RESEARCH TITLE
CONVENTIONALITY VERSUS UNCONVENTIONALITY OF
MARGARET MARCH AND JOSEPHINE MARCH IN “LITTLE
WOMEN” BY LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Contents
PART 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale.............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Scope of the study and research methodology ..................................................................... 2
PART 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................... 2
2.1. Social background............................................................................................................................ 2
2.2. Louisa May Alcott and her novel “Little Women”................................................................ 4
2.2.1. About Louisa May Alcott ....................................................................................................... 4
2.2.2. About the novel “Little Women” ........................................................................................ 5
PART 3: ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................................ 7
3.1. Conventional and unconventional characteristics of Meg March and Jo March ..... 7
3.1.1. Physical determinants ........................................................................................................... 7
3.1.2. Emotional determinants ....................................................................................................... 7
3.1.3. Interpersonal determinants ................................................................................................ 7
3.1.4. Other personal determinants.............................................................................................. 7
3.2. External factors which have influences on the characteristics and perspectives of
Meg and Jo .......................................................................Ошибка! Закладка не определена.
3.2.1. Meg ................................................................................................................................................ 7
3.2.2. Jo..................................................................................................................................................... 8
3.3. Further comments on the characters..................................................................................... 8
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................. 8
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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Arts in general and literature in particular has always been appealing to me.
Literature reflects reality, helps us learn about different aspects of life and discovers layers
of consciousness and emotions through the play of words and human’s creativity. Reading
stories and poems, we are nurtured emotionally and morally, thus awakening our artistic
sense, sensitivity, love and enthusiasm for life and man. More importantly, literature
enhances our ability to sympathize and understand others through the writer’s lens and each
character’s story. I have always been thrilled by other people’s stories and craving to
understand their ways of thinking and decode why they feel that way. Therefore, I prefer the
novel, or fiction, among different genres for its storyline and characters while still reflecting
truthfully the reality. Of all novels that I have read, “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
has won my heart and has also been my favorite book so far.
“Little Women” is Louisa May Alcott’s autobiographical (or semi-autobiographical)
novel, which was initially published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Although Alcott
wrote the novel in just a few months under the publishing house’s pressure, Little Women
became one of her greatest novels for both children and adults, receiving compliments from
literary critics and catching readers’ attention throughout decades. The movie adaptations
based on “Little Women”, which were released in 1994 and later in 2019, proved the success
and long-lasting values of Alcott’s novel. Moreover, “Little Women” is considered as a
masterpiece of modern feminism and unconventionality in women, and is more or less
influenced by the breath of Victorian era - the golden age of literature and feminism. Many
studies have been conducted to explore feminist traits of the main characters, family and
neighbor love, tomboy and unconventional characteristics of the novel’s heroine Jo March,
etc. These studies and research give us deeper understanding about layers of values in “Little
Women”. Although the novel was originally written for children, it still receives concerns
from readers of all ages for valuable lessons about love, neighborhood, sisterhood, family
and understanding about the social context of the American society at that time.
After reading the novel, I am totally impressed by the main character - Josephine
March (Jo March for short), who is a representative of unconventionality of womanhood in
the 19th century. However, there has been little research about another remarkable and
contradictory character of the novel - Margaret March (Meg March for short) - who
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represents conventional traits of women during that time. While Jo is a symbol of a tomboy,
a confrontational teenage girl against contemporary expectations of women, her older sister
Meg tends to conform to the society’s norms and moral standards. So far, the topic of
womanhood or feminism has been mentioned by numerous authors and different ideas about
the topics were diversely presented. However, there have been few literary works that depict
both conventionality and unconventionality of women at a time in a novel like Alcott’s Little
Women.
The aforementioned reasons have driven me to work on the “Conventionality and
unconventionality between Margaret March and Josephine March in Little Women by
Louisa May Alcott”, particularly to discover a broader picture of women’s life in 19thcentury American society in my graduation paper. Throughout my research paper, it is
hoped that an insight into the novel’s characters as well as a deeper understanding about
moral lessons in the book will be given. Personally, this research paper is my admiration of
Alcott’s work and my love for literature.
1.2. Scope of the study and research methodology
The study focuses on analyzing the conventional and unconventional traits of the two
main characters - Meg and Jo March - in the novel “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott,
when the two sisters were in their mid and late teens.
In this paper, the writer will follow the qualitative approach, in which social
phenomena, progression in characters’ traits, etc. will be analyzed in depth to compare and
contrast the personal traits of the two main female characters in terms of conventionality and
unconventionality. Therefore, the main research method used is observation. The results are
descriptive and in-depth analysis of the two main characters. It is hoped to collect rich and
nuanced findings with detailed insight by using this research method.
PART 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Social background
Sphere of Womanhood and Contemporary expectations of women
Woman’s Sphere, or Womanhood, was an emergence in America during the 19th
century, especially in New England between 1780 and 1835. According to the period’s
ideology, Womanhood “is the realm of domestic life, focused on childcare, housekeeping
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and religion”. (Kuersten, 2003) The separate spheres of genders have become a social norm
since the Industrial Revolution, particularly in Europe and North America. Due to the
economic growth, the living standards were improved, money was a measurement of social
status. In this social standard, the husband should be the breadwinner of the family, who was
expected to go out into the “public sphere” to create wealth. In contrast, the woman should
stay at home and manage the housework. While the man did business outside and went on
his professional ladder, the fact that the woman stayed at home was considered doing her
“job”, as “womanhood was a vocation in itself” (Showalter, 1999). A true man was believed
to be “aggressive, competitive, rational, and channeled all of his time and energy into his
work”, whereas a true woman was assumed to possess the four virtues - “piety, purity,
submissiveness and domesticity” (U.S History, n.d.). The post-industrial society in England
and America prescribed a “Perfect Lady, an Angel in the House” as “contentedly submissive
to men, but strong in her inner purity and religiosity, queen in her own realm of the Home”
(Showalter, 1999). During the Victorian Age, women's virtues were regarded as a hallmark
and of similar importance to materialism.
Women in the Victorian Age
The Victorian Age refers to the era of Queen Victoria’s reign in the United Kingdom
between the 1830s and 1901. During this time, men and women had their own “sphere”,
which assigned to each gender a role that they should fulfil in order to meet the society’s
expectation. In this research paper, the writer will concentrate on the women’s role in the
Victorian Age.
Victorian women had one main role in life, which was to marry well and support
their husbands domestically. During their early life, women were expected to learn sewing,
cooking, cleaning and washing to later fulfil their domestic role in their husband’s house.
Due to the separated gender roles, women were not allowed to be educated and do business
because it was the male’s job. Women were denied opportunities to work in the “male’s
world”; therefore, they had no choice but to spend their youth preparing for their marriage
and learn how to manage the house chores. According to Richard D. Altick, “a woman was
inferior to a man in all ways except the unique one that counted most [to a man]: her
femininity. Her place was in the home, on a veritable pedestal if one could be afforded, and
emphatically not in the world of affairs” (Altick, 1973). Moreover, the “entire female sexual
life cycle” such as “puberty, menstruation, sexual initiation, pregnancy, childbirth, and
menopause” (Appell, 2012) needed concealing as they had to keep their physical experience
as secretive as possible. Although the standards were largely applied by men in choosing
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their partners, a number of women themselves adopted these norms as their way of living
and would be proud of possessing these traits, a prime example of this fact is Meg March the oldest of the four March sisters, who wished to be a lady and was very conventional.
On the other hand, independent and strong-willed women did exist in Victorian
literature. They were the ones who refused to conform to social norms and standardized
rules, who desired to live an independent life and were not bound by marriage. Some notable
examples are Jane Eyre from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - a woman who had
overcome her passive and repressive tendency to be an independent one; Mrs. Mallard from
Kate Chopin’s Story of an hour - a woman who revealed all her will and vitality as she
imagined her independent life ahead after the death of her husband; or Marian Halcombe in
The Woman in White, who possessed both masculine and feminine qualities in herself. On
mentioning unconventionality, Jo March in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott should also
be the central point - a girl in her sixteen with masculine traits and school of thoughts that
went against her older sister Meg - a symbol of conventionality.
2.2. Louisa May Alcott and the novel “Little Women”
2.2.1. About Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist. She was a prolific writer
and tried her hands in different genres, but she only became recognized after the book “Little
Women” (1868). Louisa May Alcott was born in a poor family, her father was a
transcendentalist. Due to her father’s and his friends’ thoughts about the society, Louisa
May Alcott soon became independent, realistic and was not driven by the society’s
contemporary standards about women in the 19th century. Since childhood, Alcott realized
that her father could not support the family financially no matter how hard he tried, so she
was soon very mature and became the breadwinner of the family. Since 18, she did a variety
of jobs, both labourly and intellectually, as long as she could earn money. In addition to
striving to make a living, Alcott also resorted to literature as a way to escape reality. When
the American Civil War broke out, Alcott volunteered as a nurse in the forefront, but her
health diminished due to the poor condition of her workplace. She then spent her life writing
to pay off the family’s debt and taking care of her mother. Alcott did not get married but
chose to spend her life being an opponent of slavery, advocating feminism, and fighting for
women's right to vote. She died of a stroke in 1988, two days after her father’s death.
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At the beginning of Alcott’s literary career, she used to write for newspapers about
women to earn a living. Alcott once focused on writing bloody and dramatic gothic stories
because that genre attracted a lot of people’s attention and was a best-selling one. However,
Alcott’s favorite topic was about women who struggled in their lives and craved for
independence and freedom. According to the Los Angeles Times, in 1860, Louisa May
Alcott devoted her time to writing about courageous and intelligent women. Although her
first-hand novel “Moods” (1864) received a great deal of criticism for her writing about a
woman’s marriage breakdown, her next novel “Little Women” (1868) was warmly
welcomed after just one day of publication, making Alcott’s name known to the public.
“Little Women” was a natural depiction of daily life, filled with valuable moral stories and
new perspectives about women. Her other literature works afterwards have been well
received by readers until now, many of which have been adapted into films and translated
into several languages. Besides, Louisa May Alcott was also a feminist. In 1877, she was the
co-founder of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston (Massachusetts) to
protect the rights of women and children.
2.2.2. The novel “Little Women”
“Little Women” was written during the American Civil War (1861-1865) between
the Union and the Confederate States of America. After Abraham Lincoln was elected in the
1860 presidential election, 11 states in the southern United States declared secession from
the United States and established the Confederate States of America while the remaining 25
states supported the Government of the Northern Union (Union). The South-North conflict which mainly took place in the southern states - lasted for four years and ended when those
in the south surrendered in 1865. As in any wars, men were called to join the army and were
forced to go to the frontline and fight, leaving their wives and children at home waiting in
anxiety and sorrow. So far, the American Civil War has been the bloodiest war in American
history, with more than 750 thousand soldiers sacrificed and an uncountable number of
people got injured and died in the war. The fierceness of the civil war was depicted in the
novel, though dotted here and there through the story of the girls’ father, readers can still
feel the harshness of it.
More importantly, the novel was written under the Victorian Age (1830-1901).
During this time, there was an inequity between men and women, in which women were
inferior to men in a number of social aspects such as women did not have the right to vote.
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At the end of the era, women gained more freedom, especially their right to a political voice,
the right for education and the right to work in factories like men although some people still
believed that “womanhood was a vocation in itself” (Showalter, 1999). Literature in the
Victorian Age was flourishing. The novels written at this time were often long and contained
many characters, reflecting different social classes and touching a number social, economic
issues. Some features of literary works during the Victorian Age include social classes,
women’s deprivation of the right to choose their life partners, and the civil war. These
factors are all included in Alcott’s “Little Women”, which will be discussed later in this
research paper. A remarkable feature of this novel was that Alcott breathed into it the
conventionality and unconventionality of women at the same time besides the beaten-path
factors.
Little Women includes two volumes: Little Women and Good Wives. A few years
later, Alcott wrote two sequels to her famous work entitled Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys
(1886). However, due to the word limit, this research will focus on the first volume of the
novel only.
Little Women represents the life of the March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Meg
is the oldest sister, who dreams to be rich, live in luxury and marry well - a young lady who
acts very maturely and politely. Jo, a fifteen tomboy girl who wishes to be a great writer,
with characteristics of a boy and against-the-standard ideas about social norms, who would
like to break the conformity in every move she makes. Beth, unlike Jo, is a delicate and
gentle by nature girl with a talent for music, who will spend most of her time taking care of
her little “friends” and does not mind playing with all her heart for the family’s members
and the girl club’s plays written by Jo. Amy, the youngest of all, is a 12-year-old blonde
beauty who takes pride in everything she does. The story of their sisterhood, friendship with
the Laurence family, their ambitions and lessons learnt from their mother makes up a lively
domestic adventure.
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PART 3: ANALYSIS
Conventional versus unconventional characteristics of Meg March and Jo
March
3.1. Physical determinants
1. Feminine >< Unfeminine (gestures, clothes, face, etc.)
2. Gentle and soft >< Athletic and strong
3. Well aware of her own appearance and beauty >< Unconcerned
about
appearance and gestures
3.2. Emotional determinants
Modest and polite >< Emotion-pouring but can be unemotional sometimes
3.3. Interpersonal determinants
1. Guiding properly her younger sisters how to behave and making herself an
example of a proper lady >< Dominating and leading in every issue or work
2. Collective >< Individualistic and independent
3.4. Other personal determinants
1. Ways of talking and writing

(Talking) Jo uses a lot of slang, impulsive sentences, while Meg pays
great attention to her speech with complete and polite sentences.

(Writing) Jo writes a lot and pours out her emotion onto the paper
(when writing to their father) while Meg writes little and neatly.

Jo is a prolific writer as she writes all the plays for the girls.
2. Attitudes towards love and marriage
3. Stability-oriented >< Freedom-oriented
4. Properly behave >< Uninhabited and adventurous
5. Ambitions: Living in luxury >< Traveling around the world and becoming
a great writer
3.5. External factors which have influences on the characteristics and perspectives of
Meg and Jo
3.5.1. Meg
 One time going to a prom

Having a conversation with Aunt March about getting married with a poor man
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3.5.2. Jo
 When Amy (her younger sister) burnt Jo’s handwritten manuscripts in revenge of
Jo’s hurting her younger sister’s ego

Having conversations with the Laurence boy - the girls’ neighbor
Both: when consulting their Marmee (Mrs. March) about what happened to the girls →
gentle but deep lessons from their mother
3.6. Further comments on the characters
3.6.1. The author’s art in describing the characters
3.6.2. The researcher’s own opinion about the characters
REFERENCES
Alcott, L. (1868). Little Women: Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Garden City, N. Y.: Literary
Guild of America.
Altick, D. (1973). The Weaker Sex. Victorian People and Ideas. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc.
Appell, F. (2012). Victorian Ideals: The Influence of Society's Ideals on Victorian
Relationships. McKendree University, 2012(18).
Kuersten, K. (2003). Women and the Law: Leaders, Cases, and Documents. Santa Barbara:
ABC-CLIO.
Showalter, E. (1977). A literature of their own: British women novelists from Brontë to
Lessing. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
U.S History. (n.d.) 25e. The Emergence of "Women's Sphere". Retrieved November 2, 2020,
from https://www.ushistory.org/us/25e.asp
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