올컷의 『작은 아씨들』

Alcott's Little Women: Jo's Resistance to the Feminity in the 19th Century and Its Limitation

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women(1868-1869) is a text of immortal popularity written in the nineteenth century that demonstrates heroines overcoming the customs of the time and feminine imprisonment and implies a message of resistance. This realistic narrative is based on the March family and Jo March, an attractive heroine of the time. It is loved by all generations of readers and has become critically acclaimed by reviewers since the 1980s. Though Jo resists the feminity of the time at first, she eventually marries Professor Bhaer. So the meaning of her resistance seems to be reduced at the latter half of the narrative. However, she is still an important heroine because the author raises questions through her regarding a female artists’ choice of the time, even though she is eventually reduced to be a ‘little woman’; docile and sacrificial. When Jo’s role isn’t overlooked, there is a balanced evaluation of Jo: Her great spirit resists to weaken the social constraints of the time. As the novel was written in the nineteenth century and not in the twenty first century, Jo’s choice is considered to be a reflection of a woman writers’ dilemma in America at that time. Thus, Little Women has value as a feminist literary work of the nineteenth century in regards to the fact that Jo tries to resist the feminity of the time even though this resistance has its limitation.