Do the March Sisters Get Rich Again
By Trix Wilkins
First things get-go – give thanks y'all so much to everyone who took the time to thoughtfully ask questions and give comments on The Courtship of Jo March giveaway 🙂 Information technology has been incredibly interesting to wrestle with your questions. When I started writing answers they got rather long, and so I will be writing multiple posts – I'll try to get them out quickly and not proceed you waiting. Hopefully all out this week!
I'll first with the question by the winner – congratulations to NovElla and Banannabelle !
I might start this reply past answering the question in contrary for one moment – why do many fans like Amy? Is it considering nosotros read the likable May Alcott into the graphic symbol of Amy? Practice we sympathize with her and like her because nosotros have something in common? Practise we like the fact that she is cute and charming?
On the flip side, I remember both the reasons you mentioned play into the dislike of Amy, depending on the reader. My guess is that fans who dislike Amy do so for one or more of the post-obit reasons:
The mirror issue: Nosotros run into in her unlovable aspects nosotros dislike in ourselves
Amy was vain as a child, burned Jo's volume (see beneath), complained nearly beingness sent abroad to exist kept safe from carmine fever, wanted to scrimp on her female parent's Christmas gift so she could go something for herself (and only changed her heed afterward comparing her gift to her sisters'), wanted to earn the favour of wealthy friends with a party she couldn't afford, thought it was adequate to care for people kindly or coldly based on their wealth or status, idea it was reasonable and respectable to marry for money (for a time), and tried to arouse jealousy and affection in Laurie in Europe even though, equally she afterwards lets on, she suspected that Jo loved him, "Why, I was sure she loved you!" (Then why play the coquette to gain his attending and savor in the fact that he filled your dance card with his proper noun?!).
Can any of us honestly say that we have not done anything similar – never been selfish, whiny, disregarding of others? That doesn't hateful we similar existence reminded of it though…
She burned Jo'due south book
This warrants a department of its own because out of all the things readers are annoyed near, this is the one that burns in the heart and heed (pun intended). To call up of someone destroying i's precious life work due to circumstances that were not in their control (Laurie was the one who didn't invite Amy to the theatre, not Jo), a sister'south life work no less, over not being able to go to the theatre… If Amy had been a model graphic symbol the rest of the book I suspect there would withal be virulent dislike based on this one incident, particularly from volume lovers and aspiring authors.
Value clashes: Perseverance vs Pragmatism
Amy gave up pursuing a career in art after a few years of study and observation abroad, deciding that she didn't have genius. Well of course she didn't have it, nobody has genius after two to three years (even five years)! The masters of annihilation take at least ten, if not multiple decades, to perfect their arts and crafts.
How would she have known that she didn't have genius if she didn't try for a long, sustained and disciplined period of time? And fifty-fifty if she wasn't a Michelangelo in the terminate, then what? If merely the Michelangelos of the world produced fine art, what a dull and lifeless identify the globe would be!
Then Laurie gives upwards music, the affair he loves most. Why? We're told it's considering he follows Amy's example. He tries his hand at music for a short while – can't be longer than a yr, maybe two – and so thinks to himself, she'due south right, talent isn't genius, and since I'm not a genius, it's not worth trying.
Then office of the dislike is that non just did Amy give up likewise easily, she took someone else downwardly with her – a man who we accept been told throughout has non only a passion for music but an unusually brilliant talent for it.
As to whether this sort of perseverance is a modern value, I don't recollect it's exclusive to the mod age. I remember that in whatsoever age, we respect people who keep trying, keep persevering, who push through disappointment and disillusionment and practice not utilise comparisons to others as an excuse to stop trying. We respect people who keep their eyes and efforts on the affair that's important to them, that's stamped on their minds, engraved in their being. For Laurie this was music – and information technology is hard to move past the part that Amy plays in steering him away from it.
Laurie is said to adore the fact that Amy is able to switch to a new castle in the air when she feels the cherished one out of reach, and this value of pragmatism is as old as it is new. Sometimes it'due south skilful to make a change when something isn't working, and it isn't worth sticking at something just for the sake of sticking at it – there's got to be more in perseverance than mere stubbornness for it to be worthy of esteem.
Still, for readers who tend to admire perseverance over pragmatism, Amy evokes ire.
Support for the underdog: We desire triumph against the odds
Amy was beautiful and charming in the sort of way men found alluring. Louisa writes of several instances in which some young man or other is pining for Amy or vying for her attending. She has a winsomeness that arouses jealousy because we simply meet that sort of person favored in real lifeall the time. She's the sort of woman men want to win and women want to be (for who doesn't want to be thought beautiful and admired?).
What is galling is when such a character shows up, the ane guy in the story who claimed he's not into "fuss and feathers" is in the stop drawn past information technology. Part of the reason readers like the Jo-Laurie combination is the fact that Jo wasn't cute or mannerly. Her beauty was entirely internal (except for her hair).
What usually happens when a adult female similar Jo and a woman similar Amy stand up side by side, the latter takes the cake and we can live with that. But in the world of fiction where we long to see something we don't see every twenty-four hours, when "the usual" happens information technology bites. Information technology really, really bites. (So yes, Amy's being married off to Laurie definitely plays a part in the dislike!)
Narrative conventions: We need an antagonist to dislike
I don't believe Louisa aimed to portray her sis May truthful-to-life in Amy (May Alcott was quite dissimilar to Amy, except peradventure in looks and charm). I doubtable Amy as a grapheme is more than of a literary device than an attempt by Louisa to bring her sister to the fictional page. Footling Women needed an antagonist, and Amy certainly fits this role well!
Someone needs to create waves, stir up trouble, and get into disharmonize with protagonist Jo. They need to be significant to the protagonist in some fashion. Call up of stories such every bit those of the Marvel serial or the Star Wars franchise – the adversary is compelling precisely because of such a close personal connection. ("I am your male parent," etc.)
Beth was Jo's pet, and so could not exist a conceivable "nemesis." Meg was the equivalent of gentle Anna Alcott, and played the role of the eldest attempting to gently guide her sisters through life with wisdom. May was the sister almost similar to Louisa in talent and ambition – thus Amy was the natural antagonist to Jo. And Little Women existence "a book for girls," somewhere forth the way in that location had to be a boy involved in the tussle.
It isn't easy to turn one'southward sister into the "villain," and Louisa had to practise quite a bit of gymnastics with existent history (and graphic symbol) to have Amy movement the story forth the fashion that she did. Amy is extremely instrumental to the sense of conflict and tension in the novel. I only realized in recent years how imperative it was to the story that Amy be characterized as she was.
Out of sympathy for May Alcott, I wrote Amy into The Courtship of Jo March intending for her to be closer in character and temperament to her real-life counterpart, then realized: now who'southward going to be the antagonist in this story? There had to exist someone – and Aunt March could only practise and so much (similarly to Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice, she could only cause so much trouble).
I better appreciated the challenge Louisa had in writing Amy as she was, as I attempted to write of Kate Vaughn. As I said, someone has to stir upwards problem for Jo…
RELATED POSTS:
- The Art of Amy March in The Other Alcott
- The Courtship of Jo March
- 16 Books the March Sisters Read
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Source: https://marchandlaurencelittlewomen.wordpress.com/2017/07/01/hating-amy-march-qa-from-the-courtship-of-jo-march-giveaway-1/
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