never see her yell at Beth. She never yells at Beth for anything, even when she doesn´t agree because why would she yell at Beth? She is the least offending person ever and I feel, if I had to compare Friedrich to any of the sisters it would be Beth. You know he is very quiet, gentle soul. Who, unlike Beth is able to when the moment needs to, rise. He can stand up and say "No!, I don´t agree with that". He is more willing to put himself out there if the situation comes to it. He can sit there and be "I may not agree but that´s fine" and as we see in the novel when they are at the symposium and someone says something regards to religion and that is that moment when he is like "I need to stand up and say something, but in the nicest way possible" with strong facts to hold him behind and that is when Jo gets that extra boost of respect for Friedrich. So it would be very surprising and almost negative towards to Jo´s character to say one that this temper that she has been working on, all the sudden comes back and to say that she would yell at someone who is so unoffensive, unlike with Laurie who like yells and says these very negative things towards her where she responds negatively whereas Friedrich approaches her with very kind and gentle way so there is no reason for her to respond in that way.

Yeah I don´t really understand why people feel that, that it is so important to have them argue, when it is not close to who their characters are and it changes how you almost see their characters because why would Friedrich act that way when he doesn´t and why would Jo yell at him, when there is no reason to yell at him.

Niina: I think Amy also had very calming influence on Laurie. Amy is a very visual person and then we have Laurie who likes these very pretty things. He likes nice clothes and well..in the modern context he would be a metrosexual.

Christina: Right.

Niina: A man who likes to take care of his looks. Which is kinda opposite to my man Fritz. There are times when Jo makes fun of Laurie. There are times when he likes to buy nice clothes, fancy gloves and Jo laughs about it because why are you spending your money on these irrelevant things. She doesn´t really have much appreciation for Laurie taking care of his looks and one of my friends pointed out that all the three couples have their own special aesthetics so to speak. John and Meg they have this whole cottagecore aesthetic and Jo and Friedrich. They are not too picky. Jo was that kind of person who didn´t really romantizice life. Even though Jo and Fritz are very romantic couple, like you said but Jo was never very visual person. In Little Men, it´s almost like she and Fritz have this mutual agreement that Plumfield is going to be this tupsy-turvey upside down place. If boys sticky hands make places dirty, that´s okay and we can have pillow fights once a week. So they can release their energy and then it is completely different in the Lawrence house because Amy and Laurie they like to have these fancy balls and dinner parties and things to be visually pleasing and I always thought that Amy and Laurie were a match made in heaven because him being a  metrosexual for example was something that Amy found visually pleasing and of course Jo found Friedrich very attractive.

I really love that scene where Amy and Laurie are in Europe and she takes his hand and says "this is like a lady´s hand, you haven´t done any real work in your life" and Amy knows the struggles of being poor and Laurie doesn´t have any experiences of that and then Amy says that Jo hates lazy people and Amy herself also hates lazy people, and that is Laurie´s wake up call. That is when he turns from a boy into a man, and that scene was not in the 2019 film, which has made millions of people to think that Laurie just moved on from Jo to Amy without any good reason. It´s better in the 1994 film because Laurie says to Amy that he is going to work to make himself to be worthy of her, but before that he says to Jo that he is going to work to be worthy of her as well, but that is not in the book. Needless to say none of that is in 1933 and 1949 films and Amy inspiring Laurie to be productive was not in the 2017 series either.

Niina: Louisa May Alcott she worked as a nurse in the war. She took care of sick people. She saw bodies lying around. She wasn´s squeemish. Maybe because she didn´t consider herself very attractive always and that also had to do with her illness. When you read Little Women, there is sometimes criticism to the way people tend to pay more attention to the way things look outside than the way they look inside. You know what I mean. Jo is not  a very visual person.

Christina: I had forgotten about the pillow fights. Oh that is so adorable. Each relationship works out for each of them in the best way. Friedrich and Jo are little bit more like "Oh let´s just do whatever suits us at whatever time and Laurie and Amy are these people who are like "We have to have dinner ready by 5 because we just have to". No earlier no later, but it works for them because that is the lifestyle that they want and if you have someone like Jo who is just like "eh let´s just eat whenever whatever" and Laurie is like "No I want to have it at this specific time and specific meal" that is going to clash. Again I think that makes how she handles these relationships very well that it´s not just "Oh you can trade one sister for another" No. They are so different. Their relationship with Laurie is so different that it will not have the same outcome as you think that it will. You can´t have Laurie just be with Jo and expect to have the same outcome as Laurie and Amy, because it wont work. Not at all. In some ways it is a story of like opposites attracting as well as people who are similar attracting. You often hear people saying differently "be with someone who is completely different from you" but then you have some people like "get someone that is completely same to you" and I got to find the passage but I think Marmee said it perfectly. This is when Jo wants to leave for New York, and Marmee says I think it is not just because you want to leave but you want to leave because of Laurie. I got to find it.

She says that "as friend you are very happy, and your frequent fights fall over but you both would fall off if you made it for life. You are too much alike and too found of freedom. Not to mention high temper and strong wills to get on happy with each other in a relationship that need infinite patience and forbearance and a lot of love". So in one hand, the fact that they are very similar is going to be detrimental to them. That would ruin their relationship, because really what makes a relationship work is what is similar about the two of you is, your morals, your points of views on some of the bigger topics of things and your interests but you need to be different enough to allow some sort of growth to happen. If you have two people who are exactly the same and have the same sort of ways of living life, there is a very slim chance that they can grow that into something more progressive, into something more deep and meaningful I think. It´s kind of like "what you want to do today?" "I don´t know, what do you want to do?" "I don´t know" and then just, you don´t do nothing. You need to get someone that is at least a little different from you and you go "I don´t know, what you want to do?" "why won´t we do something a little different, out of our comfort zone. Let´s do it, let´s go". I think that in away they both have that, like you said, Amy pushed Laurie to be more responsible and realize what kind of grown up he needs to be and Friedrich helps to ground Jo and be..he tells her "You can still have those dreams. You can still be a writer. You can do it. I believe that you can. In away Amy and Friedrich are what Jo and Laurie need because some ways they ground them but also give them what is it that they need, not nessecarily what they want. Laurie, things what he wants is a housewife that is just going to do what he wants them to do. What they needed was a wife that is like "You know you could stand and do a few chores around this house". I think that is why some people have that idea "Jo and Laurie are great together because they are so similar, but there lies the problem. They are too similar, they are too similar and they are like a reflection of each other and I think if you spend too long, too often with someone that is just like you, you are going to see some of the more negative stuff about yourself and you are not going to like it. You are going to hate how you are as a person and then you are going to start resenting that person because you recognize some of the more negative stuff about yourself.  "I can grow and learn from this" but the person that you are with has not done the same and you are like "I am moving ahead and you are staying right there and we want different things" and I think no  matter what Jo´s and Laurie´s relationship would have ended into a disaster, because one will grow and the other will not and you can´t have a relationship where you are not going together somewhere. Wheter both of you stay in a one place, or one stays and one goes.

Niina:  That is absolutely right. You said that Jo and Friedrich they don´t really have any reasons to argue. Henry and Louisa, what I have read, they had this sort of telepathic way of communication. That they would understand each other without words. I think you can see some of that in Little Women in Jo and Friedrich the way they communicate, and like you said, they probably have least problems in communication, what it comes to the differnt couples in Little Women, because they know each other so well, so it is really interesting that Louisa and Henry had this telepathic rapport between one another and even though Louisa had temper tantrums, Henry was, what I´ve read, quite a peaceful person and didn´t really care too much about arguing. I think it brings another extra layer to Little Women, and to Jo´s and Friedrich´s relationship. I think you can see a lot of that in Little Men especially, when they have these teasing conversations between one another. Well...they really don´t argue a lot in the sequels and they don´t argue in Little Women. Why would they argue? they don´t have any big conflicts? Jo and Laurie are the ones who have the conflicts? and even with Meg and John ...well there was a reason for that argument. After that they were a better couple. Meg realized that she had problems leaving behind this idea that she wished that sometimes they would have more money and John realized that Meg has more needs.

Christina: It´s a growing thing. It´s not easy. I´v not yet, been in a relationship but hearing, talking between friends and my sister, going through some of her relationships, it´s a growing thing. You got to learn each others ideosecrensies. You got to learn what does it mean to have another person in your life, that is so close to you. It´s just like when people say when they have kids, they have that realization of "Oh I have just realized that it is not just going to be always be about me. Sometimes it is about them and that doesn´t mean that you nessecarily are sacrificing the overall picture of what you want for them but just take a step back and going "I got to realize that even though I approach this situation this way, it doesn´t work when I go with this person of who I am living with and love and what not. I think that with Meg and John, because they were already so shy with each other in the beginning of their relationship, that it took a little bit more time for them to sort of understand what does it really mean to be in love and to be married. They are such an underrated Little Women couple. It is such a sweet little romance and it´s like "ah they love each other" and then you can watch them to blossom to these developed parents who truly care for their children, and surprisinly John being a lot more hands on than you would expect any man from that time period to be with their kids. It really goes to show that marriage is not always as easy as one would think.

Niina: In Little Women when there was the cat-fishing sequence I think there was a moment afterwards, Meg was looking that Laurie wasn´t going to do any kind of jokes with John. She was keeping eye on him more closely. She didn´t want nothing bad to happen to John. I think I would do the same if that would happen to me. John is really an underrated character. I always love that scene in the Camp Lawrence, when he defends Meg being a governess. He is like..well these American girls need to earn their living too. It is such a nice scene.

33.7

Christina: I don´t really think that moment in particularly has been in any version. I mean we do have certain versions that do have the beach/boating scene and those first hints of "Oh I don´t have any family to worry about" and Meg be like "Oh I would miss you if anything would happen". It´s precius, the fact that he is so patient with her because he knows that he loves her but, he knows that Meg isn´t fully sure but he is not pressuring her the same way that Laurie would have. He is just like "it´s alright. I´ll wait if you like". I am always here if you do realize that you do love me and that´s okay you´ll take your time. You do what you have to do". He is such a sweet character, and the fact that he just wants Meg to be happy even at the sacrifice of getting a new coat for her to get a dress, is just special and it is such a big moment for Meg, to be like "You know what, I don´t need a dress, I just need you" and it is such a lovely relationship. That really doesn´t get as much love that as the other two comperatevily and I think that is a shame.

Niina: Both Friedrich and John are paraller in that sense that at one point they feel that they are not worth of these women. With John it is that Meg has all the pressure to marry a rich guy because she is the prettiest of the sisters and especially aunt March wants her to marry some rich man, and then there is that rumour going on that Meg has something going on with Laurie and Marmee is really mad about it which is understandable but I think John also felt that he was too poor for her because Meg came from a poor family too but he didn´t feel that he could give her what she needed. That is also one of the reasons why they waited. Why he waited for her.

I love that scene in Little Women, when Friedrich feels that he is not worthy of Jo but it is also because he thinks that Jo is engaged to Laurie and he can only base his views on Laurie to what Jo has told him. Which is not a lot. Only that he is this rich neighbor and Jo´s best friend and that´s pretty alarming when you are in love with this girl, when you hear that. "Okay, are they engaged?" and he doesn´t know that and then he is so happy when he comes to Concord two years later and then he finds out that Amy and Laurie are married. Jo is available.

Christina: Again, props to the 1970 version, as flawed as it is, they do handle that scene exactly as I imagined it in the book, when he is like "Oh yes you are the friend. Hi nice to meet you"  and Laurie is like "Oh yeah, this is my wife" and he is like "Ooh you´re married oh yeah, we can be friends". Now there is nothing holding me back. But the fact that he was willing to gracefully to step aside for Jo, if that was the case, it is very endearing. It is after he realizes that Laurie is married to Amy and is not at all with Jo that he is like "Now I can finally say my feelings" which is very true of every version, when he finds out that there is no Jo and Laurie. It is like "Now I can finally say how I feel. Otherwise before I was just willing to internalize and just make me feel sad forever". Poor Friedrich. He was willing to do that for Jo, if that was what she wanted but it ended up working well for everyone.

Niina: It´s such a nice scene when he is like "Oh" and the narrator mentions that "Laurie thought he was nicest German he had ever met"

(laughter)

Niina: He was so friendly. It´s a really funny scene. I really love the whole courting episode in the novel. He always wants what is best for Jo.

Christina:  Again, it makes me go "oh you two idiots. You love each other". How they always seem to be happening in the same spot "Oh I didn´t see you" "Oh, maybe I´ll go with you to see your sister" "Maybe I´ll go home to make sure we have coffee, not that I was waiting to see you" Jo being all "Friedrich, I mean the professor, he likes coffee". It is very clear to everyone except to each other it would seem, that you are madly in love but I guess love makes you share one braincell in this case, but then it leads into probably one of the most romantic scenes ever of them taking shelter of each other under an umbrella and saying how much they just love each other. It all comes out in this moment of "I can´t believe you are going away, that makes me sad" "No, I am not going away, I promise I never leave you, I love you too much" I love it. I love that scene too much.

Niina: It´s a really romantic proposal.

Christina: "I have nothing to give you but full heart and empty hands" the whole her taking his hands, saying "Not empty now" it´s like this is true, classic romantic case on. You know when people talk about Pride and Prejudice Mr Darcy holding Lizzie´s hands and people want to say "Jo and Friedrich are not romantic". "How dare you?" "you must have not read or watched that scene properly".

Niina: It´s like when people say that Jo and Friedrich are not passionate enough and then in the umbrella chapter he is holding her when he sees her crying and then he asks her "why are you crying" and she is like "because you are going away" and then we find out that he has been keeping Jo´s poem with him for months and months and they pretty much start to make out right after the proposal.

Christina: Right and the fact Jo is pretty much the one who jumps on to Friedrich, despite the fact that they are in the middle of a muddy road. She is like "I just got to kiss you because I can´t hold it in. Them making out when people are passing them and it´s raining and their clothes are all muddy. Who cares they got to kiss here and now, who cares who seems them and what not and particularly back then. That was so scandalous.

Niina: Yeah, in the 19th century it wasn´t really seen as appropriate to have such public expressions of...

Christina: affection

Niina: I read another Louisa May Alcott novel "Work, story of experience" there is a scene where David, who is once again based on Henry David Thoreau, when he confesses his feelings for Christine, who is the protagonist, he almost has this similar blurt, that Friedrich has in the umbrella chapter, that he has been holding all these feelings inside and then he lets it all out there, when he confesses his love for her and I think it´s something that Louisa kinda recycles in her stories. There is something similar in Rose in Bloom when Mac confesses his feelings for Rose. When I read about Henry he is quite similar to Friedrich in that sense that he would take his time to think things through before he would express his opinion or, something that he really wanted to say. There are lots of descriptions about him that he was sort of more of a deep thinker and yet in some ways a very passionate person. Yeah I think some of that  must have come from Louisa´s own experiences. Why else would she write about it in her novels? we have been talking about two hours and 40 minutes.

Christina: Oh my goodness

Niina: Well...thank you Christina for joining me. This was lots of fun.

Christina: Yes and thank you for inviting me. I have never been a part of a podcast before so this is very exiting for me and I hope that the listeners get a chance to enjoy this as much as I did.

Niina: We can find you at Tumblr from the JoandFridrich blog. It´s a great blog people. Go on and read it.

Christina: Thanks I´ll try my best.

Niina: That was our chat for today. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. Take care and make good choises. Bye.

Hello Little Women fans!

I am very exited about today´s episode. When I have read Louisa May Alcott´s diaries I can say she really loved children. I was reading a letter she wrote to he publisher and she is like "my nephews are asking my attention, if you excuse me I need to leave this letter short". 

Jo in Little Women adores children, especially boys and when Little Women became very successful Louisa donated lots of money to different child organizations and orphan houses and there is a mention in her journals from the time when she was in her twenties that she would like to start a school for boys someday. She didn´t do that in real life but gave that dream to Jo. 

Louisa´s sister Anna (who was the real life Meg March) she and her husband John had two sons and Louisa adored her nephews. In Little Women Jo worships her niece and nephew and she is over-the moon because Friedrich has two nephews that he is raising and it´s mentioned in the books that Jo was particularly close with Friedrich´s older nephew Franz. Franz is written to be very calm and academic. The younger nephew Emil, he is more wilder but I always thought that Jo liked Franz more because he was different to her and Emil was more like Jo herself. I remember reading that Louisa was closer with the oldest nephew, who´s name I now forgot and maybe that is where it came from. 

One of the saddest things in Louisa´s letters and journals are her quotes about her "next life". Louisa believed in recarnation and she writes that in her next life she gets her "reward". Then she gets love and family, because she has worked so hard in her current life and made so many sacrifices that she deserves them. If you ever want to find the sources I´v used for this podcast, they can be found from the episode transcripts. 

Some of you must have heard someone saying that Louisa married Jo to her father. Every time when I hear that I wonder have these people actually read Little Women, because more than anything Friedrich and then John Brooke, they are writen anti-Bronson Alcott. Jo´s father in the novel is actually pretty different to Bronson. They are both pastors but the work ethics are different. 

One of the book bloggers I came across said that Bronson Alcott was actually more similar to Laurie. This is a quote from Kaeley Rhone. 

As a German immigrant, Professor Bhaer understands and experiences hard work and struggle. He bares 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 descriptions of her imprudent father (“…he was a man in a balloon, with his family holding the ropes trying to hold him down to Earth”) 

I have quite mixed feelings about Bronson Alcott. I quite like some his teaching methods, they were very progressive, but there were time when he would go on these long lecture tours and leave hus family to struggle financially and he had all these great ideas but then he always left things half way. Laurie in Little Women likes procrastinate a lot. He says how he likes to do things and then he doesn´t. In the book there is chapter called "Lazy Laurie". That to me is what makes Amy and Laurie so special because she says to him, if you want Jo to love you or at least respect you, she is not going to do that because Jo hates lazy people" and Laurie has such great regard for Amy that he actually listens to her. 

I do believe that Louisa and her sister May (the real life Amy) both loved their father, but they are very critical about him in their letters, and the same goes with the real life Laurie´s like Laddie Wisniewski, that they knew. John and Fritz in Little Women are really not like Louisa´s father. They are hardworking men who would never abandon their families and Laurie gets better after he decides that it´s time to be productive, but like we have said many times in this podcast, film makers seem to have a collective desire to ignore Laurie´s character arc. 

This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. If you don´t procrastinate they have all amazing course to you from creative writing to music composing and you can get 1 month for free with the link in the description.

This is Small umbrella in the rain, Little Women podcast "Jo´s desire to be a mom". 

Niina: The whole story about Laddie (Wisniewski) I think one of the reasons why Louisa liked to hang out with him...it´s almost like she always wanted to have somebody there that she could take care of. Was it then her sister or when she worked in the war as a nurse and then there was Laddie and she took care of him because he had tuberculosis. You can see that Louisa always had this very  maternal side that she liked to take care of people like her parents, later on and Jo is very much the same and we just recently talked about this with some fans on discord that in the 1994 film you can see this maternal side of Jo and then in the 1949 film. I like that when people add that dimension of her to the films because it is a big part of her. That she is this maternal character. People always complain that "Oh Friedrich is so paternal, fatherly figure" ...well, Jo is very maternal in the book. Of course she would like to be with somebody who is a fatherly character and loves children as much as Jo does. 

Christina: It is surprising that people would think that. I remember someone said, even if a person doesn´t like kids, see how they react to them because it tells you so much of their character and even if someone who doesn´t like kids is still good with kids, that says a lot, but if someone is like "get away from me kid" that is not a good judge of character. That is not a good sign. So it is surprising that someone would say "Oh this character likes to be with kids or is a father figure to them or any child they see, that is a horrible thing" why?. It shows that they have really good heart and you know if you were that type of person who is like "I am looking for someone to settle down with and to start a life with and start a family and see how they are with other children tells you a lot and these two also I think get axed a lot. I think only in the Masterpiece theater 1971 Franz and Emil get so cut in the story and I feel that it tells a lot who Friedrich is because the fact that he takes in his nephews and treats them as if they were his own not just like "I´m their uncle and these are my nephews and I take care of them". No, he treats them almost as if they were his own is so telling of how his character is and the way that he treats Tina, the sweet little girl and he is like "come, come, come to me. Come to your old Bhaer" he treats her as if she is her own. It is what impresesses Jo a lot is just how good he is with kids and I think it´s like you said, it touches that maternal part of her who loves being with kids, who loves to take care of people as we have seen with Beth. 

Beth was pretty much, I feel like almost if she could have, she would have been her surrogant mom. It kind of reminds me of their relationship of that one scene in "Mermaids" with Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci where she says "when you came home from the hospithal I tried to get you to call me mom" I feel like that would have been very much Jo and Beth relationship. You gotta hate kids that much to be like "hmph I can´t be with someone who is just friendly to children" what´s wrong with you?"

Niina: One of the things that I liked about Fritz was that when he comes to court Jo, he spends time with her niece and nephew and there is that scene with the chocolate. I always thought that was so sweet. "Jo´s Boys", I think that is really one of the best ones when you see how Jo and Friedrich behave with their sons when they are teen-agers. Then there is that scene, where the other boy gets bitten by the dog. They go to their parents but they are really nervous to tell them, but Jo and Fritz are like "we love you" and then they comfort them. I just love Rob and Ted and I would like to see that story to be adapted a lot more often. In Little Men it is mentioned how Franz almost became Jo´s son. He saw her more as a mother figure. They were very close. Franz was Friedrich´s oldest nephew. I mean it tells a lot about a character that he comes to this new country to take care of his sister and then adopts her two sons when she dies. It tells everything about Friedrich´s character, the way he is. When Jo is in New York and she writes that letter to Marmee. It´s all about Friedrich. I think that story about the way he lost his sister and adopted the boys, it was something that really moved Jo. It was something that she was very attracted to. One of the many things about him. It would be nice to see that in the films. One of my favorite scenes in the 1994 film is part where Friedrich is playing with children and I like that also in the 2017 series. 

Christina: Another moment that kinda hit me and I have the copy of my book right next to me, just to double check. In some of the other movies they sort of switch it to be an adult but in the 2017 series and in the book, first time Jo sees professor Bhaer is when a little servant girl is carrying this bucket of coal and he takes it from her and says that "the little back is too young to have such heaviness". It doesn´t matter whether or not they are a child or a servant, he is a friend to all children and that is like such a sweet little moment and some of the other versions like the Katherine Hepburn one and June Allyson they make it that they are an adult carrying like a load of laundry or something like that but again it is one of those telling moments that he sees that this little girl who is a servant and we could talk about child laws and labor laws as much as we want, someone who is suppose to be working and he sees that they are struggling and he is like "No, that is not what you are supposed to do. No!" Even though other people would have been like "that´s her job. So what if she is 10. She is suppose to be carrying that bucket of coal" but he is like "but she is 10! she should be carrying that bucket! again that is very telling not just how good he is with children, just the fact that he recognizes that "I don´t care if it is your job, you as a person should not be carrying that. That is not suppose to be your job. An adult should be really doing your job honestly" but as far I can recall the Masterpiece theater 1 2017 adaptation was faithful to the book in that regard.

Niina: It was a really nice scene and I really wish they would have developed Jo and Fritz a lot more in that series because they were doing a really good job that little time that they had, except the part of him shouting at Jo about her writing. Other than that it was pretty decent. It was written by a Jo and Laurie shipper. There it goes. 

Christina: I think the closest we get to the proper approach the sort of Daily Volcano..and it´s weird for me to say even though I know this is supposed to be a remake of earlier version but really I think the June Allyson one does it best, because instead of Friedrich being disappointed he is more questioning. I am surprised because you don´t seem to be the type of person who writes those kind of characters and Jo admitting "I know they are not the greatest but they help to get money and..I have been having hard time publishing what is it that I want to publish" and it becomes more of a discussion of "you are a good writer. I know you are, but stick what makes you feel good about writing rather than trying to do what these people want" and I wish that if I would have my version I would make that very clear that distinction that Friedrich has with sensationalism versus Jo writing because there is moment, even though Jo doesn´t say it, he knows that she is writing it for the sake of money and he is like "I totally get where you are coming from because I know you are doing it same way as I work for money put most versions would put it like "Oh I thought you were better than that and this makes me think less of you" whatever and Jo taking it as a hard blow but she seeks out his advice in writing and he gives it. It´s not the Daily Volcano stuff that she hands in because she is not proud of that work really but in general her regular writing, he likes and he gives constructive criticism but he is never mean to her about it. He is more upset about what Daily Volcano represents. Sort of almost equivalent of like why are you showing a R rated movie at 12 o´clock in the afternoon when kids are home on a channel that is accessible to children, like that is the way I would re-frame it in a modern day sense. That sort of feeling like why is that out there. How is that accessible to children? why is it that they put the channel to go from Disney to this channel? and all of a sudden if they do they´ll see someone hacking a person to death and boobies and crazy amount of swear words that flan them out. I think people don´t see it that way but that is the way I always interpreted that it is not at all criticism against Jo but just what the Daily Volcano stood for and I think most adaptations somehow blend the two and it makes Friedrich not look the greatest and it is such a shame. 

Niina: Yeah I think it is really sad because a lot of people use that against him but then it is not in the book and it is so annoying. I get this a lot from Jo and Laurie fans "Friedrich hated Jo´s writing" it doesn´t happen in the book and then in the book it is actually Laurie who doesn´t really... it is not that he is against Jo writing but when he proposes he expects that Jo is going to stop writing and be sort of this mother figure/wife for him. That´s not good and in the 1949 film... I think it´s very subtle. There is a scene where Laurie doesn´t understand why Jo wants to work. It is a nice comparison to that Jo and Friedrich scene. Not only does he give her the feedback but also inspires her to become a better writer.

Christina: In the 1949 version. like you said she is like "Oh I need it for the money" Laurie is like "I got plenty of that" he seems so confused, it´s not just the money, it helps, but it´s for creative outlet and like you said, it´s very subtle. It points out that he doesn´t get it, that just because it doesn´t offer something that can already be had. He, he thinks "I can give you the money, so you don´t have to worry about writing. He doesn´t realize that that is a passion. 

Niina: I think that reflects how Laurie views his music because he always speaks about how he is going to compose this great opera but then he doesn´t do the work.

Christina: Yeah, and again I think people don´t realize that, like when they read the first book they just kinda go like "That´s it, she just gave up and never wrote again. No, she does manage to write and I think they try to give you that feeling when you see in the adaptations when he is helping her to publish her story whether it is Little Women itself or as it I kinda like in the 1949 version where it is the "My Beth" story. I totally understand when people do that, her writing Little Women, because it is suppose to be like..we all know that Marches are the fictional versions of the Alcott´s but I feel like when you go little too far you are sort of blending what is real and what is fiction. Almost crossing the realms as they say in Ghostbusters, which is something that really happens in Gerwig´s version which confused the hell out of me, particularly does she, doesn´t she end up with Friedrich kind of ending which I did not think was a great end but I like the idea that he follows her work. I think if he was in the publishing I think it would be the "My Beth" story or a poem and I think it is only in the 2017 version the Masterpiece one where we see..well I don´t think we actually see it but we get hints of it in the 1978 version that we see Friedrich kind of following Jo´s writing after New York and that tells a lot that he genuinely is watching how she progresses and is very proud of her to the point of cutting it out and putting it above his fireplace. Almost as if "Look at what the woman I am in love with just did. Isn´t that amazing!" For everyone to see who ever came to the room like "look at this!" 

Niina: I think in the 1978 version Mrs Kirk came in was like "Look Professor Bhaer Miss March has published a new story! in the 2017 series you can see how he cuts Jo´s poem from the magazine. That was nice too. I really really hate when they portray Jo and Friedrich arguing and then she is mad at him and then she returns back to Concord. That´s not the way the book goes and I hate it when that happens. That´s in the 1994 version and the 2019 film.

Christina: As much as I don´t like that comparing the two, the 1994 version did it better where it felt more like, oh these two are friends and they just got into an argument whereas in the 2019 version I sat there, after that arguement I was like first time ever I was like I hate Jo and I had never said that. We had to take a moment because we had to do something in the middle and we were discussing and I was like "I have never said this but I hate Jo" and it was amazing to me how again Gerwig was so confusing. She almost made pass Jo to be almost mature than the current storyline Jo because I was just looking at the screen "You did not just say that" when Friedrich was trying to tell her his  criticism. For her to blow out and say quite literally, I maybe paraphrasing it but it´s the same feeling "you are mean and I don´t like you and I don´t want to be your friend" that sounds what a five year old would say. That doesnt´s sound very mature. I could go on about this split ending how in either way would Jo be happy but if you are trying to make me believe that Jo get with Friedrich storyline that it is going t be a happy ending. It´s not because we barely see any interactions with them. For most of the time she seems to be ignoring him probably only at the dance, that was probably the only time where I was like "Oh they like each other but other than that she ignores him or she is yelling at him then I´m suppose to believe that she is in love with him and that "we got to go chase him down". I didn´t like Meg and Amy following her to the train station. I just sat there going like, it is not a happy ending even if I try to make myself believe that Jo ends up with Friedrich  part because it doesn´t seem like to that end that she was really all into him and almost seems forced to it. I don´t know, maybe that is just me but that is what I took from it, just that either one story line where she gets her novel published but is lonely, after that whole big speech and her writing a letter to Laurie which never happens in the book, of saying I will marry you and then to find out that Laurie is with Amy, even though she has her book published she is still very lonely or you go with the timeline of her with Friedrich there is no proper development to make me think, first of all what does Friedrich see in this Jo because this Jo seems totally disinterested and even mean towards you unless you are into for that kind of thing and where in the hell that all "I love you" sequence come? It felt more like desperation to have someone in her life. Why? neither one of these endings I feel are happy endings because it doesn´t feel honest. It doesn´t feel true to either one and why would you do a split ending like that? I am assuming to trying to pander to those who are pro-Friedrich versus anti-Friedrich but either way no matter who you are it is not a happy ending for Jo either way. 

Niina: Yeah I remember Jimena from the other-art-blog she said that whole scene of Jo shouting at him made her feel very uncomfortable and then she read the book and it was completely different and she was really shocked by it. I talked to Alcott scholar Susan Bailey and she told me that she felt that "Gerwig´s film was all about money". If you think about it it tries to appeal to asexuals, lgbtq community, Jo and Laurie shippers, those who want Jo to be a spinster and those who want Jo to be with Friedrich, and none of the characters have their story lines because of this open ending, so it is all about the money, and hate speech because if you think about it, Gerwig made hate speech about Friedrich´s accent and him being German and when I read the 2019 film guide Gerwig also said that she felt really sad how Louisa May Alcott re-wrote her life into her books, so I got a feeling that Gerwig must have had some kind of feeling that Little Women was a wish fulfillment and that she was very lonely and that is why she wrote these happy endings to her characters and yet Gerwig decided to go with this open ending and to make fun of the novel. I think 2019 film is all about money. I personally don´t believe anything what Gerwig has said because it doesn´t match with anything that Louisa May Alcott has written or said, especially when you know the context of her love life. I actually find that film very problematic what it comes to Little Women research and Louisa May Alcott research because I get so many people asking me to clarify things that happen in the 2019 film and don´t happen in the book. I read this blog post from Tumblr from someone who had seen the 2019 film and then they were trying to explain why Jo doesn´t end up with Laurie and they said "Oh it´s because Jo just wanted to live happily free in New York or that she wanted to travel the world" I´m like...well I have read the book. Jo is not very happy when she is in New York and somebody also commented that when people think about Jo being alone in New York and happy there, they are thinking Sex and the City or some other modern tv series because when the book Jo is in New York, she is actually 90 % of the time with Fritz and 10% of the time she is writing about the kids or she is writing, but honestly most of the time she is with Friedrich in different situations. When she writes to home it is all about Friedrich in her letters and she spends a year in New York. Very long time when you are trying to get to know to someone. When I think about Jo and Friedrich in New York neither one of them actually wants to be there that much. Friedrich has this dream that maybe one day he could have a family and maybe live somewhere in the countryside or to have a closer connection with nature or to establish himself as a teacher again and Jo has this wish that she could live close to her family and to have her own family there as well.

Christina: and again that´s why it makes me feel like most versions timing of Jo going to New York being seen as almost being like "got to get a way" in one hand for Jo it is kinda like "I was promised to go to Europe" it changed so I will go somewhere but not forever. I will want to come back I just need to see something and maybe it will be good for the writing, but like you said, she doesn´t want to leave home really and it is not until she makes friends with Friedrich she kinda feels more comfortable to be in New York because I think if she didn´t she would not have been there for as long as she was. I think she probably would have been there for few months and then like "Okay I am really missing home. There is not much here for me. I´ll just go back but Friedrich is what helps her feel much more comfortable being in New York and it´s almost a sense for them "a home away from home". That they both understand each other and they both have that same sort of familiarity that makes the homesickness feel better. I think if there was no Friedrich she would not have stayed as long as she did. 

Niina: I agree. It´s like they both have the same goal of wanting to have a shared home. I think with Friedrich, especially because he is an immigrant it really effects to that idea. I think in German they even have a name for it.  "Heimwech nach dem Frende" idea of a romanticized home". It means that there is a sort of familiarity within another person or a place. I think both Jo and Friedrich had that similar idea what the home meant for them and then they saw that in each other. 

That was our chat today. Christina and I will continue our discussion next week. This episode was sponsored by Skillshare. You can get one free month and get an access to thousands creative courses. The link is in the description. Thank you so much for listening. Take care and make good choices. Bye. 

Sources:

(re-carnation quotes) Louisa May Alcott letters to Maggie Lukens

May Alcott and Louisa May Alcott´s quotes about their father, May Alcott´s biography by Caroline Ticknor

(Louisa May Alcott´s letters to her publisher) Louisa May Alcott, life, letters and journals by Edna Cheney. 

Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott (150 years penguin edition)

​Anonymous asked:Please share the "afterglow" moment between Jo and Fritz that you once mentioned. I need it, you know, for reasons. 👀

I found it :D
​
"We give them the kindly spirit that shines through the simplest demeanour making it courteous and cordial, like you my dear old boy"

"Tut tut! we will not compliment; for if I begin you will run away and I have a wish to enjoy this happy half hour to the end?" yet Mr Bhaer looked pleased with the compliment for it was true and Mrs Jo felt that she had received the best her husband could give her by saying that he found his truest rest and happiness in her society".
-Little Men, Chapter Goldilocks

It probably depends on the edition but in this one that I have, it´s said that Fritz is laying on the couch Jo next to him, after a long sweaty day in the garden.

All the conversations in Little Men between Jo and Fritz are very warm and intimate. Kinda reminds me of that notion of Louisa and Henry having a "telepathic connection" (plus he also worked sweaty in the garden). They are very playful conversations. He is teasing her and she him, in the most adorable ways, and what is funny about is that when they tease each other, they really just give each other compliments.

What I love about this is how Jo feels that the place next to Friedrich is the best place in the world and they have this specific time each day that they spend with one another. It makes me think of something that Arithanas could have written. He also wants her to be close to her physically and emotionally.
In Little Women, there is the sex scene between Meg and John which is referred to as a "moment of bliss".

Here we have "truest rest and happiness" (which I always read as afterglow) Now that I read this again he actually sounds kinda suggestive so maybe it´s foreplay.

Now, Louisa got into a bit of trouble with Little Women part 2. It was considered too much of an adult novel and there were some people and organizations who even wanted to ban it because of "moment of bliss" and Jo´s sexual awakening with Fritz. Most readers don´t even pay attention to these details now (which I blame the adaptations) but I think it´s actually pretty amazing.

I did find this fun blog post how words like "moment of bliss" and "truest rest and happiness" were used as euphemism.
"Nineteenth-century" people also used euphemisms for sex and sexual activity. As I've said before, contrary to nineteenth-century stereotypes, Maggie clearly enjoys her sexual relationship with Eli. However, propriety demands that she refrain from being too graphic when she speaks about it or when she writes in her journal. In A Time to Heal she uses an alternate term, "free," when writing about sexual activity in her journal, and yet it's clear what she is referring to. I was taught the value of modesty, Journal. But having been married twice, I also learned the value of being free with one’s husband. Today Eli and I were free by the little pond on our property.

In the same journal entry, she also uses the word "pleasant" and the phrase "enjoy each other" to indicate sexual activity.While it would not be prudent to give details of our afternoon, allow me to say that it was quite pleasant. The sun was warm, and we dried quickly after our swim. Then we enjoyed each other’s company while the birds called sweetly, and the cicadas whirred in the trees" https://www.squeakingpips.com/blog/nineteenth-century-euphemisms

Sorry that it took forever for me to reply. This might surprise some, but I am really slow reading in English.
​(originally posted in Tumblr )

Hi guys and welcome to the season three of the Little Women podcast. I want to give a shoutout to Paola. 
This is the message that she left me.

Hi Niina. This response is a bit late but I love your Little Women content. Thank you for sharing all your studies and research! I read the book earlier this year for the first time and I fell in love with Jo and Fritz’s relationship. I’m so glad I binged listened to your podcast to further my love for them. It also kickstarted and obsession with LMA too, she’s such an interesting woman and moved around in so many circles. I can’t believe there are people that still don’t get Jo and Fritz. While reading I found it very obvious that Jo was falling for him even if Jo hadn’t realized it yet herself (I mean the girl didn’t shut up about his hands and how nice he is!). My heart melted at the moment when it says (rephrasing here:) ‘if Jo could’ve seen the Professor kissing the picture of her before going to bed, she would’ve known why he was visiting her hometown’ 😭 I see here Jo’s influence on Friedrich. Being with her and knowing her, encourages him to be more active, take initiative to things unknown, go find answers to his questions, try finding another job for bettering his nephew’s life. Ok this is getting too long lol. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Jo&Bhaer moments that just warms my heart and makes me laugh:  This is a quote from Little Men: “Now, if you make fun of my plan I’ll give you bad coffee for a week, and then where are you, sir?” Cried Mrs. Jo, tweaking him by the ear just as if he was one of the boys. (Little Men) Thank you for sharing your passion! -Paola

This is one of the nicest comments I have ever received about this podcast. Huge thanks to you Paola. 

I hope the new year treats you well. Last year wasn´t the greatest for me. There was lots of grief. 

I´d better tell you the whole story. It has pretty dark parallel to Little Women. 

I lost my grandmother in the summer. She was 98 years old, so she had had a full life, but it was still sad, because we were very close. I remember in the memorial service all my cousins were crying and I have like 10 first cousins and I was thinking how amazing grandma I had. She had so many grand-kids and she had time to all of use, because every-time when I would go to see her she was interested of what I was doing. 

About  a year and a half ago my sister was diagnosed with MS disease. MS disease has these different levels. She has the mild version. It´s still very serious. Some years ago my aunt died to cancer. She did not tell my mom that she was sick. Only her kids and her husband knew about it. I think she didn´t tell her because she didn´t want my mom or grandma to be upset. She was my grandma´s carer. The grandma who died was my father´s mother. This one is my mother´s mother and she is still alive. 

But, as you can image, my mom was upset, because she was one of the last people to know. Me and my sister we´ve always had very open communication. She is my only sibling and we´ve always been very close. When this happened we promised that if either one gets sick, we let the other one know. I rather know than not know, but I also understand my aunt, because it is so difficult to see somebody you love experience physical pain. What you really want to do is to take that pain away from them, even take it to yourself. But you can´t do that. You can only be there for them, but it makes you feel so helpless. 

She was visiting me one day and she started to talk about her will and I just lost it. She just turned 30. She should have 50 more years to live and it is unfair. This was probably the most that I have shared about my personal life during the last two seasons all together. Few people have asked me to talk more about Beth and I started to work an episode about the time when Jo took care of Beth, but I have been able to finish it, because of the obvious reasons. I can tell you that I just really hate it when people say that  Beth dies because she is a weak home mouse, and nothing like Jo who want to have fun in New York. We already covered this a bit in the last season but in the book both Jo and Friedrich are like two lonely souls when they are in New York and Jo has this wish that some day she has her own family and she can live close to her parents and sisters or that the only reason Beth exists is that Jo gets inspired to write Little Women, and none of that happens in the novel.

Gerwig´s film really emphasized on it. Like let´s get rid of Friedirch, because Greta Gerwig doesn´t think he is handsome (when in the book Jo who herself is not written to be pretty and finds Fridrich handsome) and use Beth´s death as a catalyst for Jo to write her book, so the audience sees how much of a feminist she is. 

In the actual Little Women the novel it is Friedrich who inspires Jo to become the writer who she wants to be and eventually write Little Women. If Beth would not have got ill, Jo would have stayed in New York much longer. She and Friedrich don´t argue when she leaves, she is actually very sad that she has to leave him. Jo puts writing off for a year just so she can concentrate on Beth. The reason why Beth dies is because Louisa´s sister Elizabeth died to a terminal disease and it was a hardblow to Louisa because she was nurse apprentice and Lizzie was very close to her. 

When I hear people say that Beth exists only to show how much a feminist Jo, and that has only increased with Gerwig´s rethorics it´s like..fuck you. Don´t talk to me. You don´t know what it´s like to watch your sister battle with a terminal disease. 

When you are in that moment and your mind is consumed by worry. Thing like money or feminism are the last things on your mind. You know I like to talk about feminism, but seriously when a person dies, what that has to do with feminism? Nothing. Nothing at all.  

When I started this podcast, I thought it would attract people like myself who like to read and analyze Little Women and are fascinated by the Alcott´s. I wasn´t really prepared that people were also interested to know how I am doing and how my family is doing, which is really sweet and I just wanted to thank you all who have sent me messages that you love this podcast. I got a message from somebody..I think they were American, that they decided to read Little Men after hearing me talking about it. Then I got another message from a Finnish listener, who got so interested that they ordered a copy of Little Women to themselves and decided to read it. It´s like the greatest compliment that this podcast can get, that somebody got so inspired they decided to read it a book. 

When I was listening what you guys would like to hear, some themes that popped up was these scenes that the movies include, but are not in the book, and how that affects to people´s views about the characters, and these are things like messing up with the time line. In the book Jo had already developed feelings for Friedrich when Laurie proposed, but in the movies Laurie´s proposal happens before she goes, so a lot of viewers think that Jo is going to come back and say yes to him or aunt March choosing Amy to go to Europe, and then viewers think that Amy just stole the trip, when in the book it was the case Jo being rude to aunt March and her friend so she blew her chances, and I think that is not in the films because it show´s Jo in less favorable light. These differences are going to be the theme of this season and I hope you enjoy it. 

My today´s guess is Christina and she runs a blog called "JoandFriedrich". It´s not just for Jo and Friedrich fans, there are also lots of Amy and Laurie and fans there. It´s one of the only online forums I´v come across where people talk and analyze Little Women books. There is talk about the adaptations but majority of the members are more interested about the novel. I was happy to have Christina as a guest, because she has been doing these character analyzes a lot longer than I have, and when I started to do this podcast I was very inspired by her writings and continue to be even today.

The name of this episode "You are meant for labor, not for love" it comes from an article that my Little Women friend Nadine wrote about Jo´s looks, and how because of the way she looked she wasn´t expected to get married. Christina also published an article about the same topic and today´s episode is also going to handle that. I will put the links to both of these articles to the description so you can read them.

This is Small umbrella in the rain, Little Women podcast "You are meant for labor. Not for love"

Christina: Hi. I finally get to talk to you, not person to person, but still back and forth. 

Niina:  Great to talk to you too! Would you like to start by introducing yourself and what is your relationship with Little Women.

Christina: Hello. My name is Christina and if you are on Tumblr you probably know my blog, JoandFriedrich. It was started because I just love them so much and tough they did not get the recognition they deserved. I have been a fan of little women for the longest time. First time I read it was when I was between the ages of 10 to 12. That was some around the ages I started to read it. Been a fan ever since. 

Niina: That´s amazing.

Christina: It was the great illustrated copy of it. It was the abridged version and then over the years I finally get to hold the copy that was´t unabridged version. It was a journey to get into where I am at right now. Almost full blown obsession.

Niina: I think one of the reasons why I actually started my podcast was because of your blog. When I was younger I was obsessed with Little Women. I was in LiveJournal and there was an Amy and Laurie group and Jo and Friedrich group and I was lurking there. They slowly vanished and I think your blog was the only place where I could find other people that were interested from the canon. Everywhere else it was just about the films or very strange views about Little Women that I did not agree. I am very grateful for your blog and I think many others are too. 

Christina: That is so great to hear. I mean, I felt just like you. Either most of the people that were around me didn´t know or care about Little Women and those who did only knew the movie versions. Many of them are great. I have many thoughts about the most recent one. Most of the time most film versions seem to put more focus on Jo and Laurie and I was like. No! I remember when reading the book, it almost felt incestuous to me because I always identified with Jo and I have a brother and so much of Jo´s and Laurie´s relationship while they were growing up felt very much like how me and my brother would interact.  This very goofy, ridiculous antics to the point where I would probably do some of the more "boy-stuff". So when people were like "oh Jo and Laurie" I was like "eew" That´s No. I can´t, like not at all. That for me was just too weird. I can´t even fathom the thought of Jo and Laurie at all. 

Niina: That is very true and then there is a quote from Louisa May Alcott where she writes that she wrote Laurie to be the brother that she never had. 

Christina: Yeah. It is very shocking that most people don´t pick up on that. Really how incredibly brother and sister their relationship is like and I know that some people are like "Oh I love the idea of childhood friends to lovers but I´m like not them. Not them at all. 

Niina: I think with Laurie there are lots of things that people just ignore about his character and we´v talked about this before, like the cat-fishing and the proposal and him threatening to hurt himself if she says no and all these very disturbing red flags are there, but they are not in the films and most people don´t know about them. 

Christina: It´s amazing just how the media will change your perception of what a story is because I remember, I don´t know if you have seen it, I don´t remember if it was their own post or someone replying to a post they were like "after watching the 2019 film movie maybe I will go and read the book" and they were not just surprised but whole blown shocked to see that there was no, not even a hint of Jo and Laurie in it and they were like in away disappointed and kind of upset that Gerwig would do that when the book never did. It is amazing how media/movies and what not will change how we perceive how the story should be, because that is not how it went at all. 

Niina: Somebody commented quite recently that Gerwig cared more about the actors than the book itself and I think that might be true. I think it´s also a problem in 1994 film and maybe in the 1949 film. She is just continuing this long tradition of romanticizing Laurie. There is no excuses for that.

Christina: No, not at all. I think in general Laurie is a good character but it takes him a while to get to be a great character. They all got flaws. He seems to be the one that really stands out to the point of  "okay that´s very problematic dude". During this day and age if you did at least one of those things that Laurie did a girl would be like "just dump him girl, don´t even bother" you know, but like you said they don´t put focus on that and I think it is a shame because when he does propose to Jo, when they portray his heartbreak it is like "oh poor Laurie" but it´s not really "poor Laurie" because you´v had so many signs leading up to Jo being like I can´t or I wont because you clearly did´t catch the hint before. I´v seen some people who have said "Jo was so mean to him during the proposal" not for nothing but would´t you be too after all those year him trying to flirt with you and trying to kiss you and whatever else and you try to say in a nicest way "no" and you just get so fed up with it. I don´t blame her at all. 

Niina: In the book the reason why Jo goes to New York is because Laurie is harassing her. 

Christina: Yes and that is what I was going to say that I hate when the movies do the proposal before New York because it seems like she is just trying to walk away from heartbreak "Oh I can´t watch poor Laurie be sad" no she left before the proposal happened because she wants to get away from him, so that way he can be like, just take time, maybe after some time away you can figure that you don´t really care for me as much as you think you do and that´s why when she comes back she is like "you know what, I´m done". 

I don´t like it when the movies switch it because I feel like it does it almost way to be more sympathetic to Laurie than to be sympathetic to Jo?

Niina: Was it the same in the 2017 series?

Christina: I think that is the only version that I can think of that actually did it the right way.

Niina: Yes, he proposed to her after she came back from New York. I still think he was very romanticized in that version as well.

Christina: It is so important that it happens after New York because again it is one of those moments you sort of have inclined that she has a lot more feelings for him than you think she does but other version that actually does it correctly is the BBC version 1971 because in both of those versions they both say like "Oh don´t tell me, you fell for that old man" and that is such an important moment because it is Jo standing up for Friedrich and says "don´t talk about him like that" we are getting that first incline that maybe she has a lot more feelings for Friedrich than she even thinks she does, and standing up to Laurie who has been her friend for many years. She is pretty much saying "shut up! you don´t know what you are talking about. He is as dear friend to me as you are". I think it´s very important showing the development of Jo´s and Friedrich´s relationship. That one little moment when she is ready to tear Laurie apart because how dare he say something horrible about her Friedrich". 

Niina: If he is her friend, he should respect her and there are lots of indications that he doesn´t. Before Jo goes to New York there is that time when he is low-key trying to flirt with her and she clearly says no and then couple years before that when Beth gets sick for the first time, he is trying to kiss her and she says no and she is 16 and when she goes to New York she starts to develop these feelings for Friedrich. It is a natural way of things that she would reject Laurie. I think one of the things that most people miss in Little Women, even some people who read the novel too, is that it also happens to Laurie when he is with Amy. He starts to become more independent, which is not the way his and Jo´s relationship works because he was kinda looking her to be his nanny or somebody who tells him what to do. With Amy he becomes more independent and he wants to do something else in his life than just writing these operas for Jo. He wants to be productive. It is all thanks to Amy. She pushes him to find purpose that he was lacking. 

Christina: I think that too, he sort of saw Jo almost a safety net. That no matter what could happen. Good or bad. He could go to Jo and she would be like. "It´s alright Laurie, it´s fine. Everything is going to be okay" but Amy she says like "You got to learn how to stand on your own two feet. Not that I can´t be there to comfort you and to be "that´s alright Laurie" but I am not going to be your safety net. If you are going to fall try to help yourself up". I think that was what it was. He just got so used to Jo that he doesn´t realize that he could do stuff on his own and Amy allows him to do that. 

Niina: It´s really a boys proposal because. He says he gave up billiard and smoking.

(laughter)

and what else. That´s not a really good reason to marry.

Christina: Right. That and "oh let´s do it because everyone expects it". Okay you have pretty much listed every reason except the fact that we love each other and I am clearly saying and telling you that I don´t love you that way. He is trying to pressure her "Don´t dissappoint us Jo". "Grandfather wants it, your family wants it" and it´ like emm...what about what I want Laurie. I don´t want this. That moment is his most selfish moment because it´s "I want what I want and how dare you not want the same". 

Niina: I was so disturbed when I read Gerwig´s interview and she said "how could Jo reject handsome young Laurie". 

Christina: I could go on forever. I bother my friends sometimes when Little Women comes up and I´m like "The Gerwig version" because there are so many things that I have no idea what her goal was with that because it felt very much all over the place. Like you said earlier it felt more catered to the actors and it is such a shame because before I had seen Little Women I watched "Ladybird" and I thought that "Ladybird" was great and when I heard that Saoirse Ronan is going to be Jo and Timothee Chalamet would be Laurie I was like "oh that´s great because I feel like they have a good chemistry and I feel that they could work it out" and when watching I was like that´s no...that´s not... you have totally missed the point. Point is here and you went....way over Gerwig and I am very disappointed with you. I was expecting better with you. 

Niina: One of my friends read the "Jo and Laurie" book. You´ve heard of it?

Christina: Oh yeah I have heard of it. 

Niina: She said that it was like Gerwig´s version in that sense, it felt very disrespectful for the original material and for the author. I am not going to read it because it makes me angry. 

Christina: I couldn´t stand it. I don´t know if I could even do it as a "tell us what you think" I can already tell you what I think. I am just not going to bother because it would have been a very.... I almost want to say an abusive relationship, because they both are such hot-headed people and Jo at that point when the proposal happens has learned to manage it, I feel that if she was married to Laurie he would bring that old habit back and it would have been incredibly destructive and not in any way good at all. Back then they couldn´t divorce as easy as they could today but I think it would have been miserable by their first anniversary.

Niina: You know about Louisa and Laddie Wisniewski the real-life Laurie. They had short time together and Louisa liked his sense of humor and his company and then they continued writing letters when she returned to US but then later on she wrote to her journal that he was boring and then one of my followers on Instagram wrote that... well if Jo and Laurie would have married, Jo would have thought that he was boring. 

Christina: I think she would have quickly realized how childish he is because at that point she has already understood, she has grown up. Not in the sense that she had forgotten who she was in the past but grown into the person that she should be and understanding herself better but I almost feel like Laurie almost sees it as betrayal. "How dare you grow up. I want to be Peter Pan forever and let nothing happen". Jo did have that earlier when Meg got married but she was able to take it gracefully and realize that things change but it´s okay and here is the best way to go about it to stay true to myself but also be more accepting to other changes whereas Laurie I think saw Jo as his last hold-on-to-the-past and nothing moved forward as Amy is more of that symbol of "here is what the future can be like". Let´s not think on who I was a child, but who I can become tomorrow. If Jo would have married Laurie he would have been stuck in that sort of perpetual childish stage and she would have been the one to grow up and like you said be a mother to him and it would have been totally unbalanced relationship whereas with Amy he would learn to grow and they could grow physically and mentally together old. I don´t think that they don´t really show that as well as I think that they should have done in adaptations. 

Niina: I agree and Louisa May Alcott she has this quote about character development that the character grows when she moves on from one character interest to another. That happens to Jo with Friedrich and that happens to Laurie with Amy. It´s really interesting. I think Laurie ideas of romance they are very unrealistic.

Christina: Nobody is the same person as they were five years ago. In some form or another you change. Who I was in highschool is not the same person I am now and I sit back and think I don´t think I was the greatest person then but it doesn´t mean that I was horrible person and that I can´t learn and grow from it. When you think about Laurie, he did many not so great things but he learned and grew from it. When people say that Alcott ruined Jo´s character and made her into something different. Didn´t you pay attention? Jo is still Jo, she just learned to understand herself better and this is what I think people don´t get is that Jo wasn´t trying to be a boy into being a boy or that she repelled a lot of the social norms because she hated all of them it was because she felt constrained by it or that she was always told things like "marriage is only for the benefit of getting money or property". It is either do that or be a spinster and then she is like "we´ll I guess I´ll be a spinster for I would not be that person" rather than being told that "you could marry for love" and no doubt for someone like her if we all think also how Alcott herself was. I was bullied a lot when I was in Middle School which are propbably your most formative years from transitioning from childhood to teen age years. I had always had that feeling that nobody is ever going to look at me and love me and I think that in away Jo must have felt the same because throughtout the novel at some point or another whether it´s nicest way possible if you could say or very harshly, Jo has been told that nobody is going to want you if you don´t behave or "you are too tall and you are too kingly for this and "Jo if you don´t curl your language you are never going to find a husband.

So no doubt that all of those times that she has ever been made feel that who she was as a person is totally unworthy to be married and she was like you know what, then I guess I just won´t get married because it´s better to accept that than to hope for it and nothing happens and that´s kinda what pushes a little bit more why I love Jo and Friedrich so much is because he never made her feel bad for who she was. Never. Despite of what some of the versions will try to tell you him being like "oh dare you write for the weekly volcano" that never happened in the book.

Niina: Never

Christina: He never made her feel inferior, which is something that Laurie had done, whether he meant to or not, had done to Jo, because no doubt somewhere in the back of her mind she was like "I know people are expecting us to marry because he is wealthy and we need money or he would throw his priviledge around and she would think back in her head "yeah I don´t have that priviledge as both a woman and someone with no money" but Friedrich always encouraged her. He listened to her and she listened to him and they grew from it and I think that was the time she felt for the first time that maybe there isn´t something totally unlovable in me if someone can look at me and go "you are fine as you are". There may still be hope and the fact that these two so called "odd-balls" of their society can find love and happiness is not only so sweet but it´s inspiring. It almost makes you feel like you know maybe someone could love me for all of my oddities and imperfections.

Niina: I think that´s very true and a lot of people don´t get that because  Jo and Friedrich tend to be very romanticized in the films as well. I told you about this recently. My sister watched the 1978 version and she liked it because Jo and Friedrich seemed so normal. They were not overly-romanticized. They were hard working and you can see that they have these similar interests throughout the series and my sister hasn´t read Little Women. She has seen the 1994 film and this 1978 series.

Christina: You can also see the respect between two of them. That is the biggest thing I feel with Jo and Friedrich is that, even if it is not this poetic romanticized version you can immediately tell that there is enormous amount of respect for each other and that is I think the biggest thing for a relationship. Respecting one another and knowing that you are both on an equal playing field.

Niina: Somebody commented on my Instagram that there are a lot of people who say that they are like Jo, but then they are actually not at all like the book Jo, because the book Jo, there are some boyish things that she likes but then she also likes to be a mother and she loves all boys, she wants to start a school for boys and then she also likes to knit and make clothes and she likes to read romance novels and she cries when she reads them. She adores her niece and her nephew and she loves Friedrich´s nephews. She has some very feminine qualities.

Christina: When you say that it reminded me.. I made it a while ago but it sticks with me. I said something like If Jo was present in the modern day and this is again because I was..very cringeworthy but I was also this girl too..Like 2006-2008-2012 time when the girls were just like "I am not like other girls" and they made it seem like, if you like the color pink or if you are like this, if you like make-up, you like wearing dresses, was almost like a negative quality and I think Jo would have been that type of girl in the beginning of the novel. She would have been that "I am not like the other girls-girl" and what makes her relatable at least to me is that throughout the book she realizes there is nothing really wrong with liking those things, that is why I say she learned to understand herself better. I can have some of the more stereotypical boyish qualities and still like the girly things but someone ...it sticks with me forever, they replied saying "You are an idiot" and then they per-ceded to block me. They didn´t want me just long enough for me to see it and I was like "let me check that again" they blocked me and I wasn´t like saying that "oh Jo was a terrible person. No I am saying that she is a flawed person and that is how her character grows. She grows from being "I don´t care" "girls are stupid" "boys don´t have any drama" to be like there are nice things about being a girl and there is nothing wrong with that.

It is amazing how some people just say that love Jo or know Jo and then say stuff like that I believe, maybe you have seen it someone had like favorite literally character Jo March - and then said something like "oh then they gave up their independence to marry that old professor" and I´m like first of all, you don´t know the book, if you´d knew the book you would have seen how that went down and I don´t think you really care about the character as much to say or to make a claim that Jo gave up her independence. She is not that great of a character because she did that in marrying a man that loved and supported her and honestly I think as "unromantic" as they are they probably have one of the most romantic proposal scenes I have ever seen in book or a movie. 

(laughter)

Niina: That´s true :D

Christina: It is amazing how some people just they think they have an idea of a character and I almost sometimes think "that´s so Laurie of you". You have this perceived image of what Jo is and what you want Jo to be when the truth is Jo is not like that. You just want her to be that way and it happens to be most of the time the Jo and Laurie shippers that have that sort of delusional idea of who Jo is supposed to be.

Niina: I think the whole idea of "not being like the other girls" it comes from very deep misogyny. This idea that you are better than fellow women. It is a form of misogyny and it was a trend some time ago. Hopefully not so much these days. I think one of the problems with Jo especially when she was younger was that she identified so much with the masculine that she became very misogynistic and you can see that when she makes fun of Meg wanting to go to a ball or Amy trying to impress her female friends but then she grows out of that and I think a lot of that has to do with her and Laurie´s friendship. Not fading but she is growing out of it. Laurie has some great qualities but he sort of embodies that 19th century typical young man, the way they behaved. Jo got some really bad influences from him and he from her and I think she kind of tries to block her emotions sometimes because she feels that if people see her showing emotions, then people are going to see her weaker and when people see her more weaker, she is more feminine to them. She also grows out of that as well. 

Christina: That is why I think it is even more moving to see her character development because she goes from someone who is being so closed off "No this is not tears -I just got something in my eyes" type of person to be open to take advice from people or open to criticism or open to wanting to grow because I think it is very much cycling thing when you are told just hold it in because it is going to be seen as weak and in some way I was a very sensitive person but I was always told that in a very negative light so I was like alright you know what I am just trying to hold it in and that was not healthy at all and it was almost seen in away kind of very feminine thing "oh you know she is just an emotional little thing, poor thing". In some cases I was right, what they said was very rude or mean but boys will be boys and you are just being too emotional over it. Having Jo learn how to be more open and accepting and to have a positive influence like her mom and Friedrich, just to name a few, that just. It´s okay, there is nothing wrong being vulnerable. It doesn´t mean that you are weak, it just means that you are open to having other people help you and sometimes that´s the hardest thing is to admit to say that I need help or this is bothering me or I don´t know what to do because if you are that person who is like "yeah sure I know what you´re doing, yeah I totally know that and you don´t" that can cause a lot more problems. For me I had to sort of unlearn that behavior because it didn´t help me in the slightest. Now I live by the motto "If I don´t know it, I´ll ask for help"I admit that I am being "an idiot" rather than make myself look even more of an idiot than pretending that I know what I am doing.

Niina: Yeah and I think it is a very long process for Jo to unlearn those habits. In Little Men, there is Nat´s character. She calls him "girly" and she sees him weaker than the other boys because he is so sensitive, and he has similarities with Laurie. It is not that Friedrich is not sensitive. He is not as sensitive as Laurie is.. how would I put it..he is a lot more grounded, when Laurie is very idealistic, head in the clouds. 

Christina: I guess if I had to think of it, Laurie is who I was when I was in school. Where I just took everything and made it full blown as now I am more like Friedrich, where it´s like "that hurts but let´s try to see what is the best way to respond to that very sensitive moment". 

Niina: It is a much more mature response. You try not to take everything too emotionally or too personally. Laurie was like that and I think to some extend Jo was like that when she was younger. 

That was our discussion today. Christina and I continue our talk about Little Women next week and I hope you will join  us then as well.

Take care yourself and make good choices
​bye

Hello Global community of Little Women fans. 

Today´s comment shout out goes to @notafraidof-virginiawoolf who says the following: 

Friedrich Bhaer is the only convincingly sexy man in literature I have decided.

That is some legitimate Fritz Bhaer appreciation. Friedrich, he is based on many men who Louisa May Alcott personally found attractive and one of them was Goethe.

From all the episodes I´ve done to this channel, the one about Louisa May Alcott´s love for Germany , it is probably the one I´v got most feedback. When people have contacted me and  they´v wanted to discuss with me about Little Women, lot of people mention that particular episode or the articles I wrote about it and that it has helped them to understand Little Women and Friedrich´s and Jo´s relationship. It´s nice because I went through the same feelings when I was doing the research. Ever since I posted that episode and I mentioned the Goethe connections, I´v got people asking me if I could speak more about it and here we are. 

Sources I have used to gather this information has mostly come from Meghan Armknecht´s excellent essay called "Jo marries Goethe, Professor Bhaer as the Goethean ideal in Louisa May Alcott´s Little Women" and Christine Doyle's amazing essay "Singing Mignon´s song, German culture and literature in Little Women". I have read lots of books and essays about Louisa May Alcott. Sometimes I feel that when the writer is talking about"Little Women" they are actually not speaking about the novel, but some of the movies. It can be very frustrating, and I think some of them don´t even realize they are doing that, but Christine Doyle, she has read the books and knows them very well. I can recommend  her Louisa May Alcott studies. 

I have also used Goethe as one of my sources. I read Sorrows of young Werther, who´s story is very similar to Laurie and his over-compelling emotional turbulent and Wilhelm Meister, book that has love stories that Louisa reprises in Little Women. These were Louisa´s favorite novels that she read multiple times during her life. She had the framework for the love stories build up years before she was asked to write Little Women. In her essay Megan Armknecht said that there has been not a lot research done between Little Women and Goethe´s novels. This is really unknown territory and it can completely change the way we think about Louisa May Alcott. Maybe after you have listened this episode you come to the same conclusion and start do your own research on this topic. 

This episode is sponsored by Audible. From Audible you can find unlimited amount of books to read and you can get a free trial with the affiliate link, that you can find from the description.You can find books like Goethe´s Wilhelm Meister which I am going to open up a bit in this podcast and of course Little Women and it´s sequels, if you have not read it yet. 

(Audible link https://amzn.to/3uFSyNf )

This is Small Umbrella In The Rain The Little Women Podcast - Jo Marries Goethe, Louisa May Alcott´s fascination  to the German Poet. 

(intro tune) 

Louisa May Alcott, great American writer was born in 1832. The same year great German writer and poet Goethe passed away.

Was that a sign? 

Louisa became familiar with Goethe as a child. Thanks to her father Bronson, who had Goethe´s biography, in his small but selective library. By the end of her life, Louisa had managed to collect all American editions and some German editions of Goethe´s works and often send notes to her friends to let her know when new editions were available, so she could complete her Goethe collection. 

This is what Alcott scholar Christine Doyle writes:

By the time Alcott wrote Jo´s Boys (which is the last Little Women book) in 1880s. She had spent a life time reading Goethe, and he was still clearly and consciously important to her. In 1876 and again in 1883, se had made attempts to collect as much of his work as possible. She wrote to her publisher Thomas Niles "Thanks for the Goethe book. I want everything that comes out about him" (Signing Mignon´s song, Doyle). 

Louisa was actually born in to the first American town that was settled by German immigrants in 1683. This was Germantown in Pennsylvania. Louisa was born into a time when Americans started to consume German literature and there was somewhat a "German epidemic" in New England. This was also the time when American universities started to include German books into their collections and many of these educational reformers were transcendentalists, like the Alcott´s.

During those years German immigrants and German literature made a powerful impact on America. Quoting historian Russel Nye "Although Irish immigrants were the most numerous (Marches in Little Women, and Alcott´s in real life were descendants of Irish immigrants) Germans were close behind, numbering 1,3 million in 1860s, In addition to their Protestant heritage, which made the typical German immigrant far less suspect in America than the Irish Catholic, German immigrants were welcomed for their "socially sophisticated tradition" that included food, art and support for education.

The attitude towards immigrants varied depending on the location. Areas like New England where there was a long history of German immigration, people were naturally a lot more accepting, but this was not the case in many other places. In Little Women Jo points out the difficulties Friedrich has finding a job, because he is an outsider and speaks with broken English. We can assume that this is why the local universities do not wish to hire him, despite the fact that he was a teacher of philosophy in Germany. When Friedrich proposes Jo he says that he is going to move to the west and work as a teacher there and the two agree to wait and work for their shared future. This probably is a reference to Louisa´s love for philosopher Henry Thoreau, who to Louisa embodied the ideology of the west. West in the popular imagination refers into to the last frontier of American settlement. 

 Nye sums up; They (German immigrants) were "adaptable, ambitious and strongly patriotic". 

Just such an immigrant is Friedrich Bhaer, whose character allows Alcott to acknowledge many of the positive aspects of German culture that the new immigrants embodied. Though a renowned professor in Berlin, Bhaer endures anonymity and poverty in America to honor his promise to his sister, who had married an American and wanted her two German-American sons to be raised there (Doyle). 

Goethe is still today a huge figure in Germany and  in German speaking countries, one must read at least some of his works to get into the university they want. Lots of research has been done between the similarities in Louisa´s novel "A  long fatal love chase" and Goethe´s Faust but the connections between Goethe´s writings and Little Women is just beginning. 
​
Friedrich and Jo are both mixed characters. Louisa wrote Jo to be an idealized version of herself, therefore Jo also has elements from women who Louisa admired. Louisa wrote Friedrich to be her own ideal man, so Friedrich has elements of men who Louisa loved and admired, and Goethe was one of these men. 

Friedrich as a character has striking similarities with Goethe, that go beyond their German background.  When Jo writes letter home, she describes Friedrich for the first time. 

"Mrs Kirk told me he was from Berlin. Very learned and good but poor as a church mouse".

Goethe was not poor as a church mouse . He actually came from an aristocratic background  but Friedrich shares Goethe´s intellectualism and the book gives hints that if Fritz would have remained in Germany he would have risen in to great fame, because of his intellectualism. 

In his native city he had been a man much honored and esteemed for learning and integrity. Jo felt  proud to know that he was an honored professor in Berlin, though only a poor language master in America and his homely, hard working life, was much beautified by the spice of romance which this discovery gave it. 

Goethe´s native city was not Berlin. He was from Weimar,  but the two cities are only hundred miles away from each other in the same region.

Quote from Megan Armknecht:

By the time when Alcott wrote Little Women, Berlin was gaining more and more importance and would become the capital of the new German empire in 1871. 

There are similarities between Goethe´s and Friedrich´s personalities. Both were family men and loved children. Their characteristics include kindness and largeness of heart. 

When Jo sees Fritz for the first time, he is helping a young servant girl to carry a heavy hold of cole. 

In her letter home, Jo remarks the incident.

"Wasn´t it good of him? I like such things for as father says, trifles show character. 

Friedrich loves kids and is very good with them. After his sister Minna passed away, he adopted his nephews Franz and Emil, and raised them as his own.  For Jo, that Friedrich has children, especially boys, is actually something very attractive. Throughout the novel the narrator (Louisa) mentions how much Jo loves boys and hanging out with boys and boyish energy. 

Jo loves to observe how Fritz interacts with children. When she is staying at New York, she spies on him and little Tina, who is the daughter of the French maid at the boarding house. 

Jo writes; "Tina has lost her heart to Mr Bhaer and follows him about the house, like a dog, whenever he is at home, which delights him, as he is very fond of children".

Goethe biographer Herder writes that Goethe was a great child all his life. Eager to learn and willing to give whatever he had to make others happy. One of the things that Jo finds attractive in Friedrich´s character is the way he is always ready to look after people and himself. Which is in contradiction to Laurie´s behavior since for the most part of the novel, Laurie doesn´t know how to be an adult or how to look after himself  and he expects that once they marry, Jo shall be his caretaker, not an equal partner, which is what Amy later becomes. 

In Little Women Louisa hints that Friedrich´s father might have abandoned his family. This explains why Friedrich loves his sons and his nephews, and wants to be an exceptionally good father. He kissed his sleeping sons head remembering a father who left and never returned. 

Goethe had a complicated relationship with his father. He didn´t approve his sons artistic endeavors, and this is a topic Goethe often handles in his novels. Young men often act out against the bourgeois lives of their parents. It is part of their rebellion.

Both Goethe and Louisa lived during a time period when marriages were based on economic factors and not the matters of the heart. Both writers encourage their readers to reject the economical factors and only to marry for love. This was a very radical idea of the time. 

One of the books that Louisa found from her father´s library was Goethe´s WIlhelm Meister´s apprenticeship. Like Little Women, Wilhelm Meister is a Bildung´s roman. It was world´s first coming of age novel. Little Women and perhaps it´s most famous story-line, Jo rejecting Laurie for Friedrich, can be traced to Wilhelm Meister. Wilhelm starts out as a naive, and idealistic young man who has a passionate affair with the actress Marianne. Wilhelm loves theater and he struggles to balance his passion for the arts and the expectations his family has for him taking on the family business. He runs out with the theater company only to see how the theater world slowly consumes his soul with it´s ruthlessness. Then he meets Natalia, a woman very different to Marianne who helps him to gain back his self-worth. 

For her 18th birthday Emerson gave Louisa a copy of Goethe´s Wilhelm Meister´s apprenticeship. This copy now in Houghton library at Harvard, is well-worn and marked with Alcott´s marginal comments, showing the care and attention with which she read Goethe´s novel” (Armknecht). In Little Women when Jo is staying in New York, Friedrich gives her a copy of Shakespeare´s novels as a Christmas gift and encourages her to study character. Louisa praised Emerson calling him as "her Goethe". Goethe was a literal inspiration for her and Emerson offered support and encouraged her to read and study character. Friedrich embodies them both and it makes sense that Louisa would give Jo a partner who not only supports Jo´s creative journey but is an essential part of it. 

Louisa called both Goethe and Waldo Emerson as "god of my idolatry" Goethe became a a way for Louisa and Emerson to deepen their friendship through intellectual conversation, enriching both of their lives". 

Many of the annotations in Louisa´s copy of Wilhelm Meister are associated with romance. For example, she underlined the heading of chapter nine of volume one, marking the passage where Wilhelm feels as though he is infused with "new life" as he falls deeply in love with his first love Mariane. Furthermore in volume three, chapter four, Louisa annotatted a scene where Wilhelm and Natalia talk in the garden about love. She penned in the word "beautiful" after their private conversation. 

This sounds very similar to what happens between Amy and Laurie when they are in the garden at Vevey and Jo and Friedrich under the umbrella.

Quote from Christine Doyle´s Mignon´s song. 

"The cultural level suggested by Friedrich´s profession and more specifically by his knowledge of Goethe also helps to validate the connection between him and Jo. Alcott had penned a quote from Margaret Fuller´s Woman in the 19th Century regarding Wilhelm Meister´s females connections, the note in Alcott´s handwriting on the back of flyleaf reads, "M Fuller says, As Meister grows in life and advances in wisdom, he becomes acquainted with women of more character moving from Mariana to Natalia, who expresses the Minerva side of things, Mignong the electrical lyrical cnnature. In this light it is possible to read Jo March´s transference of affection from Laurie to Friedrich as a form of "rising" due to her own growth and advancement in terms of character. Laurie is always a "boy" to Jo, but Friedrich is a man. Laurie possess charm and culture, Friedrich as we see, is cultured but also steady and well-grounded. He speaks both to her down-to-earth practicality and down-to-earth imagination. When he and Jo together reprise Mignon´s song after Friedrich´s surprise arrival at the March home later in the novel, it is a  clear statement of the fitness of their union, a union of America with some of the best European culture, and for Friedrich, fulfillment of the American dream, he is much more than a "funny match" for Jo".

Louisa read Wilhelm Meister´s apprenticeship first time as a child and it was a novel that she always went back to. The way Laurie is chasing Jo is very similar to what happens in another famous novel by Goethe "sorrows of young Werther". Louisa´s affection to Eliza Follen´s biography on her husband Charles and the love story between an American woman and a German immigrant is also reprise in Little Women in Jo´s and Friedrich´s characters. Another book that Louisa read in her early youth.This knowledge can change the course of Louisa May Alcott research, especially what it comes to Louisa´s own perceptions on Good Wives.  Alcott scholar Daniel Shealy writes in his essay "Wedding Marches" "in the remaining correspondence between Louisa and her publisher Thomas Niles there are no indications that Niles would have had any say on the character relationships, the marriage decisions were all Alcott´s".  Louisa had build the basis for the love stories in Little Women decades before she was asked by Niles to write a book for girls. Good Wives (Little Women part 2) was never an afterthought but an exploration between immature love versus mature love. Yes, some of that we can see in Louisa´s own love life in her relationships between young Ladislas Wisniewski (Laurie) and Henry David Thoreau (Friedrich), which is probably the reason why, Louisa later in life tried to detach herself and her own love life from the love life of her literal counterpart, because it became all too personal. 

Geraldine Brooks declares: Another reason Alcott crafted the direction of Jo’s life in this way was because she seemed to want to marry but never did. It seems likely, however, that she did have at least two different love interests in her life. Perhaps Alcott decided to give Jo what she herself always wanted: marriage and a family. 

After doing this research for few years now, I´ve come to the same conclusion. When I read Louisa´s letters from her later life, where she says she is happy for her sisters when she sees them flourishing in their marriages, she envies them and feels lonely and she believed that in her next life she would get the things she wanted but never could have, a safe and loving relationship and children of her own. ​

Greta Gerwig has been very vocal how much she hates Friedrich´s character. I don´t know what her problem is but there is one thing that annoys me to no end. In every one of her interviews Gerwig has argued that Friedrich forces Jo to use the word "thou". I can´t even fathom how absurd this is. 

When you study German one of the first things that you learn is that there are two ways to address a person. There is "Du" which is what you use with someone you are very close and then there is "Sie" that you use when you are discussing with someone who is not very close to you. In the 19th century when German literature was translated into English "Du" became "thou". When Friedrich and Jo call each other "Thou" it means that they want to be close to one another. 

In the book it says that Jo thought that "thou" was a "lovely syllable". It sounds that Gerwig is just making excuses to spread hate speech about a fictional character and it doesn´t have any base on reality. 

This is what Christine Doyle writes:

​When Jo terms Friedrich´s request to use "thou" in addressing him "sentimental" (while privately thinking it is lovely), he says, "Sentimental? yes, thank Gott, we Germans believe in sentiment, and keep ourselves young mit it. Your English "you" sounds so cold. Friedrich in fact, retains his German accent throughout the March novels, occasionally dropping German words and phrases such as "Mein Sohn" and "Vaterland" into his speech despite his much imrpoved command of English (for example in Little Women Friedrich says "haf" but then Little Men and Jo´s boys he says "have"). Like Friedrich´s defense of religion, his sentimental language is significant in both cultural and literary context. Alcott seems here to be standing up for emotion in the face of staid New England culture". 

Sorrows of young Werther, novel that first skyrocketed Goethe into great fame has been often used as an example of the over-sentimentality of the German Sturm und Drang movement. Louisa was heavily affected by the Sturm und Drang and in her youth she consumed and wrote these "Stress and thunder" tales. Despite of being more of a realistic novel, Little Women is written in sentimental language and this applies to all of Louisa´s novels, children´s books and the adult books. Friedrich is sentimental, but so is Louisa May Alcott. 

Louisa´s real life crush, and possible lover Henry David Thoreau also always used "thou" in his love poems when addressing his loved  one. 

Jo describes Friedrich to look like a regular German. He has brown hair and a bushy beard. Kind blue eyes, big hands and big feet and he has kind tone is his voice "that does one´s ears good after our sharp or slipshod American gabble".

This description is similar to Friedrich Schiller´s first impression on Goethe:

"His appearance greatly lessened the idea I had conceived from hearsay of his imposing and handsome person. He is of middle height, and looks and walks stiff. His countenance is not open, but he has beaming eyes. The expression of his countenance is serious, at the same time that it is benevolent and kind. He has brown hair, and appears older than I should say he really is. His voice exceedingly pleasing, and his conversation flowing, lively and amusing. It is a pleasure to listen to him, and when he is in a happy mood, which he was on this occasion, he is fond of talking and takes and interests in what he says".

Friedrich´s looks and his somewhat stoic personality can also be traced back to Henry David Thoreau, but like Goethe, Henry as well opened up in a company, especially when the conversation was lively and interesting. 

"First thing Jo hears from Bhaer is him singing "Kennst du das land" (do you know the land) to himself, the opening line of Mignon´s love song from Goethe´s Wilhelm Meister. Here again is literary intertextuality of Wilhlem Meister in Little Women. By having Bhaer sing Mignon´s song to himself. Alcott not only draws a direct connection between Bhaer and Goethe but also an emotional connection between herself and Goethe". 

Louisa points out that both Jo and Friedrich are familiar with Wilhelm Meister. In the chapter surprises Friedrich comes to court Jo, and Jo asks him to perform Mignon´s song with her. 

"Now we must finish with Mignon´s song, for Mr Bhaer sings that"

"You will sing with me, we´ll go excellenty well together?" he asked. 

A pleasing fiction, by the way, for Jo had no more idea of music than a grasshopper, but she would have consented, if t he had proposed to sing a whole opera, and warbled away, blissfully regardless of time and tune. It didn´t much matter, for Mr Bhaer sang like a true German, heartily and well, and Jo soon subsided into a sublued hum, that she might listen to the mellow voice that seemed to sing for her alone.

"Know´s thou the land where the citron blooms"

Used to be the Professor´s favorite line, for "das land" meant Germany to him; but now he seemed to dwell, with peculiar warmth and melody, upon the words; -

"There, oh there might I with thee, Oh my beloved go"

and one listener was so thrilled by the tender invitation, that she longed to say she did know the land, and would joyfully depart thither, whenever he liked. 

How did Jo knew that was his favorite line? they must have had deep one-to-one discussions about Goethe.

Here is a quote from Little Women fan Christina:

Maybe she noticed how a certain gleam come across his eyes as he sings the line. Maybe his lips turn upward into a smile when the lyric comes up, no matter how many times he sings it. Or maybe it was because of the warmth in his voice as he spoke of his home that Jo recognized as she speaks of her home.
But she notices. She notices all the little things of Friedrich, but had yet to have a reason why. But when she leaves New York and is alone after Beth’s death, she thinks of those little things and smiles to herself. 
When he comes to her home, she thinks about that line. Home. He is home.
There is another way to interpretate this chapter. Mignon´s song is about departure and re-uniting with your loved one in the after life. Louisa believed that in the next life, she would meet her loved one again  and then she would get the life that she had wanted. Maybe this scene was written about Henry, same way as the umbrella chapter. Henry had the same Goethe´s  books as Louisa and he was also a good singer and when he would come to visit the Alcott´s, they sometimes sang together. 

Quote from Megan Armknecht

Another parallel between Bhaer and Goethe is their philosopher, especially regarding the purposes of art and religion. Bhaer is very interested in Jo´s writing, encourages her to read Shakespeare, and helps explain his work to her. Bhaer gives her as a New Year´s present. Classic writers, such as Shakespeare  were very important to Goethe, who read Shakespeare and often wrote about and criticized him in letters to Schiller. 

As Jo reads Shakespeare, she not only begins to notice true, honest character more, but she also recognizes just how good Bhaer truly is. She discovers a "live hero", who interested her in spite of many human imperfections. Mr Bhaer, in one of their conversations, had advised her to study simple, true and lovely characters whenever she would found them, as good training for a writer; Jo took him at his word - fro she coolly turned round and studied him and finds him to be good and benevolent. In this way Bhaer´s love of the simple, honest and pure, mirror´s Goethe´s who remained ever in touch with the reality of things as revealed to the sense, but never blind to an ideal interpretations. 

This is all in the text of Little Women. Friedrich encourages Jo to become a genuine writer. I have never understood people who say that Friedrich prevents Jo from writing, when in the book, he does the exact opposite, but the people who spread that type of false information, are usually Jo and Laurie fans. 

Another quote from Armknecht:

"Bhaer is trying to help Jo to become a genuine writer instead of one who caters to the whims of the crowd. This is something that Goethe would have done. He disliked superficiality in people and in art and was through life frequently offended by the shallow pretensions, the false aims. He insists that a poem  must be suggested by real life, and having herein a firm foundation".

This is particularly important information. When Louisa was in her twenties she wrote sensational stories to a New York magazine. Weekly Volcano in Little Women, is a caricature of this magazine. These stories are not Louisa´s best stories, and in Little Women, she describes how Jo has mental health problems because she feels powerless in the hands of the editor, who wants her to write stories that have shock value and when Jo looks for material she begins to have anxiety attacks. This is all in the text. It has never been adapted and that must affect to any anti-Friedrich statements people might have, because in the novel Friedrich comes to Jo´s help, when he sees how much she is struggling. 

When Louisa wrote these sensational stories, she was not very experienced with the darker side of life and struggled with lot of these themes that she was requested to write about. It makes sense that she looked up to her literal hero, Goethe and take his advice that a good story, should have a real-life foundation and this is how Jo in Little Women moves on from writing trash to write successful realism thanks to Friedrich, and Louisa did the same thanks to Goethe. 

There are times when Goethe´s  and Friedrich´s values separate. One of these are their views on religion. Goethe´s views on religion are often described as vague where as Friedrich in Little Women, is very religious. Louisa was a very spiritual person herself and her religious views were rather eclectic, but the base of her beliefs were in her protestant upbringing. 

In Little Women Jo and Friedrich attend a symposium. There Jo listens one of the young philosophers speaking about atheist world view, and this makes Jo quite upset. 

"It dawned upon her gradually, that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new, and according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before; that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her, as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday".

"He bore it as long as he could; but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation, and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth - an eloquence which made his broken English musical, and his plain face beautiful. H had a hard fight, for the wise men argued well; but he didn´t know when he was beaten, and stood to his colors like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo; the old beliefs that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new. God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. Jo felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again; and when Mr Bhaer paused, out talked, but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him. 

She did neither, but she remembered this scene, and gave the Professor her hearthiest respect, for she knew it cost him an effort to speak out then and there, because his conscience would not let him to be silent. She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what  a wise man has defined it to be "truth, reverence and good will" then her friend Friedrich Bhaer, was not only good but great". 

In this case Friedrich is in fact, much more closer to the American philosophers like Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who Louisa had often heard  keeping speeches about religion. Despite the fact that the transcendentalists adored German culture and writings they were highly suspicious of German philosophers because they did not always share their religious views.

I know quite a few Little Women fans, who absolutely love the symposium scene. It is their favorite Jo and Friedrich moment. She says that "he was not only good, but great" Friedrich is no longer a crush for Jo. It becomes something a lot more serious. Jo remembered his passionate speech for the rest of her life.  She even wants to clap when he stops talking.  Friedrich, he managed to move something inside her. I have mentioned this in my articles before, one of the reasons why I always adored Jo and Friedrich love story and story line, is because it is one of the most realistic descriptions in literature, how it actually feels like to fall in  love to another person and Louisa wrote from her experience. 

Jo was attracted to Friedrich from the moment she met him. There is a build up in the novel how her crush and her curiosity about him deepens.

"He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away. a stranger yet everyone was his friend, no longer young, but as happy hearted as a boy, plain and odd, yet his face looked beautiful to many and his oddities, were freely forgiven for his sake. Jo often watched him, trying to discover the charm, and at last decided that it was benevolence which worked the miracle. If he had any sorrow "it sad with it´s head under it´s wing" and he turned only his sunny side to the world".

This what is said about Goethe´s personality: "Goethe was always an optimist, despite of the many setbacks he had had during his life. He often wanted to uplift others and bring as much success to others as to himself. Goethe believed that creativity was a gift, but only way to true success was through hard work and resilience. Goethe was emotional and vulnerable and yet he could be a light of the party. Sometimes he was generous to a fault, but always honest and loyal to those he cared about the most. 

I personally really like the idea that Louisa gave Jo a husband and a partner that was inspired by Goethe. It makes a lot of sense that Friedrich who helps Jo to reach the next stages of her writing career was based on Louisa´s favorite writer, and that there are elements in Friedrich´s personality we can trace to Goethe.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this. Take care and make good choices. Bye. 

Sources: 

Little Women,  Louisa May Alcott, 150 years Penguin edition,

Sorrows of young Werter, Johann W. Goethe, 1787, Book Beat 

Singing Mignon´s Song, Christine Doyle, John Hopkin´s university press, Children literature volume 31, 2003

"Jo marries Goethe, Dr Bhaer as the Goethean ideal in Louisa May Alcott´s Little Women", Megan Armknecht
​
Goethe in our time, Sarah Colvin, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c1c8

Emily: We also talked a little bit about how Jo and professor establish sort of this common language between them in the way they talk with each other because of the use of "thou" and "you" and "us". I guess for me it is like what we´v discussed is that he doesn´t want to hold her in distance. It is almost like a pet-name for them to have a common language with each other but also establishing that they are the ones closest to each other. Which is great. I don´t think it is that extreme in German, in the actual language of German, among friends you say "du" and then for like, let´s say professional relations, your boss or with someone you don´t really know or don´t really see, so then when you establish sort of rapport with them, you´ll say "du". It is not quite as extreme as Fritz takes it in Little Women. Louisa was not a native German speaker. She was kind of doing her own thing with language which, you know, I don´t have a problem with. 

Niina: In German and in Russian I think, you know they use a lot of formal language which is not that common in English, or here in Finland. But then in the 19th century I would imagine that it was even more important for the Germans to use "Sie" and "Du" so there was a bigger difference. 

Emily: Yeah probably. 

Niina: So when Louisa was travelling in Germany. She must have been using "Sie" a lot, when she was talking to people. Yeah I think in that relationship between Jo and Friedrich, "Thou" it becomes more of a pet name. Then it is interesting because when you read poems from Henry Thoreau or Goethe they are always using the word "thou". Makes you wonder if that was something that happened between Louisa and Henry, but that´s all speculation. 

Emily: Yeah, we can´t know for sure but it is an interesting quirk. I think we also forget sort of the more antiquated nature of language at that time. I think we try so hard to modernize Little Women and bring it to our own time that I think we forget that it is very much a product of it´s time and is very much colored by history. Which I think people forget factors a lot in the events in the book that actually colors it. 

Niina: It annoyed me a lot how Greta Gerwig was complaining how he is using the word "thou" and like I am reading Little Women when I´m 17 and I´m thinking it´s actually really romantic, but then again I was studying German back then. Then again also the translations, like I´v got this old Finnish translation of Little Women and the part where he calls Jo "Professorin,  it is translated to "Professor´s little wife".

(laughter)

Emily: Oh no!

Niina: And then in German it means a female professor!

Emily: Female professor!

Niina: Female professor. He is giving her this title that she is his equal. I can imagine someone, a Finnish person reading Little Women, that poor translation from the 50´s and go "Oh Friedrich is such a sexist" and then in the original he is a feminist! Okay. I am pretty sure that the person who translated that didn´t speak a word of German. To my copy I corrected the German words there. I hope that the new translations are better but that was something. 

Emily: I know this is a severe misunderstanding of that word. The thing is it is so cute when he calls her "Professorin" Even though he is older than her. He sees her also as a professor and on his level, even though on paper they don´t start out that way. I really can´t understand how people can´t get behind this relationship. 

Niina: A part of me hopes that they will make a Little Women adaptation where they clearly show that Friedrich is German and maybe also include parts of him living in Germany. That would be nice and it was important to Louisa that he was German 

Thank you for listening. Like comment and share and subscribe to Small umbrella in the rain to learn more about the history of Little Women. 

Little Women: Louisa May Alcott´s Views On Romantic Love (Umbrella Chapter Analyzed)

Three stages of 19th century courtship
 
Welcome to a deep dive in the world of Louisa may Alcott. Everything I share in these video essays is based on  multiple studies made by Alcott scholars. You can find all the links from the description. To explore the development of Jo´s and Friedrich´s romantic relationship in the book I am going to use historian Karen Lystra´s studies from the 19th century romantic love and courtship as a comparison. There are three stages of 19th century courtship 1. Love comes by multitude of reasons 2. Shared looks enact mutual transaction of interior lives. This leads to identification of selves and mutual recognition of persons.

Jo´s sexual awakening 

Jo spends quite a long time in New York, about 8 months. When she sees Friedrich for the first time she is immediately attracted to him. In fact, she checks him out multiple times during her stay at Mrs Kirk. 
 
"When the parlor door opened and shut someone began to hum ”Kennst du das land” like a big bumblebee it was dreadfully improper I know, but I could´t resist the temptation and lifting one end of the curtain before the glass door I peeped in. Professor Bhaer was there and while he arranged his books, I took a good look at him. A regular German, rather stout, with brown hair stumbled all over his head, bushy beard, good nose, the kindest eyes I ever saw, and a splendid big voice that does one´s ears good after our sharp or slipshered American gabble. His clothes were rusty, his hands were large, and he hadn´t a really handsome feature in his face. Except his beautiful teeth yet I liked him. For he had a fine head, his linen was very nice and he looked like a gentleman". 
 
Based on Jo´s first impression on Friedrich she seems to be completely enthralled by him. This is what Little Women fan Melodie Ellison has to say about Friedrich´s looks
 
”I think part of why people act like Friedrich is not attractive is because of the well known Louisa May Alcott quote about intentionally making a funny match for Jo. ”I wouldn´t be at all surprised if she didn´t quite mean that. Laurie was conventionally attractive. There are men in our current times, that fall in to the same category. Men like Zac Efron. For example if you were to ask me what i think of Zac Efron I´´ll tell you that he is handsome but I am not personally attracted to him. Like Jo I prefer my men bearded and a little stout but most importantly intelligent, hardworking and kind. I think folks who can´t accept an older less hot version of professor fail to understand his and Jo´s relationship. She respected him and he her and for her that was the ultimate sexiness”.
 
One of the biggest misconceptions about little women is that Jo is only based on Louisa. Louisa wrote Jo to be an idealized version of herself and there are elements in Jo that come from women who Louisa admired. I would argue that Louisa´s friend Elizabeth Powell was the true model for the 15 year old Jo. Based to the letter exchange between Elizabeth and Louisa, Elizabeth wasn´t too keen on the idea of marriage which is understandable since she was only 16. Elizabeth did fell in love and married 10 years later and it would seem that she continued being a model for Jo. First for Jo March and then for Jo Bhaer. Her life was still very similar to the book Jo.
 
Louisa was complete opposite. Louisa had a huge crush on her father´s best friend philosopher Waldo Emerson. Louisa wrote love letters to him but she never sent them and she used to sit under his window siniging Migon´s song. Mignon´s song is a song from Goethe´s novel, Wilhelm Meister´s apprenticeship. Which was one of Louisa´s favorite books. Emerson was one of the many models for Friedrich. Main model was philosopher Henry Thoreau who merited Louisa´s life long affection. When Jo meets Friedrich for the first time he is singing Mignon´s song.
 
Do give this video thumbs up and subscribe to my channel small umbrella in the rain to learn more about the history of little women.
 
When Jo writes her letter home she says that the letter is rather ”bhaery” and that she is always interested from odd people. We can interpret this that Jo is fascinated by Friedrich´s eccentric-ism and this is where Jo finds her kindred spirit because all of her life she has considered herself as odd and not fitting.

One of the reasons why Jo´s and Laurie´s relationship, can never be a relationship between equals was that Laurie was looking for a mother figure in Jo, and Friedrich being older and more mature than Laurie is a paradox of that.
 
”I was in our parkour last evening and Mr. Bhaer came in. With some newspapers for Mrs. Kirk, she wasn´t there, but Minnie who is a little old woman, introduced me very prettily.

”This is Mama´s friend Miss March”

”Yes, and she is jolly and we like her lots” added Kitty, who is an ”enfant térrible”.
We both bowed and then we laughed, for the prim introduction and the blunt addition were a rather comical contrast.

Like their creator, Jo and Friedrich share their love for children. Already in the first novel, Jo escaped the female society and ran out to play with boys. In New York Jo is more interested from the doings of Franz and Emil, than her female-charges, Kitty and Minnie.

The more time Jo spends in New York, more attractive Friedrich becomes, both physically and intellectually.
When spring arrives, she makes notice on the ”pleasant curves around his mouth”, ”his eyes that were never cold or hard”, ”his big hands that had a warm, long grasp that was more expressive than words”.

Symposium / Mutual Interests 

Before Jo goes to New York she has been quite frustrated from the way Laurie is not interested from his studies. Jo can not attend university because of her gender. Friedrich sees Jo as his intellectual equal. 1994 film captures the meeting of the minds perfectly. BPS series is so far the only adaptation that has included symposium, leaving the symposium. There is another reference to transcendentalism when Friedrich and Jo talk about Kant´s theories.
 
In the book Friedrich and Jo attend a symposium together. It is very important part in the books because the reader finds out that Jo´s and Friedrich´s morals go together. In the symposium Jo meets famous poets, writers and philosophers. Some who she has put on a pedestal but her opinions are about to change.
 
”Her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night and it took sometime for her to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all. Turning as from a fallen idol she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions. Imagine her dismay on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet who´s lines suggested ethereal being fed on spirit, fire and dew to behold him derringer his supper with an order which flushed his intellectual countenance.
 
Already in the first part of Little Women we find out that Jo doesn´t always enjoy the higher class social gatherings. Now that she is in the circles of writers, poets and intellectuals which is the world where she longs to be part of she is disappointed by her own illusions that she has created about that world.
 
”Before the evening was half over. Jo felt so dis-disillusioned that she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr Bhaer soon joined her looking rather out of his element and presently several of the philosophers each mounted on his hobby came baling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess.

Friedrich also seems to feel that he is in a wrong place. Jo becomes distressed when she is following the debate and one of the young philosophers puts intellect above god. After some hesitation Friedrich keeps his speech defending religion. Speech leaves an ever lasting impression on Jo and I would even argue that this is when Jo starts to realize that her feelings for Friedrich are more than friendship.

”She began to see that character is better possession than money, rank, intellect or beauty and feel that if greatness is what a wise man has to find it to be truth, reverence and good will, then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great”.

Jo´s journey as a writer (never in the films)

Little Women is a Bildungsroman. Bildungsroman is a literally genre that originates from Germany. English translation could be ”coming of age” novel.
 
The focus of a Bildungsroman is in the moral and psychological development of the character.
 
In movies and in all tv adaptations so far, scene where Fritz expressed his opinions about sensational literature has been turned into a conflict. I guess it is suppose to create more drama, but this is not the way things go in the book because Jo has already labelled her sensational writings as ”rubbish”.
Way before she even thinks of traveling to New York. She has assured herself that her intentions are good because she would use the money to help her family. This inner conflict that Jo has begins in chapter 27. Literally lessons.
 
In this chapter Jo attends to a lecture about pyramids. There she pumps into a young man who is reading a thrilling story written by Mrs Nordbury.
 
Jo is amused by the boys admiration of the ”trash” that is how Jo calls this type of literature which emphasizes her wish to detach herself from those stories. So Jo´s negative views towards sensational stories is clearly identified. When Jo hears how much Mrs Nordbury makes with her Stress and Thunder tales Jo begins to change her mind and soon starts to write them herself.
 
Stress and Thunder tales originate from Goethe. In German this genre is called ”Sturm und Drang”. It sounds way more cooler in German. Drang refers into deep emotional stress. Sturm und Drang was a movement in literature and music in late 18th century Germany and was largely influenced by Goethe´s writings and plays. There is a great emphasis on the faith of the individual and the movement was highly influenced by Shakespeare. Goethe´s Sturm und Drang plays were about very masculine Teutonic heroes which is probably what fascinated Louisa as an author. Jo´s first stories are poor attempts to capture the spirit of Sturm und Drang.
 
”Her story was full of desperation and despair as her limited acquaintance of those uncomfortable emotions enabled her to make it. Jo takes in consideration all the advice she gets from everyone around her instead of seeking advice from someone who could help her to improve as a writer. She goes against her own judgement when she knows that some of the advice she receives does not improve the story.
 
”So with Spartan firmness the young authoress laid her first-born on the table and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre. In the hope of pleasing everyone she took everyone advice and like the old man and his donkey in the fable, it suited nobody. After submitting to bunch of magazines
 
Jo writes her first novel, which is a romance and it receives mixed reviews. Jo appreciates the feedback and learns from it.

”Her family and friends, administered, comfort and accommodation liberally, yet it was a hard time for sensitive high-spirited Jo, who meant so well and had apparently done so ill but it did her good, for those whose opinions had real value, gave her criticism which is author´s best education and when the first sourness was over, she could laugh at the poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself yet wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received”.
 
Constructive criticism 

In chapter 34 when Jo enters to the publishing world in New York, she enters to the world that is male-dominated. Her sensational story is cut from third of it´s original length. Jo is frustrated the way Mr Dashwood wants to cut out all the morals away from the story and the morals are what Jo wishes to keep.
 
Eventually Jo agrees to these alternations to be made. Despite of her masculine shield, Jo is quite emotional internally even though she doesn´t like  to show it and writing thrilling tales becomes distressing.
 
”She was living in a bad society, and imaginary thought it was, it´s influence effected, for she was feeding hard and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature, by a premature quittance of the darker side of life. Which comes soon enough to all of us.”
 
Fritz knows that Jo writes and he is curious about it but Jo is ashamed of her writings. She is adamant about using  a pseudonym and she doesn´t tell anyone at home what she is doing and neither she has shown her stories to Fritz. Friedrich never criticisms Jo as a writer. He is criticizing the genre. Friedrich is honest.
 
He wants Jo to take herself seriously as a writer. The book Jo does not shout or argue with Fritz, unlike the movie Jo does because Friedrich expresses what Jo has been thinking all long.
 
As a result Jo burns her trashy novels, then the book Jo tries to write for children. It doesn´t feel right. Then she writes stories that only has moralities, that doesn´t feel right either. She jumps from one literal genre to another. Experimenting.
 
Friedrich does turn out to be a friend. He encourages Jo to study real-life people so she can develop her characters, and as a Christmas gift, he gives her a set of Shakespeare´s novels. Goethe, Louisa´s idol, would have had similar thoughts towards sensational stories that Friedrich had. Here is a quote from Megan Armknecht who has done some extensive research between Friedrich´s character and Goethe.
 
”Bhaer is trying to help Jo to become a genuine writer, instead of one who catered, to the whips of the crowd. This is something Goethe would have done. He disliked superficiality in people and in art and was through life frequently offended by the shallow pretensions, the false aims, writers who because they had some poetic sensibility and some gift of expression”.
 
Louisa credited Goethe being the one author who has thought me the most about creating and understanding characters. In the 1994 film Jo argues with Friedrich about her writings. Film kind of portrays Jo as an ultra-feminist when Jo says that too bad her writings are not good enough for Friedrich´s high morals, this is complete opposite to the book Jo, because book Jo and Friedrich, they have always shared the same morals. Some viewers of the 1994 film, have taken Jo´s side on the argument probably because of it´s ultra-feminism.
 
Here is a quote from a person who joined #teambhaer after becoming familiar with Friedrich for the first time through Greta Gerwig´s film and they got inspired to read the book.
 
”Never read or watched Little Women before this but I am so phenomenally found of Friedrich, just in general. But this is coming from someone who watched the 2019 film first and had no context prior to this. As a writer cinema-savy person, I was made aware of Gerwig´s cinematic parallelism of the past and the present during my watch and I could tell that there must have been something taken out of the equation. As a means to balance out Gerwig´s vision. Yet I took fondly of the man who was basically void of existence mid-movie barely on the fact that Gerwig´s method of narrative essential ism still had me appreciate his weight. In the same 2019 Jo summarized the entirety of her loneliness in a single sweep, as I later found out, she dedicated an entire chapter to such somber chills. I found that Friedrich´s clean sweep came down to lines that could be easily over-looked if one came from acting instead of script. ”But do you have anyone to take you seriously?”
 
To talk about your work, he was essentially the one meant to simply see her. That in a single line Greta Gerwig had essentialised his character. This correlates with the book Fritz.
​
”Now Mr Bhaer was a different man and slow to offer his opinions. Not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken, as he glanced from Jo to several other young people attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics. He knit his brows and longed to speak fearing that some inflammable, young soul would be let astray by the rockets to find when the display was over”. Of course as I actually admitted it 2019 Friedrich, was my first version of Friedrich and he still managed to catch my attention, for all he was worth. It was nice reading book 2 and finding out that Alcott wrote him as a worthy addition, rather than a cop-out, as I´ve had the misfortune, to read criticism as of late, that I was shocked at all that anyone would argue otherwise". 
 
This makes me wonder why Greta has spend so much time and energy bashing the book Friedrich while promoting her film. With just that simple line he is established as someone worthy of Jo´s love, Gerwig´s film has it´s focus how much Jo has discomforts with change, and the feedback scene doesn´t promote the ultra-feminism but Jo comes out more childish. She yells she never speaks to him again and it is not something that the book Jo would do. In the pbs series Friedrich actually yells at Jo. That is not something that the book Friedrich does.
 
Friedrich wasn´t biased to Jo when it came to his feelings, he knew she could do more and wanted her to be as good as she wanted to be. He sees her as an equal, as a woman with true heart and soul, a woman with talent. He isn’t easy on her but neither is he cruel to her when it comes to her writing. I think ultimately she appreciates that Friedrich never softened the blow but always treated her as someone who’s ideas and thoughts were meant to be listened to. 

Here is another quote from chapter 27 literary lessons:

"that's just it. I've been fussing over the thing so long, I really don't know whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. It will be a great help to have cool, impartial persons take a look at it, and tell me what they think of it."

The whole chapter is about how Jo learns to define her craft from the feedback she receives, way before she meets Friedrich, and it foreshadows the arrival of Friedrich´s character. There is a longing to find a person who can not only give her constructive criticism but also encourage her to explore her capacity as a story teller.  The 2018 film did pretty good job by making Bhaer Jo´s editor and a professor of literature, and so far it is only film where Jo listens and embraces the feedback she receives same way as the book Jo does. 
 
Here is a quote from Edna Cheney who was one of the first Louisa May Alcott biographers

Louisa was always a creature of moods; and it was a great relief to work off certain feelings by the safe vent of imaginary persons and scenes in a story. She had no one to guide or criticize her; and the fact that these gambols of fancy brought the much-needed money, and were, as she truly called them, "pot boilers," certainly did not discourage her from indulging in them. She is probably right in calling most of them "trash and rubbish," for she was yet an unformed girl, and had not studied herself or life very deeply.

Pressure and mental health problems caused by Weekly Volcano
 
When I was doing this research I actually came appalled when I realized that the scene in Little Women where Jo is having a mental breakdown because of the stories that she has to write to weekly volcano, that is never in the films.
 
When Louisa was in her early twenties she wrote into a New York news paper called Frank Lesley´s weekly illustrated newspaper. Weekly Volcano is a caricature of that newspaper. We tend to have quite one-dimensional way of thinking what it comes to historical people because historical people had morals. Just like we have morals. Louisa was writing for money and writing for money it came with mental health problems. She had to look up things that made her feel uncomfortable. They had stories of men abusing women and some of the stories were racist and sexist. These things contradicted with Louisa and her own morals.

Which is why she quit. There is a literal quote in her journals where she writes about these moral struggles and her friend Emerson says hey you don´t need to write anything you don´t want to write and just like Jo in the book Louisa feels relieved when she stops. You can find this journal online. You can read it for free. All these script writers they have had access to read it over a decade.
 
Love for philosophy (and philosophers) 

There has been lots of unnecessary stereotyping made towards Friedrich´s character. I will point out some of them, partly because they are truly ridiculous but also because they show how long journey we have to understand Louisa May Alcott´s world view. 

In one supposedly "feminist" study that I read, the author pointed out that Bhaer having Shakespeare, Milton, Plato and Homer in addition to his German Bible in his bookshelf represent the way Jo is now a captive of the male power. Apparently if a fictional male character who happens to be a teacher of philosophy  has books about philosophy in his bookshelf that must make him a sexist.
 
Louisa herself grew up reading books and teachings of these particular philosophers. Plato was actually one of the first philosophers who talked about gender equality.
 
 Christine Doyle points out that throughout the book series Friedrich´s character represents the positive aspects of the German culture that the new immigrants embodied.

Well-read and well educated—Friedrich´s shelf contains volumes of Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, and Homer in addition to his German Bible—he is nevertheless remarkably unpretentious, darning his own socks, for example. at the gathering He is deeply religious, standing up for the importance of religion of intellectuals he and Jo attend. This is a particularly important detail since, unlike the working-class German immigrants, the German intelligentsia were highly suspect for their “godlessness,” and it is actually against proponents of Kant’s and Hegel’s intellectualism that Friedrich launches his defense of religion. Even the great supporters of German literature, the Transcendentalists, sometimes found it difficult to come to terms with what they read as immorality and even atheism 

Movie Laurie´s missing arc

When Laurie starts to make his moves on Jo the book Jo feels very uncomfortable by that. She says no many times, but he doesn´t listen or respect her. In the book Jo is way more mature character than Laurie is but in the recent adaptations this is not the case.
 
In Greta Gerwig´s film after Jo has nearly confessed to Marmee that she is in love with Friedrich the film Jo suddenly decides to write Laurie and accept his proposal. One might argue that the open ending is a cop- out not to handle Jo´s loneliness and maximize the profits of the film by trying to please This does  not happen in the book. everyone.
 
When Laurie proposes to Jo he says he wants Jo to take care of him and he doesn´t want Jo to continue writing when Laurie´s behavior becomes possessive it is now that Jo finally realizes what it feels like for a woman when someone does not respect your boundaries. Laurie guilt-trips Jo for a very long time and he makes fun of Friedrich even when he has never met him.
 
This is a common narrative in Louisa May Alcott´s novels. In Rose in Bloom Charlie wishes to marry Rose, because of her money. He is a lot like Laurie, a champ who everyone likes but he is also very sensitive and escapes himself to gambling and alcohol. Rose eventually falls for Mac who is basically a younger Scottish-American version of Friedrich.
 
In Work story of experience the protagonist Christie is courted by a man called Fletcher. A wealthy man who would like to own her and Christie feels very uncomfortable by his possessive behavior. There was no me-too campaigns in the 19th century. In true Alcottian style these men are all forgiven. Laurie goes through a process in which Amy plays an important part and thanks to her low bs level Laurie actually improves himself. Fletcher and Charlie are not so lucky and in their death beds they apologize to the protagonist. Laurie was never in love with Jo. He was looking for an excuse to keep their relationship as it was so that he would not have to grow or to take responsibility of his actions, but Jo wants to leave that toxic cycle they are in. Especially after she has returned from New York and opened her heart for Friedrich.

Laurie and the Friedrich archetypes in LMA´s novels 
 
I am going to read you a quote from my friend Chelley and Chelley knows Louisa May Alcott´s books like their own pockets. "

"In my opinion Louisa May Alcott draws a lot deliberate similarities between characters like Laurie, Charlie in Eight cousins and Rose in Bloom, Tom in an old fashioned girl, Jack in Jack and Jill and Thorny in under the lilacs. All of whom are raised in relatively comfortable settings. Are kind hearten and clever, and talented but more than a little wild, and indolent, and are influenced whether for good or evil, most heavily by women. In Laurie´s case the Marches are explicitly referred to as a positive influence over him, but it´s Marmee, Jo and Amy who ultimately hold the most sway and each of their relationships with him represents some version of semi-domesticated feminine power; mother, sister the lover. Despite the stated importance of the first two influences however Laurie isn´t really inspired to better himself simply for the sake of being a better person growing up until he talks to Amy who instead of mothering him or spearing his feelings speaks to him honestly and tells him, he needs to grow up.

In Rose in Bloom Rose´s primary issue with Charlie is that Charlie is expecting her, the woman, to be the angel who saves him from himself, keeps him from harm and he repeatedly wounds Rose, by exploring her natural kind heart and desire to help. Louisa could have gone down that same route with Nat and Daisy, Tommy and Nan and Even Jo and Laurie or Laurie and Amy, but in all those other cases, she writes a story where woman requests to be afford the same respect they want, and expect that from their life partners, an d the men either shape up and meet them on equal footing or miss out". 
 
Then there is the Friedrich archetype. That is Mac in Rose in Bloom, Friedrich in Little Women, John in Hospital Sketches, Adam in Moods, David in Work. The Friedrich archetype, he is usually older and more calm, self-reliant and more grounded than the Laurie archetype. There is silent passion for the protagonist. Desire to be on equal grounding with them. The idea that love beautifies a person and that when you are in a relationship with a right person you inspire each others to be better. This is a very common theme in Louisa May Alcott´s novels. In Friedrich´s case, he wants to be worthy of Jo. He applies to a job in the west so he can provide both for Jo and his nephews. In the equals you can very clearly see how well Jo and Fritz perfectly balance each others.

The Friedrich archetype is mainly based on Henry Thoreau. He was the great love of Louisa´s life. There was a very strong friendship between them. With Louisa and Henry there was almost a telepathic understanding between one another. Here is another quote from Chelley, 
 
The love story of Mac and Rose in Rose in Bloom, is one of the most romantic ones in all of Louisa May Alcott novels and a lot of that hinges on that telepathic form of communication. It letters that sort of opens a window to their souls, to each other and they connect on an intellectual level that to them deepens the love. Silent passion is good way to describe it. I think the idea of Louisa May Alcott modeling her heroine´s love interest after men she admired in real life is almost tragically funny because while she is writing something and thinking here is the happy ending, our beloved protagonist learns life lessons and finds love and future happiness with a mate who is worthy and equal to her, a large portion of her readership is going ”she married that guy why?” because they are having trouble looking past the outward appearance and unfortunately I think a lot of people now days still miss her main point because they get so hanged up on who didn´t end up together, that they fail to see why the people who did end up together are right for each other and how that marriage based on love and trust and respect and similar goals was so radical for a time that emphasized financial stability and or upward mobility over personal happiness". 

Love and Sex in Little Women 
 
The fact that Louisa May Alcott was in love with Henry Thoreau and that she had a fling with young Wisniewski this is common knowledge. You can read about it from pretty much every single Louisa May Alcott biography and from online as well. For example Alcott scholar Susan Bailey who runs Louisa May Alcott is my passion blog, she has written tons of informative, fact-based articles on Louisa´s relationship with these men.

I am going to read you a quote from Marlowe Dailey-Galeone

”Alcott shows women finding their own empowerment and satisfaction through their writing, through their art, through their relationships with others. The way their structure domestic activities even in the way they are thinking about marriage as a partnership. Also Alcott anticipates discussion on women´s pleasure and fulfillment. When I teach little women I like to ask my students if they enjoyed the sex scene? This is a subtle but important scene of intimacy and pleasure after Meg and John have a discussion about finances, Alcott carefully includes a moment when Meg puts on John´s coat. The coat that he is only able to buy because she returns the dress and they have enough money. She puts on the coat, welcomes him home. Kinda racy. We might have missed it. What comes next is a blissful state of things, so she, Louisa, is engaging with the idea of pleasure. Again I think a nice thing to remember that in 1868 and 1869 Louisa May Alcott is thinking about this.

Louisa May Alcott and transnational family 
 
Louisa May Alcott was a transcendentalist. Transcendentalism was a philosophical and Christian movement. Transcendentalism was based to the ideas of German philosopher Immanuel Kant and his ideology about the universal family. Belief that all nations can learn from one another. Transcendentalists they took this message to their hearts. If you know anything about 19th century world events and conflicts the transcendentalist were seen radical but they were also a head of their time. Getting familiar with other cultures was encouraged. The German immigrants were widely discriminated. Transcendentalist welcomed them. The most respected and valued literature, poetry and plays and art all came from Germany and Louisa´s whole world view was based on German philosophy.

The 2019 film has been criticized for not including the transcendentalist ideas and when Greta Gerwig was promoting her film, she made tons of xenophobic statements on Friedrich´s character. Him being German and him speaking with a German accent and how Greta Gerwig thought it was repulsive. All these xenophobic comments they don´t align with Louisa´s philosophy about transnational family and Greta Gerwig is a descendant of German immigrants herself. Some of the criticism what I have come across about Greta Gerwig is that she is reluctant to have minorities presented in her films. Which is very unfortunate.

When Jo decides to stop writing to the Weekly Volcano, she makes a remarkable realization. As a creator everything that she writes to her novels has either a good or a bad influence to her readership and she stops to think how much damage she has done by writing stories that conflicted with her own morals. She is not even paid well for those stories. Friedrich he represents the older Louisa and her whole transcendentalist world view. He reminds Jo who she is as a person and that she has a good heart. Jo grew up in a family that was always ready to help those in need and her mother took Jo and her sisters with them when she went to help the immigrant families and her father lost his job when he took a black child to his school. The Alcott´s were abolitionist and even hid black slaves at their home. Louisa had first hand witnessed people being discriminated because of their ethnicity.

Love beautifies a person

Gerwig also complained about Friedrich´s looks and this is the one thing that most people miss in Little Women. Katherine Hepburn and Paul Lukas from the 1933 film probably are closest to what the characters are written to look like. The whole point of the story is that love beautifies a person. Jo is not written to be beautiful but she finds Friedrich very attractive and he is attracted to her. Louisa was not particularly beautiful either. Even her fans were disappointed when they saw her. There is a hilarious scene in Jo´s boys. There is an adult fan who comes to meet Jo Bhaer. Jo´s and Friedrich´s son, he points out the portrait of his mother and this fan is like ”oh no! I expected her to be 15 and pretty and having pig tails. I don´t think I want to see her now, because she looks so mundane”. Laurie is written to be conventionally good looking character, but his actions over Jo are ugly. Films are sold with beautiful people, but I would be more worried about the way the film makers gloss over Laurie´s flaws.
 
Because of her looks, sometimes Jo feels herself as a freak and that she is not worthy of love. Friedrich basically tells to Jo that it is okay to be clumsy and unconventional and still be worth of loving.

Real life Laurie

Louisa met Ladislas ”Laddie” Wisniewski in Switzerland when she was working as a companion for an invalid woman called Anna Weld. Laddie was a 21 year old composer from Poland. He was very charming and he called Louisa his ”little mama”. He had tuberculosis and Louisa nursed him. Louisa was a trained nurse. He was flirting with Louisa. Something happened between Ladislas and Miss Weld. They got into an argument. Some believe that he tried to force her to sleep with him and others say that he proposed to her. There is an Alcott story called ”Anna´s whim”. There is a character who sounds just like Ladislas and he proposes a rich heiress called Anna. So maybe the proposal idea is not so far fetched.

This is what Louisa writes ”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”.

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 glue about Goethe”. 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. Imagine being Louisa. First this handsome young guy is flirting with you all the time and being romantic and then he proposes to your boss. Louisa was not rich at the time. She was not considered particularly beautiful and Louisa was about 32 when this happened. When her employment ended she went to Paris and spent a day with him without a chaperone, which was very scandalous and after that she wrote to her very censored journal words ”couldn´t be”.

If you guys have read little women 2019 film guide Greta Gerwig writes ”Jo and Laurie could be a great couple if they would like to be”. Well, it does seem that Louisa did not want it. This reminds me what Emily said in our Laurie podcast. When Laurie was proposing Jo, he was looking for someone to nanny him. Alcott biographer Harriet Reisen points out that perhaps Ladislas was a conman who prayed on wealthy women. There are things that suggest that Wisniewski might have been a conman. Louisa writes in her journal about his ”miraculous recovery from tuberculosis”. Tuberculosis killed millions of people and very conveniently, Ladislas is miraculously healed, just before he has this conflict with Miss Weld.

I don´t know if he was a conman or not but I do believe that he might have mistaken Louisa´s care for him as something romantic and that he did want her to nanny him, which is not something that you can build a healthy relationship on and I am pretty convinced that he was not on Louisa´s intellectual level and she could not rely on him being supportive on her writing.

Real life Friedrich 

Susan Cheever writes in American Bloomsbury that every-time when Alcott´s moved back to Concord, Louisa would find herself loving Henry more and more every time when they returned. Louisa loved very masculine men. She writes in her journals that she loves soldiers and uniforms. She writes in her journals that Henry is the perfect man and there is a quote where she compares Henry to Napoleon and her friend Emerson to Goethe. In Little Women Friedrich is Jo´s sexual awakening. He is written to be more masculine and more mature than Laurie. He has a beard, big hands, deep voice. In Little Men the narrator even says that Jo loves very ”manly” men. There is some criticism over guys who are thin and more effeminate. Like Laurie and Nat. In Jo´s boys there actually quite many scenes where Jo and Friedrich are kissing and there is also a scene where they are making out. They are about to do the dirty and their sons come in and interrupt them. I am actually surprised that Louisa got away with that.

It is pretty fair to say that Louisa wanted someone on her side who could feed and stimulate her brain. Henry wasn´t a great looker but there was something about him because he had quite a few female admirers in Concord. Louisa was attracted to him but the most important aspect of that relationship was their similar interests and the intellectual connection that they had and they did spent a lot of one-on-one time together. She would visit him at his hut at the Walden´s pond. They took long nature walks, and he would often take her to boat trips. I have said this before and I say it again, the age difference between them was the same as between Jo and Friedrich, 16 years.

Henry passed away when Louisa was 27. Rest of her life with Ladislas, and other men and women who she encountered. She never found them to be even remotely as intellectually stimulating as Henry was. In Little Women Jo confesses to Friedrich that, he is her first love, and therefore the best.

Something I found very interesting in my Thoreau research, was that Henry and the whole Thoreau family, they had reputation that they despised gossip and supported individualism. This is something that Louisa admired. You can read from their journals that both Henry and Louisa often felt themselves as outsiders. Very similar to Jo and Friedrich who are connected by their feelings of outsiderness.

Heavy self-censoring 

The self-censoring, it happens even in Little Women. It raises the question what is the intention of the author? In the book when Amy burns Jo´s manuscript it happens because Jo has been bullying Amy for weeks and she has had enough. Little Women is framed against Pilgrim´s process. A story where the protagonist learns to overcome their biggest flaws. For Jo her biggest flaw is her temper. Why would Louisa make her literal counterpart to face that if there was no intention? She is the creator and the one who controls the story? another explanation is that Louisa is censoring her own writing, because when Jo writes the story again, it becomes a lot better.

Second self censoring happens with Weekly Volcano. As I explained earlier Louisa used herself as an example but never admitted that. In the last Little Women book, Jo´s boys, when Jo has become a famous writer, she is very much against when her nephew Demi begins to write stories for a magazine. Jo does not approve. Almost like Louisa is echoing her own history with sensationalism.

Louisa began to self-censor her diaries when Little Women became a best-seller. As a writer she was marketed as ”the friend of all children”. It is also important to point out that in the 19th century sex was a taboo. There was times when Louisa struggled with the children book format because she preferred to write adult themes, especially after Louisa´s passing, the early Alcott scholars took everything that she had written literally, most of these people were completely unaware that Louisa had self-censored her own journals. Not only did Louisa write about her own love life in Little Women in literal disguise, she also wrote about her experience writing the sensational stories. We might even say that she wrote her biggest secrets to the novel. It is no wonder that she had very conflicted feelings about it. Some of us might be very eager to judge her for this, the way she tried to detach herself away from Little Women, but in the 19th century woman having a good reputation, that was a lot more valuable than all the money that they owned.

The idealization of masculinity
 
There is something that I would like to talk about. It is the heart core of studying Little Women, from the perspective of gender. That is the idealization of the masculine. In one of her journal markings Louisa has written ”I am a hero worshiper by nature”. If I quote one of my blog readers ”Jo was drowning into internalized misogyny”. Jo puts Laurie to a pedestal because Laurie is a boy. Laurie does the same to Jo, because she is the first person, who pays any attention to him. When Laurie is cat fishing Meg, Jo doesn´t see any problems in his behavior, and it´s actually Laurie who Jo feels bad for, and this has made many modern readers, female readers especially, quite upset. What we know about Louisa is that, she always preferred the male company rather than women. Friedrich is idealized for complete different reasons than Laurie. He is idealized because Jo is in love with him. When we get into the courting and the umbrella chapter, the roles are reversed between Jo and Friedrich and it is now Friedrich who openly admires Jo. Friedrich´s model of masculinity is different. He respects her boundaries and does not over-step them, and only makes his moves on Jo when he has Jo´s full consent. When Friedrich proposes to Jo he gives her German title ”Professorin”, which does not mean ”professors little wife” like it was translated into my older Finnish version of Little Women, it is German and means ”female professor” and by doing that Friedrich acknowledges Jo´s thirst for knowledge and considers her as his intellectual equal.

In both 1994 film and 2019 film Jo and Friedrich part in bad terms, but in the book they part as friends both wondering if it could lead into something more in the future.
 
”Early as it was he was at the station next morning to see Jo off and thanks to him, she began her solitary journey with the pleasant memory of a familiar face smiling it´s farewell, bunch of violets to keep her company and bets of all the happy thought ”well, the winter is gone and I´ve written no books, earned no fortune, but I´v made a friend worth having and I´ll try to keep him all my life”. Jo and Fritz spent the next two years writing letters to each others. Taking care of Beth forces Jo to re-evaluate her life. After Beth´s passing she goes through a period of depression, grief and loneliness. In the book right after Beth´s death, Laurie sends Jo a letter from Europe and proposes her again. This happens the moment when Laurie has realized he has feelings for Amy. Jo sends him a polite answer and refuses again. Laurie´s second proposal has never been adapted.
In the book shared looks continue when Friedrich comes courting.

 ”Though a very social man, I think Mr Bhaer would have gone decorously away and come again another day. How could he when Jo shut the door behind him and bereft him of his hat. Perhaps her face had something to do with it for she forgot to hide her joy at seeing him and showed it with a frankness that proved irresistible to the solitary man who´s welcome far exceeded his boldest hopes. Stealthy glance now and then refreshed her like sips of fresh water after a dusty walk. For the side-long peeps showed her propitious omens. Mr Bhaer´s face had lost the absent minded expression and looked all live with interest in the present moment, actually young and handsome, she thought”.

The Umbrella, Identification of selves  

Shared looks were a big part of courting. When Jo comes to the realization that Friedrich has truly come to court her, Jo flushes. She becomes fully self-aware and she is quite pleased and thrilled by the idea.

Then we get into the third and the most important part of 19th century courtship. Identification of selves, mutual recognition of one another. Which in Little Women is the umbrella. Courting is usually rushed in the films. Friedrich in fact, visits the Marches for two weeks and during all this time he is hoping to see signs of love from Jo.
”For a forth-night professor came and went with a lover like regularity”. Then he stayed away for three whole days and made no signs for proceeding, which caused everybody to look sober and Jo to become pensive at first, and then alas for romance, very cross”.

The idea of loosing Friedrich has become petrifying. She goes to the German block to look for him, but he is nowhere to be found. It starts to rain and Jo is ready to burst into tears and then he is there.

”I feel to know the strong minded lady who goes so bravely under many horse-noses and so fast through much muss. What do you do down here my friend?”

”I´m shopping”

Mr Bhaer smiled, as he glanced from the pickle factory on one side to the wholesale hide and letter concern on the other, but to her, he only said politely.

”You have no umbrella, may I go also and take for you the bundles”.

”Yes, thank you”.

Jo´s cheeks were as red as a ribbon, and she wondered what he thought of her but she didn´t care for in a minute, she found herself walking away arm in arm with her professor. Feeling as if the sun had suddenly burst out with uncommon brilliancy that the world was alright again and that one truly happy woman was basking through the wet that day.
 
Jo doesn´t have lots of experiences with men, so it makes sense that she is quite clumsy and awkward around him. In an earlier version of the script of Greta Gerwig´s film, Jo actually pulled down a chair when Fritz came to visit and and he fixed it in a very calm manner. At least they included the part of Jo, setting herself on fire, and the viewer finds out that Friedrich was just as clumsy.

”We thought you had gone” said Jo hasty, for she knew he was looking at her. Bonnet wasn´t big enough to hide her face and she feared he might think the joy of it betrayed unmaidenly.

Once again Jo flushes and she is very aware of his presence. The sharing of the interior lives happens while trying interpret the other persons tone and voice and gestures.

When Friedrich tells her about the new job and that he can now provide a better home for his nephews Jo is encouraged by the prospects.

”Indeed you should. How splendid it will be to have you doing what you like and be able to see  you often and the boys” said Jo clinging to the lads as an excuse for the satisfaction. She could not help betraying.
”Ach, but we shall not meet often I fear, this place is at the west”.

”So far away” and Jo let her skirts to their faith”, as if did not matter now what became of her clothes, or herself.

Mr Bhaer could read several languages, but he had not learned how to read women yet. He flattered himself that he knew Jo pretty well and was therefore much amazed by the contradictions of voice, face and manner. Which she showed him in a rapid succession  that day. For she was in half-dozen different moods in the course of half an hour. When she met him she looked surprised, though it was impossible not to suspect that she had come for that express purpose. When he offered her his arm, she took it with a look that filled him with delight but when he asked if she missed him, she gave such chilly formal reply that the despair fell upon him, but learning his good fortune she almost clapped her hands. Was the joy all for the boys? Then on hearing his destination, she said ”so far away” in a tone of despair that lifted him onto a pinnacle of hope but the next minute, she stumbled him down again, by serving like entirely absorbent in the matter.

The narrator points out the difficulties, of the mute courting, the narration of love. How to verbalize it through non-verbal clues.

When they go shopping Jo is very clumsy and Friedrich starts to see how Jo indeed goes by contradictions. In the store she hides her cried face into a shawl.

”Does this suit you Mr Bhaer” she asked. Turning her back to him, feeling deeply grateful, for the chance of hiding her face.

I actually always thought that this scene was very intimate. It gives me some serious 1995 Sense and Sensibility vibes.

The next moment she rummages the counters like a ”confirmed bargain hunter”. Jo´s pattern is to hide vulnerabilities into action, but Jo has got into a point where she is ready to let down all her walls.

”For now the sun seemed to have gone, in as suddenly as it came out, and the world grew muddy and miserable again and for the first time she discovered that her feet were cold. Her head ached and that her heart was fuller of pain than the ladder. Mr Bhaer was going away. He only cared for her as a friend. It was all a mistake, and the sooner it was over the better. With this idea in her head she hailed an approaching omnibus with such a haste gesture that the daisies flew out of the pot and were badly damaged”.
This is where we get into the culmination. The mutual recognition of one another.

”I beg your pardon. I didn´t see the name distinctly. Never mind, I can walk. I am used to paddling in the mud. Returned Jo winking heard, for she would have died, rather than openly wiped her eyes.

Mr Bhaer saw the drops on her cheeks though she turned her head away. The sight seemed to touch him very much, for suddenly stooping down he asked in a tone that meant a great deal.

”Hearts dearest why do you cry?”

Liking someone is scary. These two have liked each others for quite a long time. When you first bring somebody into your life, it is scary because you have to admit to yourself that you are fully open. Taking a step forward, to tell you love them, it´s like standing on an edge of a cliff. Jo and Friedrich are both standing on that cliff and when Jo opens up Friedrich tells her that he has already fallen hard.
”Now if Jo had not been new to this sort of thing, she would have said, she wasn´t crying, had a cold in her head, told any other feminine fib proper to the occasion. Instead of that undignified creature answered with and irresistible sob,

”because  you are going away”

”Ach mein gott, that is so good” said Mr Bhaer, then he clapped his hands despite of the umbrella and the bundles.

”Jo I have nothing but much love to giv you. I came to see if you could care for it, and I waited to be sure that I was something more than a friend. Am I? Can you make a little place in your heart for old Fritz? he added all in one breath.

”Oh yes!” said Jo, and he was quite satisfied, before she folded both hands over his and looked up at him with an expression that plainly showed how happy she would be to walk through life beside him even though she had no better shelter but an old umbrella, if he carried it.

Friedrich wants to go on to his knees, but they are on the middle of the street covered in mud. It makes it difficult so they express their love by looking at each others and they no longer care about the surroundings. Jo calls Friedrich by his first name for the first time. Which delights him. He says that his sister was the last person calling him Friedrich. Poor man, that was five years ago. Friedrich also calls Jo as Jo and not as Miss March. The conversation is now open and tender. Louisa´s love for Germany continues when Friedrich asks Jo to use the word ”thou” instead of English ”you”. For those of you who don´t speak German, there is ”Sie” which is how you adress another person formally. Then there is ”Du” which is informal and in the 19th century context a much intimate. In old English ”thou” was the more intimate version of ”you”.

Friedrich shows Jo the poem that brought him to her. Poem is called ”in the garret” and Jo wrote it after Beth´s death, while feeling very lonely. In most adaptations, Friedrich has come bringing Jo her new book. Poem shows that Friedrich has taken the time to follow Jo´s career. When Jo asks what kept him away for so long, we find out that he has been looking for a job so that he could provide a home for Jo. This highlights Friedrich´s self reliance which is a value that Jo appreciates. Chapter ends into the very famous ”not empty now” line.

”I am glad you are poor. I could not bare a rich husband”. Then added in a softer tone. ”Dont´t fear poverty I´v known it long enough to loose my thread and be happy working for those I love and don´t call yourself old. 40 is the prime of life. I couldn´t help loving you if you were 70!

Professor found that so touching that he would be glad of his handkerchief. As he couldn´t Jo wiped his eyes for him and said laughing, as she took away a bundle or two. I may be strong minded but no one can say I am out of my sphere now and bearing burdans. I am to carry my share Friedrich, and help to earn the home. Make up your mind on that, or I´ll never go”. She added resolutely as he tried to reclaim his load.

”Ach, thou give me such hope and courage, I have nothing to give back but a full heart and these empty hands”. Sighted the professor quite overcome.

Jo never would learn to be proper. For when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she put both of her hands into his whispering tenderly. ”Not empty now” and stooping down kissed ”her Friedrich” under the umbrella.
Here is another quote from Christine Doyle.

”While Meg and John are the down to earth couple. Amy and Laurie are the romantics the artists. Jo and Friedrich combine the two. One of Friedrich´s most compelling qualities, is that he combines the domestic and the romantic heroism”.

Most 19th century courtship restrained from crossing the line until marriage, but that did not nessecarily mean that all relationships lacked passion. Lystra mentions that middle to upper middle class couples often did not take physical consummation until marriage. However during unchaperoned courtship, they would. Primary sources tend to suggest that during the 19th century sex became linked to sentimental love, especially for women. While women were supposed to be pure by nature, Lystra asserts that Victorians saw the sexual, spiritual and the moral in the concept of true love.

Here is a quote from Little Women fan Kymberly East:
”In the professor, Jo found a candidate for a kind of marriage she had not considered possible. A union between two people where freedom and partnership intertwine. In such a relationship, she didn´t have to sacrifice anything. As a matter of fact, she was able to realize a dream, that she otherwise may not have been able to achieve and in later books, she finds success as an author as well as providing a home for boys. Her liberation is completed and no sacrifice has been required of her”

Thank you for watching. Check out the episode I and Emily did about Jo´s and Friedrich´s relationship. Stay well and make good choices.
 
All the sources are listed here.