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THE LITTLE WOMEN -
COMPLETE COLLECTION:
LITTLE WOMEN, GOOD WIVES,
LITTLE MEN, JO'S BOYS.
by LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.
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Louisa May Alcott came from a family that grew up during times of a distant war in the neighbourhood of Concord where some of the great thinkers of US were then living and writing. Her father moved them from Boston to the remote Concord to be in that atmosphere, and it brought them into close contact with the best society had then to offer. She wrote this partly about their own life, is the surmise.
These little girls growing up were given education and taught to use their minds and have a right heart, rather than "catch" a gentleman and marry and find security; hence the title "women" rather than the more prevalent "ladies" which then denoted women with more secure existence and comparatively a more decorative rather than useful life, with servants and slaves.
The trials and bonds of this middle class family that went through the war at a distance, and knew hardships and privations and to remain nevertheless at a level above mundane, and retain intellectual pursuits.
The story of the Little Women continues with Good Wives, with three of the sisters now married and living not too distant from one another, and the extended family growing. They are just as loving within the extended family and their own separate lives and their trials as they were while growing up together.
Life continues and now, in Little Men, there are some little men in the extended family of the grown up little women, the latter bringing up the former. The values and joys are shared and passed on within the extended family clan.
Jo's Boys repeats the heartache of Little Women. Having grown up in the last half of the 20th century and with no pointers during growing years to indicate why Jo's boys were not good enough for Amy and Laurie's daughter, and the heartbreak of the one who fell in love was - is - very real, smiting the young reader's heart. Now, a few decades after reading the book, one looks back on the story with all the rest one has seen and knows and understood - and it is clear that this was due to the difference in status between the two. Laurie and Amy are wealthy and Jo's boys are adopted orphans, and so it does not matter how capable or intelligent the lover is - he is advised to not even try, not even ask, in the gentlest manner possible. This hurt had given another poignant ending to the original story extended over four books, just as in the first book there was really no good reason given why Jo refused Laurie even though she did love him. It is almost as if the story was too bland and so there had to be something of a sharp hurt, even more than the death of the gentle loving Beth. And so the permanent living pain of a soul suffering a heartbreak - not Laurie who got over his quick enough to come back from Europe married to Amy, but Jo, the one who felt awkward and gangly and not pretty and so tried hard to make up for the lack and be worthy. And so she refused love, that would have given her happiness and brought her out of the unworthy mode of her closed bud of a heart, and instead she refused it - and tore out her own heart.
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THE LITTLE WOMEN -
COMPLETE COLLECTION:
LITTLE WOMEN, GOOD WIVES,
LITTLE MEN, JO'S BOYS.
by LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
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December 18, 2022 - December 18, 2022.
Purchased October 17, 2018.
ASIN:- B077J6WNCT
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5172090027
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