SOURCE: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Little Woman," Children's Literature. Vol. 17, 1989, pp. 81-97.

In the following essay, Clark discusses Alcott's ambivalence toward the role of writing, particularly as self-expression, in Little Women.

Alcott as submissive, Alcott as subversive, Alcott as ambivalent—these are dominant themes in recent reflections on Louisa May Alcott.¹ The same themes appear in Alcott's own writing about writing, when she writes about Jo March. Though Alcott gives some play to subversive ideas of self-expression, her overt message is that girls should subordinate themselves and their language to others. A little woman should channel her creativity into shaping the domestic space or shaping her soul. She can enact Pilgrim's Progress and learn to live as a Christian—to live by God's Word, or by John Bunyan's word, not by her own.²

Nineteenth-century male authors send a very different message to their readers. Jan...