TE 836 Awards and Classics of Children's Literature
The Awards and Classics of Children's Literature course began with a trends in book selection for the various children's book awards such as the Newbery and Caldecott. It also involved study of the agenda behind book awards including the fostering more multicultural literature. The second part of the course examined the concept of a classic in children's literature and the problematics around using classics in education. The following essay examines how Little Women continues to endure both on its own and within the context of literary criticism that surrounds it.
The Awards and Classics of Children's Literature course began with a trends in book selection for the various children's book awards such as the Newbery and Caldecott. It also involved study of the agenda behind book awards including the fostering more multicultural literature. The second part of the course examined the concept of a classic in children's literature and the problematics around using classics in education. The following essay examines how Little Women continues to endure both on its own and within the context of literary criticism that surrounds it.
Changing Scholarship
Little Women as a Classic: It’s Alive!
Reflecting on the articles and reviews we have read, it seems that a book like Little Women, a “classic,” undergoes a transformation from a popular narrative to an analyzed, deconstructed text within scholarly discourse. The former delight it gave readers turns into the delight of critics who reveal the cultural construct it foments, whether that be patriarchal society or “anti-male” text. Yet, the discourse, whether negative or positive, surrounding the classic keeps it alive.
Classics are texts that are defined by the scholarly conversations about them. Are there classics that exist without the propagation that scholarly discourse sustains them? Are the scholarly discourse, publisher’s monetary interest, and support from other sources exterior to the novel itself (movies, etc.) part of a web that supports them? Does the discourse on works that are deemed classics keep them alive? Perhaps classics are books that have a network of scholarship, publishers, and consumer interests surrounding them. Therefore, the classic is merely a node in its own network.
Let’s look at how this network evolves around the text of Little Women. In the first articles from 1869 that we looked at, there is merely a promotion of the book as an appropriate gift for teenage girls. The first article specifically promotes the Christmas purchase of the book for girls. Interesting how this “girl’s book” status was established the year it was published. The second article on Part II counters this status by claiming it is more appropriate for older readers. Furthermore, the second article begins the connection between Jo and Alcott in stating that Jo “photographs” some of Alcott’s “literary mistakes and misadventures.” So from the beginning we see the girl’s book status and the autobiographical connection between Jo and Alcott. But still the early reviews are simply notes about a piece of popular narrative. There is not much depth to these early reviews; they are mere advertisements for a piece of contemporary fiction.
The 1929 article is a biographical expose on Alcott’s writing career and relations with her audience and publisher. The revelation that Alcott did not want Jo to marry in the end, but acquiesced to pressure from her publisher and audience, establishes a new complexity in the relationship between reader, young girl or otherwise, and the text. This article reveals an alternative possibility for the narrative that greatly alters the message of the novel. As Fetterley later points out, Alcott had to succumb to an unwanted ending and this is manifest in Jo’s similar abandonment of her original “castle in the sky.” The fact that the tragic autobiographical betrayal is revealed as early as 1929 must have had a significant effect on readers of the novel. Here, the discourse surrounding the text began to subvert the text itself. The tension between the real and intended outcome of the novel only adds to the appeal of the classic.
The 1957 article continues the normative praise of the text that had undoubtedly established it as a classic. The alternative ending is mentioned again thus sustaining the tension between the two possible outcomes for Jo. In this article we are presented with the first cultural criticism of the novel in the excerpt from the Zion Herald article. Although certainly promoting normative behavior of little women, “it is without Christ.” So new controversy is added to the network of discourse surrounding the little women. Commercial success, autobiographical tension, and condemnation by religious publications: how else does Little Women grow?
In the New York Times article from 1964 it seems that the little women’s beauty has begun to fade. No longer the object of normative praise, Little Women faces ugly criticism of its sentimentality and the sado-masochistic relationship between Alcott and the four girls. Considering that the popular literature of the early to mid-sixties included J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Saul Bellow’s Herzog and Nabokov’s Lolita, it is no wonder that the sentimentality and normative values of Little Women had begun to seem antiquated. Little Women became what literature was reacting against. The novel’s role as the thesis to modern literature’s antithesis further developed the web of discourse around the little women.
In her 1968 Horn Book article, Lavinia Russ attempts to salvage the “universal themes” of family values, wealth, personal growth, and patriotism manifest in Little Women. In the chronology of discourse on Little Women, this seems reactionary in that it praises the normative behavior that Little Women endorses and relinquishes the attack on sentimentality seen in the 1964 Times article. Thus, this article maintains the wholesome classic status of Little Women and links it to a greater cultural narrative of responsibility and sacrifice for mankind. Russ and the Times develop a new tension in the network around Little Women.
In 1979 Fetterley deconstructs Little Women and reveals overt and covert messages that greater develop tension in the reading of the novel itself. She reveals that the message of Little Women is that there is no alternative for women except marriage for economic and emotional survival. The pathway to this end is self-control, self-denial and abandonment of personal ambitions. Beth, as the epitome of the little women, follows the self-denying trajectory of the little women to its logical end in her death. Jo follows the trajectory to the symbolic death of her independence through her marriage. Yet, at the same time as this very patriarchal normative behavior is the overt message, Fetterley reveals the covert message that “despite Marmee’s dictum about being loved by men, what we see and feel in the reading of Little Women is the love that exists between women.” Futhermore, Fetterley posits that the covert message is that the acceptance of marriage and domesticity is “less a matter of wise choice than a harsh necessity.” This idea returns us to the 1929 article when the economic necessity that forced Alcott to change Jo’s fate was revealed to the reader. So Fetterley gives us new ways of reading the novel as both a doctrine encoding the patriarchal normative behavior of the “wise choice” of marriage or a message of marriage as an act of desperation and necessity. Little Women is resuscitated and given new life as the web around it sustains it and reveals new visions.
As feminists gave Little Women new life through renewed critical discourse, Susina counters with a masculist deconstruction and revelation that Little Women marginalizes the male reader and creates an insular feminine world. He summarizes the feminist critics well when he states that they “disagree as to whether the book is matriarchal and subversive or ultimately endorses patriarchal assumptions that encourage submission, repression, and renunciation of women.” Yet, he argues that Little Women renounces men by portraying them as powerless boys. The lack of a strong male allows male readers no access to the novel. Male readers view the March girls similar to the voyeuristic Laurie looking in their window. Susina’s dependence on a strong male as a necessity for being a male reader contradicts the idea that the power of literature is that it allows us to empathize with others regardless of gender or other labels. (Or referring back to the 1869 article, it is supposed to be a book for girls.) But Susina does further complicate issues of gender surrounding the text of Little Women and continues the life giving process.
Through the scholarship we see a complex network develop around the novel. An autobiographical, cultural and political web supports the text through time and renews its life. The novel becomes a node in a web unable to exist without the discourse surrounding it.
So classics are understood across time in a relationship within a context. The context is the relationship between a reader within a time and place and a text. Individual readers interpret texts differently depending on how their perspective has been constructed. Some may value a classic because it reaffirms beliefs they hold. Modern readers may adore Little Women because it reinforces their cultural, political, and religious values; others may find it a vile text in a culture of indoctrination that subjugates women to a subservient role. Each reader is loyal to specific and individual beliefs that shade a text in an equally unique and specific way. A text is never read the same way, yet we attempt to make connections around our interpretations. We as readers for part of the web and sustain the life of the classic as well.
Little Women remained popular, and thus in print, because it advocated normative social behavior. Some men greeting one another on trains asking if they had read Little Women must have loved the book because it reaffirmed what they required to maintain a specific relationship of power over women. Some daughters may have loved it because Jo represented an alternative to their only possible path in life. The daughters must have cried a bitter and confused cry at the end, while their fathers smiled approvingly on the same last page.
However, as a classic grows old it is taken apart and its subtleties are examined. Although the same sequence of words on a pages, it becomes a far more complex text in relationship to the time and place in which it continues to exist. The examination and its discourse keep the classic alive, but it is a continually evolving creature. Furthermore, the classic takes on multiple lives. Little Women went from being the perfect Christmas gift to being a subversive text examined by feminist scholars. So the narrative of the classic is further sustained by the meta-narrative on its meaning.
I think the complexity of the ending of the novel helped to sustain interest in Little Women. The anticipation of Jo realizing independence or of agreeing to marry Laurie is severed by the marriage to Friedrich Bhaer. The knowledge that some readers had of Alcott wanting a different ending further complicated the readers’ relation to the novel’s ending. To me, it read like a tragedy. Jo’s hubris, her desire for independence, leads her to a point of desperation and her own symbolic death. We each approach this ending differently. The complexity of the ending, both within and outside of the text, gives it life by opening readers to discussion. When talking about Little Women with colleagues at school all conversation focused on the ending of the novel and Jo’s fate.
Scholarship changes because cultural mores change. Scholarship as a manifestation of ideology represents the ruling ideas. The normative behavior portrayed in the novel warranted its praise and popularity by the public and scholars. As reactions to patriarchal ideology developed, feminist scholarship represented this voice. Counters to the feminist voice continued the dialectic. A dialogue forms around classics through scholarship. The discourse and the classic sustain themselves in a symbiotic relationship.
Classics then must have a complexity of some type that will sustain this discourse and allow for continual transformation and renewal. However, classics begin as popular literature that is aligned with and affirms a dominant ideology. Discourse can reaffirm them or react against them; whichever it does, it sustains the classic.
Little Women as a Classic: It’s Alive!
Reflecting on the articles and reviews we have read, it seems that a book like Little Women, a “classic,” undergoes a transformation from a popular narrative to an analyzed, deconstructed text within scholarly discourse. The former delight it gave readers turns into the delight of critics who reveal the cultural construct it foments, whether that be patriarchal society or “anti-male” text. Yet, the discourse, whether negative or positive, surrounding the classic keeps it alive.
Classics are texts that are defined by the scholarly conversations about them. Are there classics that exist without the propagation that scholarly discourse sustains them? Are the scholarly discourse, publisher’s monetary interest, and support from other sources exterior to the novel itself (movies, etc.) part of a web that supports them? Does the discourse on works that are deemed classics keep them alive? Perhaps classics are books that have a network of scholarship, publishers, and consumer interests surrounding them. Therefore, the classic is merely a node in its own network.
Let’s look at how this network evolves around the text of Little Women. In the first articles from 1869 that we looked at, there is merely a promotion of the book as an appropriate gift for teenage girls. The first article specifically promotes the Christmas purchase of the book for girls. Interesting how this “girl’s book” status was established the year it was published. The second article on Part II counters this status by claiming it is more appropriate for older readers. Furthermore, the second article begins the connection between Jo and Alcott in stating that Jo “photographs” some of Alcott’s “literary mistakes and misadventures.” So from the beginning we see the girl’s book status and the autobiographical connection between Jo and Alcott. But still the early reviews are simply notes about a piece of popular narrative. There is not much depth to these early reviews; they are mere advertisements for a piece of contemporary fiction.
The 1929 article is a biographical expose on Alcott’s writing career and relations with her audience and publisher. The revelation that Alcott did not want Jo to marry in the end, but acquiesced to pressure from her publisher and audience, establishes a new complexity in the relationship between reader, young girl or otherwise, and the text. This article reveals an alternative possibility for the narrative that greatly alters the message of the novel. As Fetterley later points out, Alcott had to succumb to an unwanted ending and this is manifest in Jo’s similar abandonment of her original “castle in the sky.” The fact that the tragic autobiographical betrayal is revealed as early as 1929 must have had a significant effect on readers of the novel. Here, the discourse surrounding the text began to subvert the text itself. The tension between the real and intended outcome of the novel only adds to the appeal of the classic.
The 1957 article continues the normative praise of the text that had undoubtedly established it as a classic. The alternative ending is mentioned again thus sustaining the tension between the two possible outcomes for Jo. In this article we are presented with the first cultural criticism of the novel in the excerpt from the Zion Herald article. Although certainly promoting normative behavior of little women, “it is without Christ.” So new controversy is added to the network of discourse surrounding the little women. Commercial success, autobiographical tension, and condemnation by religious publications: how else does Little Women grow?
In the New York Times article from 1964 it seems that the little women’s beauty has begun to fade. No longer the object of normative praise, Little Women faces ugly criticism of its sentimentality and the sado-masochistic relationship between Alcott and the four girls. Considering that the popular literature of the early to mid-sixties included J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Saul Bellow’s Herzog and Nabokov’s Lolita, it is no wonder that the sentimentality and normative values of Little Women had begun to seem antiquated. Little Women became what literature was reacting against. The novel’s role as the thesis to modern literature’s antithesis further developed the web of discourse around the little women.
In her 1968 Horn Book article, Lavinia Russ attempts to salvage the “universal themes” of family values, wealth, personal growth, and patriotism manifest in Little Women. In the chronology of discourse on Little Women, this seems reactionary in that it praises the normative behavior that Little Women endorses and relinquishes the attack on sentimentality seen in the 1964 Times article. Thus, this article maintains the wholesome classic status of Little Women and links it to a greater cultural narrative of responsibility and sacrifice for mankind. Russ and the Times develop a new tension in the network around Little Women.
In 1979 Fetterley deconstructs Little Women and reveals overt and covert messages that greater develop tension in the reading of the novel itself. She reveals that the message of Little Women is that there is no alternative for women except marriage for economic and emotional survival. The pathway to this end is self-control, self-denial and abandonment of personal ambitions. Beth, as the epitome of the little women, follows the self-denying trajectory of the little women to its logical end in her death. Jo follows the trajectory to the symbolic death of her independence through her marriage. Yet, at the same time as this very patriarchal normative behavior is the overt message, Fetterley reveals the covert message that “despite Marmee’s dictum about being loved by men, what we see and feel in the reading of Little Women is the love that exists between women.” Futhermore, Fetterley posits that the covert message is that the acceptance of marriage and domesticity is “less a matter of wise choice than a harsh necessity.” This idea returns us to the 1929 article when the economic necessity that forced Alcott to change Jo’s fate was revealed to the reader. So Fetterley gives us new ways of reading the novel as both a doctrine encoding the patriarchal normative behavior of the “wise choice” of marriage or a message of marriage as an act of desperation and necessity. Little Women is resuscitated and given new life as the web around it sustains it and reveals new visions.
As feminists gave Little Women new life through renewed critical discourse, Susina counters with a masculist deconstruction and revelation that Little Women marginalizes the male reader and creates an insular feminine world. He summarizes the feminist critics well when he states that they “disagree as to whether the book is matriarchal and subversive or ultimately endorses patriarchal assumptions that encourage submission, repression, and renunciation of women.” Yet, he argues that Little Women renounces men by portraying them as powerless boys. The lack of a strong male allows male readers no access to the novel. Male readers view the March girls similar to the voyeuristic Laurie looking in their window. Susina’s dependence on a strong male as a necessity for being a male reader contradicts the idea that the power of literature is that it allows us to empathize with others regardless of gender or other labels. (Or referring back to the 1869 article, it is supposed to be a book for girls.) But Susina does further complicate issues of gender surrounding the text of Little Women and continues the life giving process.
Through the scholarship we see a complex network develop around the novel. An autobiographical, cultural and political web supports the text through time and renews its life. The novel becomes a node in a web unable to exist without the discourse surrounding it.
So classics are understood across time in a relationship within a context. The context is the relationship between a reader within a time and place and a text. Individual readers interpret texts differently depending on how their perspective has been constructed. Some may value a classic because it reaffirms beliefs they hold. Modern readers may adore Little Women because it reinforces their cultural, political, and religious values; others may find it a vile text in a culture of indoctrination that subjugates women to a subservient role. Each reader is loyal to specific and individual beliefs that shade a text in an equally unique and specific way. A text is never read the same way, yet we attempt to make connections around our interpretations. We as readers for part of the web and sustain the life of the classic as well.
Little Women remained popular, and thus in print, because it advocated normative social behavior. Some men greeting one another on trains asking if they had read Little Women must have loved the book because it reaffirmed what they required to maintain a specific relationship of power over women. Some daughters may have loved it because Jo represented an alternative to their only possible path in life. The daughters must have cried a bitter and confused cry at the end, while their fathers smiled approvingly on the same last page.
However, as a classic grows old it is taken apart and its subtleties are examined. Although the same sequence of words on a pages, it becomes a far more complex text in relationship to the time and place in which it continues to exist. The examination and its discourse keep the classic alive, but it is a continually evolving creature. Furthermore, the classic takes on multiple lives. Little Women went from being the perfect Christmas gift to being a subversive text examined by feminist scholars. So the narrative of the classic is further sustained by the meta-narrative on its meaning.
I think the complexity of the ending of the novel helped to sustain interest in Little Women. The anticipation of Jo realizing independence or of agreeing to marry Laurie is severed by the marriage to Friedrich Bhaer. The knowledge that some readers had of Alcott wanting a different ending further complicated the readers’ relation to the novel’s ending. To me, it read like a tragedy. Jo’s hubris, her desire for independence, leads her to a point of desperation and her own symbolic death. We each approach this ending differently. The complexity of the ending, both within and outside of the text, gives it life by opening readers to discussion. When talking about Little Women with colleagues at school all conversation focused on the ending of the novel and Jo’s fate.
Scholarship changes because cultural mores change. Scholarship as a manifestation of ideology represents the ruling ideas. The normative behavior portrayed in the novel warranted its praise and popularity by the public and scholars. As reactions to patriarchal ideology developed, feminist scholarship represented this voice. Counters to the feminist voice continued the dialectic. A dialogue forms around classics through scholarship. The discourse and the classic sustain themselves in a symbiotic relationship.
Classics then must have a complexity of some type that will sustain this discourse and allow for continual transformation and renewal. However, classics begin as popular literature that is aligned with and affirms a dominant ideology. Discourse can reaffirm them or react against them; whichever it does, it sustains the classic.