“Rather a rough road for you to travel, my little pilgrims, especially the latter part of it. But you have got on bravely; and I think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon,” said Mr. March, looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered round him.

“How do you know? Did mother tell you?” asked Jo.

“Not much; straws show which way the wind blows, and I’ve made several discovered to-day.”

“Oh, tell us what they are!” cried Meg, who sat beside him.

“Here is one. . . . In spite of the curly crop, I don’t see the ‘son Jo’ whom I left a year ago,” said Mr. March. “I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither whistles, talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale, just now, with watching and anxiety; but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower; she doesn’t bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl; but if I get a strong, helpful, tender-hearted women in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don’t now whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn’t find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars which my good girl sent me.”

Jo’s keen eyes were rather dim for a minute, and her thin face grew rosy in the firelight, as she received her father’s praise, feeling that she did deserve a portion of it.

- Excerpt from Little Women

Most girls reading this book identify mostly with Jo. Actually, the only one I can think of who didn’t was my sister, who rather appropriately liked Amy best. Jo is the rowdy girl who would rather be a boy and does constant battle with her own strong will. She is largely based on the author, who wrote the book largely to try to resolve her own difficulties with fitting into the role she was expected to play. Louisa desperately wanted the approval of her parents as a loving and hard-working daughter, but she was ill suited to a life of domesticity and matronliness. Jo was very much a self portrait and in the end Louisa tried to resolve things by marrying the character off to a stable but boring professor very like her own father. She wanted to leave Jo single, as the author herself would always be, but such a thing seemed too out of line with what was expected from a children’s book.

I empathize with Louisa as I read this book. Reading her biography made me realize the struggle she was undergoing as she tried to resolve her life into a pretty tale of four sisters who grow up and live happily ever after. Louisa’s father never really approved of her, which was a great source of disappointment to her. In this scene especially I think she was trying to prove to herself and to her father, who proofread everything she wrote, that she had tried hard to become a sober woman instead of a bouncy and rebellious girl.

Everyone, with perhaps the exception of Mr. Ross, has to grow up at some point. The pressures of school and work demand seriousness most of the time, and especially in Victorian times learning to be solemn was an important part of adolescence. Women were not even supposed to laugh openly in public, but to hide any mirth behind a gloved hand. Joy in any context but that of religious or familial love was strongly discouraged.

wonder how Jo’s maturing would have been different had Louisa lived today. People identify with Jo exactly because she was the only character who rebelled and scowled at people and was too tall and awkward. When she grows up she becomes a happy wife and mother who accepts her narrow role and therefore holds no further interest for readers. When the book started she was fifteen and had the “uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn’t like it.” At the time of this scene she is becoming resigned to the woman she is expected to be, though she finds it a difficult space to cram herself into. She looses her identity as a tomboy and becomes an acceptable but unhappy young lady.

Had Jo not had to accept this role her maturation would have been very different, I think. Her coming of age could have been a growth and not a diminishment. The adult must cast off some of the freedoms of childhood to accept new responsibilities, but in this case adulthood makes a more restricted and less enjoyable character. I look back at the changes I went through during middle school and I see a lot of Jo in myself. In fifth grade I ran around the playground at recess playing at Camelot with some boys in my class. By ninth grade I didn’t run anywhere and only played “let’s pretend” in the context of Dungeons and Dragons. My braces made whistling impossible.

I sometimes try to bring back Julia the fifth-grader, who had a lot more fun than Julia the ninth-grader. I wear purple socks and run for no reason and talk to trees. With my braces off I’ve regained my whistle. In growing up we all need to distinguish between the useful parts of childhood and the pointless ones. Sometimes we need to keep more of our illogic and sense of humor more than we do. Being an adult doesn’t have to mean losing the good aspects of immaturity, doesn’t have to mean living in a box.