On Revisiting Little Women and Parallels to the Penderwicks

by | May 31, 2020 | Books, Reading | 10 comments

Discovering a Classic

I recently reread Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. When I first read this book two years ago, in February 2018, I immediately added it to my list of treasured favorite novels. I couldn’t put the book down once I started it, and I found the same to be true even in rereading. There’s something so compelling about this age-old classic, something that has clearly transcended the decades and continues to delight generations of readers.

When I first read the book, it was like flinging open a newly-discovered door of possibilities. After I picked it up and devoured it whole (reading the entire 180k+ word book in a week), I rushed to read its sequels (Little Men and Jo’s Boys) and found them entertaining (but not nearly as incredible as their predecessor). I hurried to watch the 1994 film, a modern classic in its own right, directed by Gillian Armstrong and full of lush sets, gorgeous costumes, and a beautiful soundtrack. I hastened to read Invincible Louisa, the 1934 Newbery medal-winning biography of Louisa May Alcott. Since then I’ve also listened to a BBC radio adaptation (which I highly recommend)!

Going back to the beginning, I tried to read Little Women when I was nearly eleven years old, and bogged down somewhere around the time that Meg goes to “Vanity Fair.” The lengthy descriptions were too long for me to get through. I wanted to love Little Women—it was such a thick, substantial volume with lovely illustrations—but it was a bit too difficult.

Fast forward to 2018, and I decided to give it another chance.  I was curious to read the book because I had just read Edward Eager’s The Time Garden, a witty story in which the contemporary characters time-travel to the world of Alcott’s characters in 1860s Concord. (I appreciated the allusions in fuller context after I’d read Little Women.)

I also had just finished reading Jack and Jill, which I also enjoyed immensely. (Little Women was not my first introduction to Alcott’s work—a heartwarming collection of Christmas short stories, gifted to me by my grandmother in 2016, was the first book of hers I ever read, followed by An Old-Fashioned Girl.)

Books like Little Women don’t come along every day, and I am endlessly glad now that I didn’t read it until I was old enough to truly appreciate the story.

Connections to Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks series

The main reason that I gave the book another try is because the finale of the five-volume Penderwicks series was releasing in May 2018. “The idea of the original four Penderwick sisters came from Little Women,” Jeanne Birdsall, the author of the series, wrote on her website[1]. I was tremendously curious to find out if Jeffrey was going to marry Skye (the Jo character) or Batty (the [possibly] Amy character—more on this later). Hoping to find clues in Little Women to the outcome of my beloved series, I began reading.

I was already fairly convinced that Jeffrey would fall in love with Batty. The careful foreshadowing in the first books in the series strongly indicated this conclusion, and seemed to echo the wrap-up of Little Women. But although I liked Jeffrey and Batty as a couple, I braced myself to dislike the Laurie/Amy pairing, since everybody did. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn’t mind that ending. Of course I would have preferred Jo to “relent and marry Laurie,” as author Maud Hart Lovelace put it so aptly[2], but because I knew the ending beforehand, I was able to appreciate the subtleties of Laurie and Amy’s relationship and their whirlwind European romance. I was less impressed by Jo’s marriage to Professor Bhaer, but I also wondered if that outcome—the Jo character marrying an older man—meant that her Penderwicks counterpart Skye would eventually marry the “older man” character of Nick Geiger. The fact that Nick showed up all of a sudden in the fourth book and staked his claim as a major character made me wonder if he would play a significant role in the series finale.

Well, I was correct about Jeffrey and Batty, but wrong about Skye and Nick. (Nick hardly appeared in The Penderwicks At Last). I recently read someone else’s theory online, suggesting that Skye’s marriage to a student from the Czech Republic was actually an even more pointed parallel to Professor Bhaer. I loved this theory, and wish that this had been explored and expanded so that we could come to know Skye’s husband as well as we know the professor. I also wish that he could have had more lines (and at least one in English).

But is it true that Skye equals Jo, and Batty equals Amy? Obviously Jeffrey is Laurie, having been cast in the role of the next door neighbor boy who is accepted into the family. Skye resembles Jo because of her status as the second-oldest sister in the family, her feisty temper, and the fact that she has the one tomboyish name in the quartet (Skye being a much different name than Rosalind, Jane, or Elizabeth [which is Batty’s full name]). Readers have pointed out that Jane is the writer in the family, the aspiring authoress with all the wild ideas and imagination, while Skye is prosaic to a fault. But it is Skye, not Jane, who rejects Jeffrey’s attentions and has issues with her youngest sister Batty—which mirror Jo’s rebuff of Laurie’s proposal and arguments with Amy.

So does this mean that Batty is Amy? I’m more inclined to link Batty to Beth—both are sweet, quiet pianists who love animals. Batty has little common with Amy, save being the youngest of four sisters and eventually winding up with the Jeffrey/Laurie character. (Also notice the fact that Batty and Beth share an initial.)

More credence can be given to the Batty/Beth theory if you consider the section in Little Women when Jo mistakenly thinks that Beth has fallen in love with Laurie. I was surprised by this scene when I read the book, because it’s such an interesting addition to the story. It is partly because Jo is hoping that Laurie will forget about her and focus on Beth that she leaves for New York, where she meets Professor Bhaer. Fascinatingly, you can compare this sequence of events directly to the Penderwicks series: Skye leaves her family (and Jeffrey) behind when she heads off to her California college, where she meets the intellectual foreign man whom she ends up marrying. Skye also harbors hopes that Jeffrey will end up caring for Batty instead of her.

Additional Observations

I had a major revelation during my reread of the book. A highly important order of events in Little Women were shifted for the ’94 film, influencing my own reaction to the story. In the book, Jo goes to New York, meets Professor Bhaer, and—upon her return—rejects Laurie’s proposal of marriage. In the film, the order is reversed (to the story’s detriment, in my opinion). I think the Jo’s coming-of-age character arc is much stronger in the book, leaving you with a better opinion of her marriage choice.

As much as I love the film, it still doesn’t quite capture the nuances of the story and characters that I love best. The March sisters are extraordinarily multidimensional, a fact that tends to get lost in adaptations that have to compress the story to adhere to a shorter length.

Here’s a Twitter thread that I created during my reread, with more notes that I took:

1 – There’s an interesting subplot in which Jo thinks Beth is in love with Laurie. What might have happened if this was true, and if Beth had lived and told Laurie about her feelings?

2 – In the second half of the book, the chapters about Meg feel disconnected from the rest of plot. Jo’s, Beth’s, and Amy’s stories weave seamlessly together, but Meg’s do not. I wish Meg’s subplots had been more vital to the overall plot.

3 – As soon as Professor Bhaer is introduced, it’s immediately clear that Jo will end up marrying him. What if there had been a third possible love interest thrown into the mix? Perhaps one of her editors? That might have been fascinating.

4 – Although Jo and Amy have a difficult time getting along throughout the novel, they are the sisters who are most alike. Both are highly independent and determined, and even Amy has some tomboyish aspects to her character. In personality, Beth and Meg are similar as well.

Not long ago, I read a review of Little Women in which the reviewer felt that the characters didn’t seem real to her…I was a little shocked. The Alcott sisters seem like some of the most realistic and relatable girls I’ve ever read about (and not surprisingly, since they were closely based on the author’s own family). The humor of their family life and foibles, particularly in the first half of the book, is so spot-on. For me, rereading the book was like reuniting with old friends—and I think many other readers feel the same way.

There is a new film version of the book out now—it premiered last Christmas. I have yet to see it, but I am looking forward to comparing it to the 1994 movie and to the novel itself. I have read about director Greta Gerwig’s careful attention to detail, her array of inspirations, and the unusual story structure that she chose for telling the story in a new way. I am curious to see how the new cast interprets the characters.

In my mind, films and radio dramas and audiobooks and illustrations—and yes, even sequels—are complementary aspects to the books themselves. They enhance and allow you to look at the story in a new way. But they can never take the place of the story itself. This story is one of the finest, and therefore, one of the hardest to improve upon.

 

[1] Jeanne Birdsall’s Frequently Asked Questions, www.jeannebirdsall.com/faqs

[2] The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Scannell Whalen, Portalington Press 1995, pg. 97

 

10 Comments

  1. Emily J.

    As a reader who has (I’m ashamed to say) failed to slog all the way through Little Women, I think this post and your enthusiasm has inspired me to give it another try! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Candy

    There’s another book–Travel Far, Pay No Fare by Anne Lindbergh–in which the characters visit the Marches!

    Reply
  3. Marion

    Anna Rose I have never read The Penderwicks but reading your post makes me want to go out and purchase the set to read. I have read other books by Louisa May Alcott,Little Women,Jo’s Boys, Little Men,An Old Fashioned Girl and Under the Lilac Tree. When ever read or see the movie of Little Women i want to read or see that Beth lived.
    Marion

    Reply
    • Anna Rose Johnson

      Yes, I wish that Beth’s storyline could have been different! The Penderwicks are such a fun series. I really enjoy Alcott’s other books as well!

      Reply
  4. Louise

    Oh, that’s fascinating that you read the Penderwick books first, and they led you to tackle LW again. For me, I’d grown up reading LW (all of LMA’s books, really), and came to the Penderwicks as an adult, curious to see how Birdsall would re-weave the story threads. Count me as one who was glad when Jo did not marry Laurie–her imagining-out of what their marriage would look like always rang too true for me to want them to end up together. For as much as many people dislike Prof. Bhaer’s criticisms of Jo’s magazine stories, I appreciate the fact that he honors the importance of her work so much that he feels he HAS to criticize, because she CAN do so much better, and it would be wrong of her to cheapen her gift. Compare that to Laurie, who never does anything but play with his gifts, and wanted to be the most important object of Jo’s life; as a husband he would never be able to accept the drive she had for continuing to write (another reason why he and Amy are well-matched–when she realized she didn’t have genius she preferred to teach and support those who did, just as Laurie found meaning in being a patron of the arts).

    Now, Jeffrey didn’t have that issue, but all the same, I was equally glad that he and Skye didn’t end up together, and agree that he and Batty were far better matched. I love how you’ve pieced together the parallels between Batty and Beth, and picked up on Alcott’s hint (or red herring) about Beth and Laurie. I think you’ve probably hit on something there! Beth’s character with Amy’s plot thread.

    Fantastic thoughts, thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply
    • Anna Rose Johnson

      Thank you for commenting, Louise! I really love finding the places where these two series align. That’s a good point about Laurie probably not being able to fully support Jo’s writing – he never took his music seriously enough, whereas Prof. Bhaer takes things very seriously and therefore is a better match for Jo in that respect. And that’s another reason why Jeffrey and Batty get along so well – they’re the same way. 🙂

      Reply
  5. M.E.

    Another aspect of the Skye/Jo parallel is their hair. Both are mentioned to have beautiful hair, and Amy even says that Jo’s is her “one beauty.” Both are rather careless with their hair as well.

    Skye pursues a rather masculine career, or at least it would have been in Louisa May Alcott’s time, of being an astrophysicist. Jo being a writer is also rather unusual for the time period.

    Both groups of sisters have mostly grown up without a parent. In Little Women, until the middle/end of the story, they don’t have a father. In the Penderwicks, until the middle/end of the series, they don’t have a mother. Also, throughout the Little Women book, their father is reminding them through letters to be his good “little women.” This is slightly similar to when Elizabeth, Mr. Penderwick’s first wife, wrote the letter in the blue envelope for Aunt Clair to give to Mr. Penderwick later in the story.

    Mrs. Tifton can’t really be compared to Mr. Lawrence because she is so awful, but at first, they are scared of Mr. Lawrence too. I see a parallel when Lydia says that she doesn’t dislike Mrs. Tifton and when Beth goes to thank Mr. Lawrence for the piano.

    Jeffery’s situation of living in a grand house that feels unwelcoming to him is certainly like Laurie’s situation. And, also similarly, all four sisters feel comfortable around Jeffery/Laurie, not just the ones who are better friends with that character (Skye/Jo, Batty/Amy).

    At the end of the books, we see the Beth/Jane character not married. In Beth’s case, it’s logical. In Jane’s, it’s not illogical. Ms. Alcott never married, so why should every one of her characters?

    I think it would have been a great touch if Ms. Birdsall had had Jane’s great inspiration for her story be her and her sister’s life story like it was for Jo. But that’s okay, I love the story as it is.

    I read Little Women between fourth and fifth grade, and I loved it. I read the Penderwicks sometime around there too (I forget exactly when, although it may have been third grade). I didn’t connect them then.

    It was only when I recently watched the newest Little Women movie and reread the P. series that I connected the dots!

    Reply
    • Anna Rose Johnson

      Oh, I really like these thoughts! Especially the Mrs. Tifton/Lydia parallel with Mr. Lawrence/Beth. Yes, so much more could have been done with Jane’s writing and her place in the family … I feel like she got pushed to the side a bit in the last two books. On that last note, couldn’t the Penderwicks be made into a movie similar to the new Little Women? I can see it working, if done just right (perhaps even with the same nonlinear timeline)! Thanks for commenting!

      Reply

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