Coming of Age Films—Little Women

Last week our look at Booksmart gave us a window into two very contemporary teens looking to branch out in their lives. Go back about 150 years and we’re about at the time of Little Women [2019] written by Greta Gerwig. And 150 years ago it was almost impossible for a woman to “branch out.”

Little Women, based on the famous book of the same name by Louisa May Alcott, has been explored by many writers over the years. Previous film versions were done in 1933, 1949 and 1994. I’m partial to the 1933 version because I’m partial to Katharine Hepburn’s performance, but the newest version from Gerwig paints a compelling picture of the dilemma that women who wanted more than children and family faced.

Take a look at the film’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST2-4db4ic

While the film is about 4 sisters in the Civil War, the main character is definitely Jo—who is very much the image of Louisa May Alcott herself. Each of the sisters has a distinct personality and distinct attributes, so it’s fun to see them mature over the course of the story. It’s clear in the film that Jo is a woman determined to make her own way in a society where all that women were seen as fit for was marriage. And yet, like the book and all other film adaptations of the book, this version has a happy ending—Jo and her professor are an item and we know that they’ll get together.

Yep. It’s a fairytale.

I guess what bothers me is that Louisa May Alcott, the author of the book, never had that ‘happy ending’ in her life, even though she wrote it in a book that was a thinly disguised memoir of her own life. That point is, she lived in a time that simply didn’t allow for her to have it all—but as a writer, she no doubt saw—or was convinced by a publisher—that she had to let her characters have happy endings. In this film, she’s seen as someone who doesn’t give into the publisher. In her time, Alcott was faced with a society of readers who simply expected that happy ending.

So here’s a challenge for you. Imagine a Little Women where she doesn’t hook up with the professor at the end but has a fulfilling life—or the promise of one—as an author and a woman who comments on her society, who is respected in her community, and who inspires others to lead their own best lives.

Would it be a stretch? It sure would have been in Alcott’s time, but is it still today?

While I could hope that such an ending would be accepted, it would take the right kind of writer to write it and make it both believable and fulfilling for an audience.

So that’s the challenge. You’re a writer, how would you do it?

Copyright © Diane Lake

05Dec21

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