Things I Love About Little Women...

By "Little Women," I mean Little Women the book and movies, not... short women, though I probably love some things about short women as well.  At any rate, much to my students' chagrin, I have forced them to watch Little Women over the last couple of days (hey, if I'm going to show a movie, I'm going to make sure it has some kind of literary merit).  I also recently had the pleasure of watching a friend play Jo in the musical adaptation of the novel.  Clearly, Little Women has been on my mind, and I've realized there are some things I absolutlely love about that story.  Forgive me, as this doesn't have much to do with my single life, or my struggles.  It's just the thoughts of an English teacher who loses herself in literature.

I love:
1.  Jo March.  She is loud, independent, stubborn, strong, creative, funny, friendly, idealistic, a dreamer, and a writer.  She loves her sisters so much that she bucks against change, especially when men are involved in stealing them away.  She wants to see the world.  She doesn't accept "good enough."  She lives life to its fullest and loves with all her heart.  She is fantastic.

2.  The friendship between Laurie and Jo.  It's funny how Louisa May Alcott answered the very question Harry and Sally asked, only more than a hundred years prior: no, men and women cannot be close friends, because inevitably one or the other will develop feelings.  Their friendship is sweet and true, but it ends up at that awkward moment that many similar friendships experience.  And Jo doesn't settle, as much as she loves him as a friend.  I love that courage.

3.  The deep sisterhood of the March girls.  They fight, they bicker, they play, they learn, and they love.  They are each other's greatest allies and greatest champions.  Jo wants them to stay forever as they are, close and inseparable.  Having no sisters of my own, I couldn't comprehend this... until my two sisters came along in college, and I rememember similar feelings of closeness and contentedness in the camraderie of my sisters... and I hoped it would never change; when it did, as it always does, I fought against it.

4.  Their creativity.  The March girls put on plays, providing themselves with endless hours of entertainment, something that most children couldn't do today if they tried.  The most wonderful things come from the imagination, and they capture it perfectly.

5.  Jo's unexpected match.  Everyone thought Jo wouldn't get married-- even she didn't think so.  And yet, she found her match in an unexpected person, but it was perfect in every way-- someone who could keep up intellectually, challenge her, and handle her independence.  That's so encouraging, even if it is fictitious.

So this, my last post as a twenty-five-year-old, has no deep meaning, no real moral, except to show that two decades later, this girl loses herself in literature as much as she did in her youth.  As I inch my way toward thirty, I hope I lose myself still, in the pages penned for imaginations like mine.