Romanticizing Little Women

I would like to take this opportunity in this blog to explore an article that I have read for my final paper for the semester. I found the article “A Feminist Romance: Adapting Little Women to the Screen,” by Karen Hollinger and Teresa Winterhalter immensely interesting while trying to digest all of the text and what I think about the novel and relate this all to the adaptation of the opera. I was particularly intrigued because in this article they analyze the adaptation of the novel to the 1994 movie. Hollinger and Winterhalter argue that in that Robin Swicord, the screenwriter for the adaptation, openly admits and then follows suit with an adaptation of the book that is applicable to the women of today. They quote that she wanted to express, “what was important today… to say what was not being said, particularly to young women and about young women.” (pg. 173 Hollinger and Winterhalter) Further they add that “Swicord may have rewritten the novel the way contemporary women wish Alcott had written it.” (pg. 173) Although I believe that there are different motives behind the libretto that developed into the opera Little Women, I would also argue that the preservation of the sentiments of the original text seem to be skewed in many ways to romanticize and idealize Mark Adamo’s interpretation of the text instead of conveying possibly the original intent of Alcott’s novel.

Even though Swicord intended to adapt the story for an audience of today, she still intended to tell the “true adaptation” of the story. This concept brings up the issue of what do we as an audience of today take from this story. Hollinger and Winterhalter argue that many of the original intentions of the text are lost through the translation to this other adaptation. In many ways Alcott’s novel reads very conservatively. The text is an allegory to conforming to the patriarchal driven Victorian society. As Patricia Meyer Spacks criticizes in the article “Little women’s didacticism shows how completely women can incorporate unflattering assumptions about their own nature using such assumptions as moral goads… women are foolish, vain and lazy. They must be laboriously taught to be otherwise.” (pg. 174) Once the “little women” acquire “goodness” they are then rewarded through different ways all of which result in a fitting husband. Later in the article Hollinger and Winterhalter explore the ways in which the women are “rewarded.” In Alcott’s novel it is very clear that Amy is rewarded for becoming virtuous and adapted to the society of the time. The reasoning that she is chosen to accompany Mrs. March to Europe in the novel is because Mrs. March has recognized her ability to conduct herself in a manner that fits within society. In the movie, this topic is barely touched on. It is dismissed and understood by Jo that the reason why she is not able to go to Europe is because Amy had been the most recent caretaker of Mrs. March so she is the logical choice. This is also interesting because in the opera this issue is also glazed over. It seems again as though Adamo’s “little women” like Swicord’s are trying to express something different with the story at hand.

Another scene that has received many interpretations depending on the adaptation is the death of Beth. As Hollinger and Winterhalter point out in their article Beth is the ultimate “little woman.” She represents all that is Victorian and “good” for women. “Beth is the only March sister to achieve completely the self-abnegating femininity that Marmee hopes to inculcate into all her Girls She is the Victorian ‘angel in the house,’ who in both novel and film lives a life of total submission to the will of others and whose early death enshrines her as a family saint.” (pg.182-183). It is then too fitting too that she fulfills the duty of the “musician” of the household. As we discussed with the article about the duties of the Victorian girl at the parlor piano, Beth too is responsible and seamlessly cares for the family first and foremost. It is interesting that the accounts of her death in the book and the movie are very different. The authors point out that the novel reflects a very different occurrence of her death. One that preserves her shy demeanor that is so prized as a well groomed Victorian woman. Alcott says, “Seldom except in books do the dying utter memorable words, see visions, or depart with beatified countenances, and those who have sped any parting souls know that to most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep. As Beth had hoped, the ‘tide went out easily,’ and in the dark hour before the dawn, on the bosom where she had drawn her first breath, she quietly drew her last, with no farewell but one loving look, one little sigh.”(pg. 404-405) On the contrary in the movie, and strangely in the opera as well, the adaptor of the story uses this opportunity to remind us almost to say that Beth was the sister that was left behind. In the opera Beth says in some of her final words, “You are tomorrow’s child. I am not. Of course, I I never had a future planned we’d thought that odd, remember?” (pg. 252) This attitude seems to reflect the same feeling that Swicord’s Beth had in her own dying words. She too chose to point out that she was the sister that was never expected to become anything. This seems to argue the opinion that women that became the Victorian ideal were doomed to follow the same fate as our dear Beth. As Hollinger and Winterhalter say, “Here, death provides Beth with a final opportunity to show the courage that she envies in her more accomplished sisters. Swicord and Armstrong thus manage to convert even this scene, which represents the novel’s ultimate celebration of self-sacrificial femininity, into a symbolic enactment of female strength and determination as Beth goes off to death heroic and unafraid.” (pg. 185)