Little Women Reading Response #2 April 25, 2013

      I am currently reading the book "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. This story takes place in the 1800s in New England. It tells the adventures of four young girls and their journeys into becoming women. There is a very pretty and beautiful Meg who is the oldest, Jo the second oldest who is very boyish and loves reading, Beth the quiet third oldest who loves reading books and is very kind, and Amy who is very romantic and loves to be prim and proper. These four girls go through hardships and fun times with their friends. Their mother is a very big role model in all their lives. Their father is away at war, and when the children were very young all the money was lost, and now the family isn't very suitable in living. However, the author takes the readers through all the stories.

    In this blog post, I would like to talk about another topic. A friend Tiv commented on my last blog post of Little Women and suggested I should expand on the mother's role in the story. I decided to do this, because the four girls seem to be heavily influenced by their mother and strive to be like her. 

    Somewhere in the story, there is a story that Marmee (the mother) tells about how she, like Jo, couldn't control her temper. Their father and husband to Marmee helped their mother overcome these anger  outbursts. He did this by when Marmee was about to yell or scold someone, he would look at her and give this silent look to calm herself down. It really helped, and Marmee was able to control her temper from now on. The reason Marmee told this story in the first place was because Jo was very troubled. She was worried about how her anger might get into her head one day, and it would make her do very wrong things. Jo was troubled by her temper also because she let her sister Amy (as said in the last blog post) fall into the thin ice because Jo was mad at her. I can really understand Jo. Because I am a teenager, I go through these tantrums too but I learn to stop it. Anyways, when Jo was worried about her anger issues, Marmee told this story to reassure Jo. I think that Marmee is a very good mother and by telling people their own stories, it makes the other person strive to fix this problem. This is what I believe happened to Jo, now she tried even harder to contain her anger and tried to learn to forgive people. 

    Also, when Marmee gives advice to the children, they always want to make their mother proud, and work hard to accomplish things. I really like this book, and on a side note I really hope Jo ends up with Laurie and Laurie doesn't fall in love with Meg because I like Jo and Laurie together better! :)