LITERARY ASPIRATIONS

I am not a voracious reader. But of the many books I have read, there is one that caught my attention and resonates with me. It’s not a thriller, or a classic or not even a romance. But more than all these, it’s about life, simple, modest and beautiful life. ‘Little Women’ written by Louisa May Alcott is the book I am talking about. My literary aspiration doesn’t end with this or start with this, but this marks as a very influential book as far as my precision to become an elegant woman, is concerned. 

Once my daughter and son turned the whole house upside down looking for a book.

‘Things you want the most are always found missing’, said my daughter after searching for a long time.

‘No sign of the book. I searched every place, even under this bed, but the book is not found’, said my son sadly.

They were searching for my daughter’s English textbook, which was missing since that morning. They thought for a minute and came running to my room to tell their grievance.

‘Mom, please join us to search for the book. I had to complete one assignment in English,’ said my daughter regretfully.

They found me sitting very calm and peacefully in my room. My son came near me. Then he shouted with a rapturous laugh, showing to his sister, ‘It’s your book! Mom is reading your book!’                                                                                                    

‘Mom, you are so naughty. Do you know how long we have been searching for this textbook?’ said my daughter in a pampering voice. Sometimes I used to take up my children’s book to enjoy the little pieces of literature in it.

‘Did you like the stories in my book?’ She asked me.

‘Yes, I liked this one which is very touching.’ I showed her the chapter’s name, ‘Being Neighbourly.’

She said, ‘Yes, it’s a wonderful chapter taken from a novel named ‘Little Women’.

‘How I longed for the book!’ It ended one day when my daughter herself gifted me that big book which she bought from the book fair, the Sharjah International Book Fair. I started reading it like any other book, but as and as I read, I realized that the book had a hold on me. The events narrated are so real that we feel that such things even happen in our homes. It’s the story of Louisa herself.  The story ages back to 1830’s, when Louisa lived. The one thing that surprised me is that, how I could relate the characters and events that happened nearly two hundred years before, that too in US, Concord, Massachusetts.   

It is a saga of March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, four young girls chasing their dreams in their poor conditions. Meg is really Margaret, the eldest of the four and the prettiest. Jo is Josephine, but she doesn’t like to be called so. She calls herself Jo. She is the Tom boy of the house and is interested in the boyish tricks and manners. She has long beautiful hair, but she always puts up her hair into a net. She has huge dreams to become a writer. In the order, she is the second. Beth is the third one. She is Elizabeth, who is a dear one, shy and contented with her own life. Amy is the youngest and the most ambitious of the March sisters. She is practical and gifted in art. She wants to become the world’s best painter. Though their lives are simple, their adventures are enthralling.

It was the time of American civil war, when each of the sisters went through their heroic moments, while their father fought in the war and only their mother left to guide and support them. They called their mother, Marmee endearingly. 

"My dear, don’t let the sun go down upon your anger. Forgive each other, help each other, and begin again tomorrow."

Marmee, the sweetest being in the story, teaches her daughters, the finest morals of life, with great love and care. When they falter, she corrects them with strong words without hurting their feelings.

The story details their passage from their childhood to adulthood, while each of the sisters goes through their trying experiences. Their words are strong and powerful even in the most distressed moments. Let’s go through some such moments in the novel where they had expressed their deepest concerns.

“I intend to make my own way in the world.”

Josephine, she dislikes feminine traits. She wishes she were a boy, to speak her mind out, to go where she pleases, to learn what she wants to know, in other words to be free. At the same time, she is devoted to her family. She doesn’t want any of the March sisters go away from the family and wishes she could remain as a spinster throughout her life.

“There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”

Often we tend to pay the most attention to those who are loudest and do not look at the quiet ones, unconscious of the fact that we can learn the most from those who speak the least.

“I don’t like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.”

There are few lines in the chapter ‘Being Neighbourly’, which go straight into our hearts. Jo goes to befriend Laurie, the well-mannered Laurence boy, who lives next door, and is very lonely and always stays at home. The Laurence house is a big mansion in contrast to their old Alcott house. I think it is worth mentioning a very touching conversation between Jo and Laurie, who has become Jo’s best friend in the rest of the story. She calls him my boy with great intimacy. He becomes one among them. Jo was surprised to know that Laurie identifies each of her sisters very well. She asked, “How did you find that out?”

Laurie colored up, but answered frankly, “Why, you see I often hear you calling to one another, and when I’m alone up here, I can’t help looking over at your house, you always seem to be having such good times. I beg your pardon for being so rude, but sometimes you forget to put down the curtain at the window where the flowers are. And when the lamps are lighted, it’s like looking at a picture to see the fire, and you all around the table with your mother. Her face is right opposite, and it looks so sweet behind the flowers, I can’t help watching it. I haven’t got any mother, you know.” And Laurie poked the fire to hide a little twitching of the lips that he could not control.

The solitary, hungry look in his eyes went straight to Jo’s warm heart. 

“We’ll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you’d come over and see us. Mother is so splendid, she’d do you heaps of good…”

Here, Jo expressed herself very clearly that they had accepted him as a family member. When she thought of Laurie, Jo felt how rich she was at home, where as Laurie was sick and lonely in that big mansion. 

“I like good strong words that mean something…”

The person whom I like the most in this story is Jo and only Jo. She is so special, very energetic and enthusiastic. She had her own will in everything, even from the most serious of issues like deciding her own life; to the most tender and emotional of the issues like cutting her hair, to get some money, to help her mother to bring her sick father home. It was her way of contributing to making father comfortable. Her long, thick hair was one of her possessions.

Writing was a legitimate and necessary creative activity for Jo. Throughout the novel, it was mentioned as ‘Jo’s scribbling’. I have a special affinity to this term, may be because of the fact that I do the same. Once my daughter pointed out this, which made me so happy, ‘Mom, you are just like Jo, scribbling, even while you are in the kitchen’. I had stuck a sheet of paper on my kitchen door and kept a pen handy, so that I could immediately pen down the ideas that come to me, before it got faded from my mind. There is no doubt, why I liked Jo this much. Jo is Louisa herself. 

Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least.

Amy, angry that her elder sisters go to the theatre without her, takes it out on Jo, burning the manuscript for her novel. Jo had worked over them putting her whole heart into her work, hoping to make something good enough to print. She had just copied them with great care and had destroyed the old manuscript. Thus, Amy’s action had consumed the loving work of several years.

In this story, the one character with whom we feel some sought of ill feeling will be to Amy. But we can’t hate her either, because later when she grows up, she turns to be a very matured, and wise young lady. She is practical and gifted in art. She wants to become the world’s best painter. I like Amy for the one sentence she made in the story about life, though it is Louisa’s own words. 

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Meg is the most traditional March sister, but she isn’t less of a strong woman because of it. She has a valid place in the story. Till the last moment Jo implores her to step back from her decision to get married. But Meg has strong points to stick to her decision.

“Just because my dreams are different to yours doesn’t make them unimportant.”

Meg dreams of being married and aspires to be like their beloved mother, Marmee. Each of the March sisters had their own opinion about marriage. 

“The world is hard on ambitious girls.”

Amy is ambitious and a great artist, but she could not achieve her dreams artistically. Unlike her sister Jo, she accepts the notions of the society by deciding to marry rich. When Laurie objects to Amy’s decision, Amy expresses her views on marriage.

“So don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition because, it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.” 

“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I am so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.”

Jo asserts herself as a woman but longs for what she rejects. In that time women are considered successful when they are married off well. Jo totally rejects this notion, but later she becomes so lonely in her life, as Meg got married, Amy went to Europe and Beth died.

 

Later, Jo could support her family by writing and publishing her works. Jo’s first meeting with the publisher was not satisfactory. They took her work. But they cut off many passages from her work in order to make the book sell. She looked at the marked pages and was surprised to find that they are all moral reflections, which she had carefully put in to her work. She felt like a tender parent who was asked to cut off her baby’s legs in order to fit into a new cradle. The publisher pressed her to write sensational stories. Because in his opinion people want amusement and love thrillers. When she knew the publishing prospect of sensational stories, she started writing them.  People all over read her stories and commented that they are good. However, she kept a different name for her works, because her parents wouldn’t like it. They liked her natural way of writing. She went against her heart’s will to save some money to make her family comfortable.

She continued writing until Professor Bhaer, pointed out her flaws and corrected her, whom she married later in the fiction.

“There is a demand for whisky, but I think you and I do not care to sell it. If the respectable people knew what harm they did, they would not feel that the living was honest. They have no right to put poison in the sugarplum, and let the small ones eat it.”

He told Jo to think about the newspapers that come into the house with these thrillers, and how inappropriate they are for children. When Professor Bhaer pointed out that her writings were not good, at first Jo couldn’t accept it. Later when she understands, she stuffs the whole bundle of works into the stove. All her three month's work turned into ashes. Jo wrote no more sensational stories. Professor Bhaer knew that she was talented and gifted her Shakespeare.

“I wanted you to have this. It will help you study character and paint it with your pen.”

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”

The Alcott House, which was once the home of Alcott sisters. Here my effort is not to retell the story of Alcotts. But let this be a tribute to the wonderful characters who once lived in the Alcott house.

“Let us be elegant or die.”

 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

“I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.”