Dilemma of Women

I remember reading the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott when I was younger, probably dating back to when I was around 11 years old. I was a girl who loved reading and who did not let go of the books in my hands. Out of all those books, Little Women was definitely my favourite book. Back then, my focus was on the entertainment that the story gave, rather than the message it was trying to deliver. As I grew up, I had less and less time to read books and Little Women also slowly disappeared in my consciousness, until I faced the film by Greta Gerwig during class. Although it was my favourite book and I was aware that the movie was released, there was only one reason I didn’t watch the movie - I didn’t want to ruin my imagination with characters that someone interpreted in their own way. After I encountered the movie in class, I got a sudden feeling that I want to work with this film, just a simple attraction. Although I didn’t start with a strong passion for wanting to delve into the complications of women’s lives of the past, continuing until now, I am glad that I made this choice because I have learned so much as well as had time to reflect on myself. 

The story takes place in Massachusetts in the 1860s when the American Civil War was going on. Here, we have a March family with four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy and their mom Marmee. The Father of the March family is away from the house to participate in the war. Although always caring for each other with kindness, under a wise mom, the fact that they are not so wealthy often strikes the sisters for some complaint. The sisters are not so money-driven, but the idea of being less wealthy, especially since they once were, provides us enough context on why they feel more depressed about their situation. Yet, they are the most kind people who know how to share. And although they fight sometimes, sisters all know that they will always be there for each other and care for each other. 

In the film, the most highlighted character is Jo - the second oldest of the sisters. Jo is an independent woman who does not want to fit into the category of an ‘ideal woman’ of that time and also wants to achieve her own will - to be a successful writer. She doesn’t want to get married, hates romance and wants freedom. Alison Caveness Gibson, responding to the film, describes the characteristics of Jo as such - “Jo’s refusal to conform to societal norms and characteristics, particularly the definition of femininity at that time is one of her defining characteristics.” This quote is a very clear and powerful sentence that shows who Jo is, an independent woman who refuses to follow the expectations but rather to follow her own will and dream. In the story, we also get introduced to the youngest of the sisters, Amy. She shows somewhat a contrasting stance from Jo as she accepts her role as a woman who needs to marry a nice guy for a shift in her social status - which was a norm during that time. Especially since the family was going through a hard time financially, Amy felt more responsibility for marrying a guy who could help the family - which somehow shows her maturity. During that time, marriage was regarded as a tool in some way for levelling up in society. As the story progresses, we see how these characters of the March family, not limited to Jo and Amy but everyone, grow up going through multiple stages of emotions, involving love, grief, confusion and more.

I first want to look at specific locations where the events were held in the story. Since it is kind of a reflection of the author Alcott who spent most of her life in Massachusetts, we can simply think that that is why the background became Massachusetts. However, I want to further highlight the significance of Massachusetts in terms of the women's rights movement, with the addition of New York, looking at the Woman Suffrage Timeline provided by the National Women’s History Museum. The period where the story is happening is during the American Civil War, in the 1860s. Before that, the women’s rights movement was starting slowly, starting from the first Women’s Rights Convention held in New York in 1848, to the first National Women’s Rights Convention held in Massachusetts in 1850. The publication of the actual book was in 1868 which is not so distant from it. With this in mind, I believe that Alcott was aware of these locations as a catalyst for Women’s rights, and it would have affected her in choosing these specific regions of Massachusetts and New York to show the difficulties that Jo had to go through, by not being an ideal woman at that time, trying to escape from reality. 

Although Gerwig reproduced the story as a movie in 2019, Gerwig successfully expressed the message the original book wanted to deliver in the 1860s, a message that women have so many possibilities that aren’t limited to femininity and beauty and that they can have their own ego and feelings that can direct themselves in life. Although the plot of the movie doesn’t have a huge difference from the original work, there were some adjustments made to make the story more film-suitable and in a way that delivers the emotion more effectively. Compared to the book, I felt that Gerwig’s film tried to show the life of being a ‘woman’ more explicitly, giving Jo a more definite characteristic who always keeps in mind her identity as a woman and how this suppressed her to advance with her own will. 

As mentioned above, Jo is a very independent woman who wants to have a successful life by herself and not get married. She almost despises the concept of marriage and romance. Therefore, Laurie’s confession of love became very stressful for Jo and their relationship as ‘friends’ ended. With this background, Gerwig decided to bring new elements of letter and mailbox, which didn’t appear in the original book, as a tool for showing the changes that Jo went through. 

The mailbox is first introduced in the movie when Laurie is accepted by the March sisters to hang out with them. With this in mind, I first established the meaning of the mailbox as an object containing the memories and joy the kids had when they were younger. The mailbox represents the good memories they had as a child and also worked as a tool for having fun and communicating. The scene of the mailbox that I want to deal with requires more complex thinking than of the mailbox as an object that brings nostalgia. 

In the movie, we see that Jo still misses Laurie even after her firm rejection towards him and waits for his letters. Since Jo misses him, that’s why the first thing she did back in Massachusetts was to check the mailbox, to see if there was anything from Laurie. After realizing that she’s lonely and misses Laurie, Jo writes a letter saying how she misses him and that she wants to have him back. The mailbox appears again as she puts this letter inside. However, Jo finds out that Laurie is already married to her little sister Amy and there’s no going back. Feeling the loss, Jo once again goes to the mailbox and takes out the letter she wrote, throwing it away. The mailbox was the most effective tool that shows how Jo’s feelings shifted and how she managed to end all the confusion, by accepting what had happened already. What I thought was the introduction of the mailbox could be the beginning of Jo and Laurie’s story which ends with the mailbox when Jo finally gives up on Laurie, which also shows the growth of Jo and opens up a new chapter for her life. 

While I was focusing mostly on the mailbox and its representation as in a change in the phase that characters experienced, Gibson in her writing Jo’s Letter in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women focused more on the letter itself and the emotions accompanying it. To understand Gibson’s interpretation, we first need to focus on the scene where Jo exclaims to her mom, saying that she’s lonely but also not knowing what she actually wants. This scene from the movie shows the conflict that Jo was going through - “Women - they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it,” says Jo. Again, she is lonely but also tired of the expectations that her environment has, as a young woman in the 1860s. Yet, what she chooses turns out to be love and writes a letter to Laurie, saying that she wants him back and that she loves him. 

Gibson regards the letter as a symbol for the “changing dynamics of her childhood friendship” and the place where the mailbox is, the forest, as a place where it shows the “time and loss of childhood friendships and sisterly bonds” - similar to what I thought. The particular wording I used to describe this change in phase is “the introduction of the mailbox could be the beginning of Jo and Laurie’s story which ends with the mailbox when Jo finally gives up on Laurie, which also shows the growth of Jo and opens up a new chapter for her life.” These two statements from Gibson and myself go along. 

However, I had some objections towards Gibson’s idea as well. She says that “Jo’s doubt about her rejection of Laurie’s proposal is less about her loving Laurie, and more about her trying to hold onto her childhood”, slightly suggesting an idea that Jo did not want to lose the relationship as friends, rather than the refusal for romance. I had doubts about this since my interpretation of Jo’s refusal was to stick with her dream to be free and be a successful single independent woman who doesn’t seek romance, although she does love Laurie. Regarding my statement, it is contradictory that Jo hates romance yet loves Laurie, but I regarded it as a natural emotional change that Jo couldn’t resist and this eventually led to even bigger internal conflict when she faced loneliness. Even after reading Gibson’s text, I still have a bias towards my statement although there is no right or wrong answer. 

My interpretation is suggesting the status of women who feel that they need to choose one or the other and give up on something that they value as equally important as the other, is not a very difficult phenomenon to detect in modern society as well. Carlotta Zorzi-Chapman in her article 30-something, career-driven women and the family crossroad dilemma deals with the ‘dilemma’ that women face in choosing between career, achievement, and love, family. She says “the prospect of women having to slow down at a pivotal time for their careers [due to biological reasons] is frightening to say the least” which I strongly agree with. She also talks about the reality of a society where women are more pressured to give up on their achievements due to discrimination caused by those ‘biological reasons’, such as taking maternity status into consideration. When it comes to these issues, the concept of the glass ceiling can be introduced, which means “the social barrier preventing women from being promoted to top jobs in management,” as described in the article The Glass Ceiling: Definition, History, Effects and Examples by Julia Kagan. Although now the term ‘glass ceiling’ is used for wider demographics not limited to women, the fact that it originated to direct women shows us how women have been suppressed in the career sector due to various reasons such as the ones discussed above, ‘biological reasons’. Therefore, it is all about finding a balance where women can achieve fulfilment in both careers and family and make change, concludes Zorzi-Chapman.

Considering what the women today are going through, I think the conflict Jo had is still a valid issue. It is especially difficult because we need to consider emotion along with reality, which often doesn’t work in one way or another - for instance you can’t simply decide not to love someone that you get to love. I personally have a similar dilemma to what Jo felt in the story. I am a person who really seeks love and wants a family but I also have an ambition to be successful in my career. To be a successful career woman with a family is not an easy job - which I think comes from the nature of women, giving birth and caring for kids, which Zorzi-Chapman regards as biological reasons. Even before that, simply having a significant other in life limits your possibilities in a way that you need to care for them as well. In the end, even if my ambition is huge, I see so many women around me, including my mom, who had to give up their positions for love and family, and it always makes me wonder if my dream is attainable in the first place. I hated the idea of giving up on my opportunities but now I am slowly accepting that I will need to balance between what I want. It’s even more complicated since I can see the happiness that people get after giving up on certain things - for example, their careers. It is like an exchange between things to maximize satisfaction in life. This dilemma will continue for quite a long time disregarding the freedom and rights that women have fought for and gained.

Emily Webb in her article Little Women: Big message for modern girls says that the themes of Little Women are “unconditional love, sacrifice, and the importance of sticking up for what you believe in.” I think this summarizes the message that Alcott wanted to deliver in a clear but effective way, not disregarding any components that we go through in our lives. After all that we discussed, starting from the freedom that Jo sought for, the inevitable feeling of love and a complex dilemma of balancing between emotion and reality, this is what we need to remember from the story, to believe in yourself and do what you really want to do. All of those, love, sacrifice and ego are equally valuable and it is about balancing them wisely. I know it is not easy to decide whether to give up on something or not, especially since I am going through the complication myself. However, I really want people, particularly the women who are in similar situations, to chase after what they want and value the most. There’s no right or wrong answer because your decision is what makes you happy in the end. 

Works Cited

., Ali V. “Jo's Letter in Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Little Women.” Reading Little Women, 3 November 2020, https://readinglittlewomen.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/jos-letter-in-greta-gerwigs-adaptation-of-little-women/. Accessed 1 April 2024.

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. Macmillan Collector's Library, 2017.

Dodge, Arthur. “Woman Suffrage Timeline (1840-1920) — History of U.S. Woman's Suffrage.” Crusade for the Vote, https://www.crusadeforthevote.org/woman-suffrage-timeline-18401920. Accessed 31 March 2024.

Gerwig, Greta, director. Little Women. Columbia Pictures, 2019.

Kagan, Julia, and Suzanne Kvilhaug. “The Glass Ceiling: Definition, History, Effects, and Examples.” Investopedia, 25 March 2024, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/glass-ceiling.asp. Accessed 8 April 2024.

Webb, Emily. “Little Women: Big message for modern girls.” The Lance, https://lhslance.org/2020/best-of-sno/little-women-big-message-for-modern-girls/. Accessed 8 April 2024.

Zorzi-Chapman, Carlotta. “30-something, career-driven women and the family crossroad dilemma.” LinkedIn, 13 September 2021, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/30-something-career-focused-women-family-crossroad-dilemma-zorzi/. Accessed 8 April 2024.