Jessica Palmer
05/07/21
Final Essay
ART 329
Little Women and The Archetypes of Women in Pre-Raphaelite Paintings
The portrayal of love and sexuality of women has always varied greatly throughout
history. The way women were and still are allowed to express love depends on values during the
time period and how much freedom women were allowed at the time. We get a glimpse of these
values through the art that persists through to the present. Art has a way of reflecting the world
around it and by analyzing these works we can get solid ideas of the ideals of a certain time
period. Oftentimes, stories and art that persisted were that created men due to who's voices were
amplified at the time. There is this term that has been coined called “the male gaze” and it is this
idealistic woman created by typically heterosexual men in how some see relationships, sex, and
love. Mens' desires often determined the values of an era because that was who was in power. In
this essay, I would like to analyze this “male gaze” in the Pre-Raphaelite era and see what the art
at the time says about the values of the time. I would like to compare this to a modern film with a
story written by a woman and then directed by women. How has the image of women changed
with women controlling their stories? Do women share the same values when they have
complete control? The film I’m going to be looking at is the 2019 adaptation of Little Women.
This will be an interesting comparative look into the relationship of the portrayal of women in
art.
Medieval times. Often when one thinks about medieval times there’s a bit of
romanticization that goes along with it. The idea of dragons, knights, and damsels in distress all
come rushing forward. There was a fascination with magic and a love of nature. This
romanticisation is strongly due to the art that was produced during the time. This romanticization
did not end with the portrayal of women in paintings but rather thrived. Pre-Raphaelites had a
fascination with female sexuality. Women were seen as strange and mystical. This
romanticization throughout the paintings at the time came in the form of archetypes. For
example, sir John Everett Millais painting Ophelia encapsulates some of these feelings of
romanticism. She lies beautifully in a river engulfed by her madness before she drowned. Even
in her madness and death, she is beautiful. On the opposite spectrum, if it wasn’t madness it was
sainthood. Depictions of the Virgin Mary were also present in this era. The Girlhood of the
Virgin Mary by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts The Virgin Mary as a young girl in a halo.
Anytime someone is portrayed as an archetype, their humanity is lost. People are complex, one is
neither fully a saint nor fully lost in the turmoil of madness. The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, in
their hope to provide innovative works compared to the former era, created archetypes of
females that solidified a strict value for women to adhere to. You had three options to either be
the good saintly virgin, the submissive damsel in her tower trapped into isolation, or the one who
stepped beyond the boundary only to find herself consumed by her madness. All of these ideals
basically can be summed up to women need to follow the rules or their moral value would be
affected. They romanticized their ideals in order to define moral value.
Now that we discuss the past let’s talk about the present. We live in a time where so
many different perspectives and stories are being told that never have been before not just
exclusive to gender. People can tell their own stories and Little Women is an example of that.
Little women came out in 2019 and it took the story by Louisa May Alcott. Then, it was brought
to life by the direction of Greta Gerwig. The story is a perfect example because the plot has
entirely to do with women’s identities. The plot can be partially summed up to being about
young women on the brink of adulthood dealing with the complexities of life including the
dreams for their future, love, responsibilities, and grief. This story gives a more complex view of
women’s wants and desires. It shows that women don’t want the same thing as each other. Some
may want marriage and children, some may want a thriving career, and many are just kind of
discovering it as they go find themselves and mature. I think a great example in this film would
be the scene between Jo March and her sister Meg in a bit of an argument about their future. The
quote by Meg “Just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they’re
unimportant.” shows the complexities that these young women are facing. Meg wants a simple
life of marriage and children and Jo wants a more adventurous life with a fulfilling career. They
have very different goals and have to find common ground to understand what will make the
other happy. In life, things can change as well, Jo goes on to discover that she does want love
and Meg discovers that marriage is not the simple life she had planned. The goals change as
these women grow and if we reduce women to simple or strange creatures we don’t get these
complex and varied stories.
In conclusion when comparing these works obviously they’re going to be very different,
but we can learn many things from them both. When women are only popularly depicted by men,
they don’t have a say in their own narrative. The powers are stripped away and their choices are
taken because if they don’t adhere to the moral standard of the time they are reduced to a woman
gone mad. When women have control over their own stories not only is it more complex and
interesting but it’s more varied. To be put simply, it’s because women themselves are more
varied and not one is the same. A woman is not simply a saintly virgin, is not a damsel in
distress, and is most definitely not a woman gone mad. Women are complex creatures just like
any humans their stories will reflect that.
Citations
Frisch, Erin, “Pre-Raphaelite Painting and the Medieval Women” (2013). Art and History
Honors Theses. 1.
Little Women. Dir. Greta Gerwig. Sony, 2019. Film.
Soren, D. (2018). From the Pre-Raphaelites to Loreena McKennitt. In Art History, Popular
Culture, and the Cinema. (pp. 83-94). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.