Signet Essay Contest Winner 2016: Ariadne Faye Lewis

 Three girls cluster around their mother, Marmee, each praising her for her love and perfection. The sunlight streams through the apple trees onto the knot of women, and the daughters’ eulogies float into the clear air. This is the last scene in Louisa May Alcott’s masterpiece, Little Women, a novel describing four sisters becoming young women through their struggles, passions, and sorrows. The setting seems hopelessly sentimental. Yet only a few paragraphs before, in a gritty, humorous sentence, one of the girls prophesied that her house could burn down at any time because one of her students smoked under the bedclothes. So how did Alcott, who obviously delighted in the absurd, realistic parts of life, justify the creation of Marmee, a mother so ideal even her flaws are admirable? Marmee is more than a foil for her daughter Jo; the two women are components in Alcott’s theory of balance in a novel. Because Alcott believed that stories have the dual purpose of entertaining and of instructing morally, Little Women features two very different characters: Jo and Marmee.

Before delving into these two characters, it is necessary to examine why Alcott believes they are both essential to a good novel. She reveals her theory of stories through her main character, Jo. Late in the book, Jo looks over a manuscript she submitted to an editor, now marked with his suggested alterations. “[S]he looked at the marked passages, and was surprised to find that all the moral reflections—which she had carefully put in as ballast for much romance—had been stricken out.” She says, “But, sir, I thought every story should have some sort of a moral, so I took care to have a few of my sinners repent.” Jo’s ideal of a good story (and arguably the opinion of Alcott) is one that contains both romance and morals. Alcott is saying that neither entertainment nor morals alone is enough to make a good tale; she warns about Scylla and Charybdis and recommends straight sailing between the two. However, as Odysseus found, one cannot escape from both monsters unscathed.

In Alcott’s eyes, the characters of Jo and Marmee fulfill the dual nature of a story. Jo is the real, romantic side of the equation. She has plenty of faults—she almost causes her sister Amy’s death through her anger and later chops off her own hair without consulting anyone. But she also possesses virtues—she works hard and patiently to help support her dying sister and is a tender nurse to the end. She is a credible mixture of good and bad, a piece of mottled blue glass, beautiful and yet flawed. Staring into her, one sees a bit of one’s reflection and loves her for it.

On the other side of the balance, Marmee represents the moralistic portion of the story. She is the perfect role model and mother, a pen and ink sketch of perfection. She is generous, mild-mannered, cheery, tender, wise, and universally moralistic, never missing an opportunity to draw a lesson from a situation. One evening as she is sharing with her daughters about her day, she talks about how worried and unhappy she was until she met an elderly man, whose family had been torn apart by the war. She says, “He spoke so cheerfully, looked so sincere, and seemed so glad to give his all, that I was ashamed of myself. [. . .] I felt so rich, so happy, thinking of my blessings, that I made him a nice bundle, gave him some money, and thanked him heartily for the lesson he had taught me.” While teachability is fine, Marmee takes it to an extreme by drawing a lesson from every encounter; she cannot simply enjoy something.

Unfortunately, Alcott’s constant reinforcement of Marmee’s goodness does not make Marmee any more “real” as a person. Real people are fallible, and so credible characterization must come from a sampling of both virtues and vices, vices to which Marmee never succumbs. She is radically unlike the flawed, lovable Jo, in whose struggles the reader sees his or her own. Instead, Marmee is the ideal the reader must emulate.

Some would argue that Marmee is more complex, that she possesses faults or is actually an ironic figure. However, the episode in which Marmee seems to display her faults only emphasizes her goodness. In response to Jo’s struggles, Marmee shares with Jo her own fight against anger. She says, “I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo; but I have learned not to show it; and I still hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.” This passage could give depth and realism to Marmee, but Alcott is simply continuing to characterize her as a role model again. Marmee is encouraging Jo to stand fast and control her temper. She is the successful paragon of virtue, showing Jo the proper way to behave.

In fact, Marmee is so virtuous it might seem that Alcott is deliberately painting a caricature, an ironic picture of an impossibly good woman. However, Alcott never betrays any sarcasm in her dealings with Marmee. For example, at the end, when the girls gather around their mother, Alcott says, “[Marmee] could only stretch out her arms [. . .] and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility,—‘O my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!’” Because Alcott’s tone never strays from praise and because Jo, the heroine, whole-heartedly respects Marmee, one must either make extra-textual assumptions or conclude that Alcott’s portrayal of Marmee’s goodness is sincere.

Together, then, Jo and Marmee fulfill Alcott’s two requirements for a good story: romance and morality. However, while Jo is full of life and genuineness, Marmee fails to come across as a fully human and convincing character. Because Alcott chooses to convey truth and morality through Marmee’s unbelievably good character, she damages the credibility of her novel. The damage is not fatal, but it is sufficient to detract from the artful realism and drive which Alcott establishes, making her readers wish she had chosen a different, more natural way to deliver her dual requirements for a story.