Alcott’s stories have been praised by numerous sources as portraying stories and characters true to life (e.g Clark Sicherman Saxton). An important part of what made the book so popular was surely its realistic depiction of girlhood and family life. It still elicits powerful narratives of love and passion” (Sicherman 247).

Throughout the last 150 years, the novel has continued to be important to girls and young women, providing a moral framework and important life lessons: “Reading the book has been a rite of passage for generations of adolescent and preadolescent females of the comfortable class. Known today as an “American classic, if not the seminal classic novel of American girlhood” (Cartmell and Simons 78), it has spoken to young girls’ hearts in the way it describes American family life and what it meant to be growing up female in the nineteenth century (Saxton 5). Meg is about to get married, Jo is attempting to launch a literary career, Beth has sadly never recovered from her scarlet fever and is now virtually housebound, and little Amy is maturing fast, and about to go off travelling with a wealthy aunt.Įach girl is struggling with her own problems for Meg, she must learn to be a good wife and mother, and juggle the demands of the two Jo must learn how to maintain her morals in a corrupt business, and rein in her headstrong and often selfish nature Beth has to come to terms with the fact that she may never grow old, and learn to enjoy the time she has left without dwelling on what may come, and Amy must learn to put others first, and understand that money and fine thingsĪre nothing in comparison to a good heart and unconditional love.Since its publication in 1868, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, together with its second part Good Wives one year later, has enjoyed tremendous success, especially among young readers. Good Wives takes off about three years after where Little Women left off.

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Good wives louisa may alcott