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Journalism of Courage
Louisa May Alcott, an exceptional writer with a sharp sense of dignity and fortitude, is known for ability to plumb different levels of emotional depth. Her books reflect her belief that working on emotions can heal fractures in one’s soul.
While watching Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of her most famous novel, Little Women, I became aware of a certain something in the film that I wished I could hold on to. Reading the novel happened almost immediately. With the turn of every page, I was struck by the emotional exuberance Alcott was so brilliantly able to portray.
Little Men came soon after. I hadn’t known until reading about Alcott’s life, that there was a ‘Little Men’ after ‘Little Women.’ The title seemed different from all the classics I had been exposed to, and it kept lighting up in my mind like a firefly rising from wild grass. I sat down with the book, and soon enough figured out why Little Men was so important to be written.
Alcott never intended on writing sequels to Little Women. After the death of her brother -in-law — John Brooke in the novel — Alcott started writing Little Men for her sister to support her family. The book sold over 130,000 copies.
The central character, Nat Blake, is a homeless boy who is welcomed in Plumfield, a school run by Jo March and her husband, Friedrich Bhaer. The transformation of Nat from an underprivileged street performer to a budding musician makes us realise that encouragement and kindness are two benevolent pillars in the character development of a child. Jo March’s character in this second novel gives us the insight that quality education goes beyond textual understanding.
What also forms the central perspective of the novel is the utopian nature of coeducation, especially in boys of seven to sixteen in age. Her ideas can often be seen as a reflection of the ideas of her father, Bronson Alcott. Some of the scenes in the novel take inspiration from his temple school.
Little Men has a distinct narrative style. Alcott brings ambivalence into contradictions — a boy’s school that enrolls girls and a school that allows children to teach their instructors. Gregory Eiselein in a paper titled, ‘Contradiction in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men’ writes that critics with a Foucauldian perspective examine Alcott’s writings in terms of ‘disciplinary intimacy,’ in which the freedom, love or play in the plot are understood within a larger effort of discipline, control and limiting children.
However, within the introspective and wider framework of emotional literacy, Alcott, at various points in the novel, evidently focusses on show of emotion by children, specifically the boys. Which is also contrary to the nature of the period she wrote this. Compassion and emotional bandwidth weren’t discussed much then, especially in dealing with boys with tired faces coming from rowdy orphanages.
Little Men came with a little hope, the little hope of keeping emotions of vulnerability and self-expression alive, continuing to grow our fondness for an author who stayed firm towards finding a mid-point between idealism and practicality.
