Washington D.C. Daybook: Two Women Discuss Little Women, Part Three

Louise May Alcott wrote about the March sisters, based on her own self and her sisters, and she gave the characters in Little Women her sister's characteristics:

.....Louisa May Alcott was Jo

.....Anna Alcott was Meg

.....Elizabeth Alcott was Beth

.....May Alcott was Amy

Kathy: The scorched dress was a wonderful visual moment. That and Jo cutting her hair to sell it for money for her father's care. More sacrifice. How short would it have been?
Cube: A few inches, probably, but remember back then all women's hair was long and their crowning glory. They had to wear it up, so it had to be long.
Kathy: One reason I liked that PBS show "1910 House" was for the same things in Little Women: the detail to life's labor. Hand-hemming sheets, muddy dress hems, hand washing clothes, no flushing toilets, all of the cooking on wood stoves. I see seminarians, and they walk around in their yard with the long white robes that haven't been hemmed properly, and they drag on the ground. And you know those pampered pups don't do their own laundry. So they don't care if the hem needs to be pretreated or scrubbed.
Cube: I know in the rectories of churchs, the priests always have a housekeeper. Some loyalolder, widowed woman. Safe and totally dedicated to servant mentality.
Kathy: Whenever I say "Good morning" to them, they look right through me like they were raised in a barn. The priest who live there get their meals cooked for them, their apartments cleaned, clothes cleaned and pressed. They do nothing for their care.
Cube: (talking about Catholic row over by the Shrine) One time I was over there, walking on the sidewalk just before Trinity's chapel, and some seminarians were circling around the wall outside the chapel, entering it from the back, and they had on long white roped robes with hoods, with their heads bowed and hands folded inside their sleeves. I swear. In that one moment, it was like falling back into the Middle Ages, to see such a thing. What else can we say aboutLittle Women? What about the father?
Kathy: There were no realistic male figures in the book. The father was distant. Mr. Lawrence was distant, for the most part, except when he gave the piano to Beth. Laurie was okay, I guess.
Cube: Laurie seemed rather submissive, looking for strong, dominant women in his life. He probably needed a Dominatrix.
Kathy: It was a strangely sexless book in comparison with Jane Eyre. No passion between the men and the women.
Cube: Despitethe ragings of the Civil War going on in the South, she presented a rather contained world, but I guess we should remember the time frame she created it in.

...Louisa May Alcott's family home,
Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts