Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story and fairytale author, poet, essayist, and editor. She has often been praised for creating characters that speak their mind, especially those who were grammatically incorrect and improper. Although she disregarded the rules for children’s literature in the nineteenth century by creating these flawed, though loveable characters, children could identify with them more than the angelic children that other books shaped children of that time…

Rose In Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott, tells the story of a young woman growing up. Set in Boston during the 19th Century, Rose Campbell is a beautiful young lady returning home after spending two years abroad in Europe. Upon returning, she is somewhat perturbed at discovering that home is not quite what it was when she left. Being the heiress of a large fortune, she finds herself surrounded by numerous friends and male admirers, many of which desire only her money. Having been raised by her Uncle…

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley are two novels in which the themes of equality and inequality are explored extensively. The texts are both written by women in 1847 and 1818 respectively and both deal with gender inequality. Jane Eyre is also a social commentary on the injustices and inequalities of the classist Victorian hierarchy whereas Shelley’s novel focuses on the human rejection of unconventionality and the inequalities faced by societies ‘outcasts. The…

Susan Glaspell, born in 1876 was an American play writer, novelist, journalist, and actress. In her time, she wrote many short stories and plays which began appearing in magazines and journals. One of Glaspell’s best works was a one-act play called Trifles written and performed in 1916. While working as a journalist for Des Monines Daily News, she covered the 1900 murder of John Hossack which is where she received the inspiration for the loosely based play and in 1917 was turned into a short…

The book Little Men by Louisa May Alcott is the third book in the Little Women series. Little Men takes place around the 1860’s and 1870’s in Plumfield, where it can be assumed is in Massachusetts. As with many books, there will be a few differences between the book and actual time period with the way people act, what they wear, and how they speak. Back in the 1860’s and 1870’s the clothing they wore was very formal. Men would wear long trench coats with high waisted pants, vests…

Have you ever felt crumbled under everyone else’s beliefs on how you should live an aspect of your life? Some may say that they simply have your best interest at heart; however, you are the key to true happiness in your life. As a country, we are utterly fixated on the idea of marriage being a way of life with 61% of adults aged 18 and older planning on getting married in their lifetime. Many believe falling in love, marriage, and having children is a birthright. Living in a society and in a…

Born in Beverly Massachusetts, on May 5, 1824, Lucy Larcom’s fate was destined to be a mill worker. Although she was primarily known for her work as a poet, it wasn’t till she started working at the Textile Mills in Lowell Mass, that she found her true strength in poetry. I would argue that Larcom’s experience as a female worker at the turn of the 18th century is the over all them of the majority of her work. Specifically speaking, in the poem Weaving I see how her personal experience is used to…

Scrappy Little Nobody Anna Kendrick’s goal in writing Scrappy Little Nobody, is to show that she’s not like every other celebrity, she’s different and fun and independent, and because of this, she is also just like everybody else. We’re all different, which is the one thing that makes us the same, and this is the kind of empowering message that she wanted to share with her audience. She wanted to show that she started out, as just a small, wacky, defiant teenage girl, and now she is still just…

Individualism vs Collectivism "It takes two flints to make a fire." --Louisa May Alcott The statement above embodies the notion that working together is ideal and efficient when it comes to taking on a very cumbersome or an intensely hard task. Here the division of labor comes into play and in a little time, the intensely hard task is completed and in some cases the benefits of working together supersedes that of working alone, but the whole idea of collectivism or group work is built on the…

Hair, even today, is often used to symbolize femininity: while neat and tidy hair is often associated with womanliness, high social status, and proper behaviour or manners, short, messy, and boyish haircuts typically represent the opposite. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women uses hair to symbolize the identity and growth of the young, impressionable female characters using the disproving of hair as an instrumental part of determining a woman’s worth, while the Brothers’ Grimm story The Goose Girl…