LangLit

IMPACT FACTOR – 5.61 ISSN 2349-5189

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JO MARCH: AN UNORTHODOX PROTAGONIST OF LOUISA MAY
ALCOTT
MR. OMKAR N. INAMDAR
MIT College, Alandi
‘Ashiyana’ Building, Flat No.5,
Sector-24, Nigdi, Pune.
Pin- 411044.

ABSTRACT
Louisa May Alcott is the most famous writer of Little Women (1868), a
partially autobiographical novel that defines girlhood, womanhood and
family. This novel has given a new direction to brighten the future of many
women since the Victorian era. It made Louisa to get the title ‘a domestic
goddess’. Jo March, protagonist of Little Women is Alcott's greatest invention-
an unorthodox protagonist. Jo, the tomboy, is most similar to Louisa. Louisa
and Jo are both spirited souls who love to read and write. Like Jo, Louisa
wasn’t interested in marriage. Writing was her biggest passion, as was Jo’s.
What sets Little Women apart from other novels is the young woman character
at its center- Jo March, but her character is Louisa Alcott. Jo March is a
dazzling and original invention: bold, outspoken, brave, daring, loyal,
unorthodox, and real. She wishes she were a boy: to speak her mind, go where
she pleases, learn what she wants to know, to follow her heart — in other
words, to be free. Jo’s March family was closely modeled on the Alcott’s own
family. Jo March matches her creator’s fertility of her imagination and fancy.
Like Jo, the young Louisa always burned with genius, spinning tales of murder
and treachery one minute, fairy tales and sentimental poetry the next. Jo
never pay heed to world’s convention about women, her beauty, attire. After
even 150 years of publication of Little Women, Jo’s magic on adolescent girls
is still intact.

Keywords: Jo March, Outspoken, Imaginative, Unorthodox, Writer

Classic literature stands on the test of time. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women qualifies this
test as it’s still read after 150 years by the children from all corners of the world and still it’s
never out of print. Louisa’s Little Women (1868) paved the way for the genre of juvenile
literature and women writers. Louisa conveys the story of four adolescent March sisters
coming of the age and their mother inculcating domestic values in them. Each girl possesses
various feminine artistic talents except Jo, who intruded in the so called masculine talent of
writing. Her sisters always praised her, “I don’t see how you can write and act such splendid
things Jo. You’re a regular Shakespeare!” (Alcott, 1868: 230). Her purpose of writing was
basically monetary, “I think, I shall write books, and get rich and famous: that would suit me,
so that is my favourite dream.” (Ibid: 314).

Little Women and Good Wives are classic juvenile novels published in the late nineteenth
century. The books deal with the lives, loves and marriages of four sisters- Meg, Jo, Beth and
Amy growing up during the American Civil War. The character Jo is thought to be based on

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Louisa herself. Jo is a tomboy who never follows female values, traditions, and conventions.
She has a strong passion for writing and aims at entering the man’s world by choosing a
writing career at a time when this was not common and socially acceptable for woman.

Jo’s indomitable spirit is contrary to Victorian standard of women or girls. Protagonist, Jo’s
character is lively and determined. Jo and her mother, Mrs. March are symbol of strong,
independent women. In describing the protagonist in Little Women, Elaine Showalter in
"Behind a Mask." In Alternative Alcott observes, “Heroine Jo March has become the most
influential figure of the independent and creative American woman.” (Showalter , 1988: 1).

It is considered that Jo was embodiment of Louisa herself. Louisa’s personality traits were
reflected in Jo’s characterization. Louisa was moody, angry, and independent as a adolescent
girl and so was Jo. Jo eventually succeeds in controlling her anger with the help of Marmee
and finally surrenders some of her independence in marriage to Prof. Bhaer. On this point
Alcott's life differs from Jo's, as Louisa remained spinster throughout her life. Louisa wanted
the same fate for Jo, but finally she succumbed for readers’ and publisher’s will.

Jo's refusal to be a traditional "little woman" is clearly seen in the starting of the novel, and
that is the thing which attracts many readers towards this character. This independent and
tomboyish nature shows Jo is mirror image of Alcott. Jo’s rebellious nature is revealed when
she shortens her Victorian name ‘Josephine’ into the more boyish "Jo." Jo prefers "strong
words that mean something" and declares, "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss
March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl,
anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment
in not being a boy" (Alcott, 1868: 5). Here one can say that Jo is mouthpiece of Alcott.

Louisa’s nightmare was losing her sisters to other families due to marriage. Louisa felt she
might somehow be able to control this problem if she could only be a boy. Thus for her the
family would remain intact; no heart-breaking choices would have to be made. In lamenting
Meg's relationship with John Brooke, Jo exclaims, "Oh deary me! Why weren't we all boys?
Then there wouldn't be any bother" (Ibid: 295). Here she opens her heart and reminds us that
in her real life also she lamented the same way on her elder sister’s marriage.

Louisa was ahead of time in her views. Contrary to Victorian era, Alcott wanted her women's
choices to seem like more than just getting married; she wanted those choices to be made
freely and to reflect other options. Those options include a less-than-perfect Jo. Alcott
describes Jo as "very tall, thin, and brown, [she] . . . reminded one of a colt, for she never
seemed to know what to do with her long limbs. . . . [with] a decided mouth, a comical nose,
and sharp, gray eyes." Jo's "one beauty" is her "long, thick hair" but she resists this beauty, by
making sure it is "bundled into a net, to be out of her way" (Ibid: 5).

Alcott concludes her description of Jo by noting that she has "the uncomfortable appearance
of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it" (Ibid: 5-6). Martha
Saxton in her Louisa May Alcott- A Modern Biography says that, “Jo, then, represents
everything the young Louisa was before her illness caused her to lose her hair and find pain
at even the simplest act of writing.” (Saxton, 1995: 267). Indeed, Jo was stormy in a way that
Louisa was not encouraged to be, but might have strongly yearned for; the most frequent

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verb that Alcott uses to describe Jo's speech in this first part is "exclaimed." Jo's
characterization differs from proper domestic role as a young Victorian woman- she whistles,
exclaims “Christopher Columbus” and so on.

The proper traditional, orthodox Victorian female was expected to be quiet, shy and modest,
and the young Jo refuses to follow any such traits. In fact, everything Jo does seems
deliberately calculated to ruin her female perfection. Her cloths don’t follow norms of
Victorian women attire. Even her efforts at cooking turn out to be disaster. Most often Jo
resists the role of the proper lady, but even when she does go all out to play that role she gets
herself into trouble. In the chapter titled "Calls," Amy instructs Jo in how to be the proper
Victorian woman: "just be calm, cool, and quiet - that's safe and ladylike, and you can easily
do it for fifteen minutes" (Alcott, 1868: 268). Jo takes this advice to heart, remarking that
she's "played the part of the prim young lady on the stage." She sits "with every limb
gracefully composed, every fold correctly draped, calm as a summer sea, cool as a snow
bank, and silent as a sphinx…” (Ibid: 269). Jo has succeeded so well with her performance
seems boringly perfect.

Ann Douglas in Louisa May Alcott". American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies
remarks, "Jo suffers for every mistake; a few rude words cost her a trip to Europe" (Douglas,
1979: xviii), since Jo tells Aunt March, "I don't like favors, they oppress and make me feel
like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent" (Alcott, 1868:
275). Jo suffers due to her behaving the way she's supposed to and for being outspoken.

Still, Jo's unwillingness to play the part of the perfect Victorian woman is not her biggest
flaw. Her most crucial characteristic flaw, is her anger, the one that she eventually learns to
control, if not conquer, which is most dramatically illustrated during her confrontation with
Amy. Louisa depicts Jo’s character as "Jo had the least self-control, and had hard times trying
to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble. Poor Jo tried
desperately to be good, but her bosom enemy was always ready to flame up and defeat her"
(Alcott, 1868: 70).

Amy, who is temperamentally the most like Jo of all the sisters, due to that two are indulged
themselves in a number of quarrels. In the worst of these, Amy burns Jo's "little book" of
fairy stories, and Jo vows to "never forgive [her] as long as I live." Marmee cautions Jo to not
"let the sun go down on your anger," but Jo refuses, saying, "It was an abominable thing, and
she does not deserve to be forgiven" (Ibid: 73). All of these angry words ending in Amy
crashing through literal and figurative thin ice- she has pushed the "thin ice" of Jo's temper,
and almost drowns in the lake due to melting ice when she follows Jo and Laurie.

The near-tragedy of Amy's drowning, resulting as it does from Jo's anger, compels Jo to
introspect and she realizes her mistake. Thus under the guidance of Marmee she tries to
rectify her flaw and curb her temper. She declares that the biggest of her problems is her
"dreadful temper…You don't know, you can't guess how bad it is! It seems as if I could do
anything when I'm in a passion; I get so savage, I could hurt anyone and enjoy it. I'm afraid I
shall do something dreadful some day, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me" (Ibid:
75). This control of rage is encouraged by Mrs. March who reveals that "being angry nearly
every day of [her] life" (Ibid: 75) and learned to control it. Jo's fear reminds us of Alcott's

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worries about her own short tempered nature. Thus Jo is so afraid of her temper that she
resolves to conquer it- and by the end of the novel, she succeeds in part.

Persona’s conflict with the self is another feature of Jo’s character. When Beth dies, there is
an apparent struggle in Jo’s personality. Jo tries to take Beth's place and become a non-
person. Jo diverts her anger, irritation, frustration, her sadness, into writing for her family,
"with no thought of fame or money, and put[s her] heart into it" (Ibid: 398). She becomes a
woman who can control her anger, who supports the family by teaching rather than writing,
and who become mother to entire household of boys in Little Men and Jo's Boys. Thus, critics
point out that in many ways Jo is not Louisa's alter ego and the character she would have
liked to have been: she is Louisa's nemesis. Jo remains a complicated persona, part Alcott and
part make-believe. This is why we find such an irresistible temptation to believe that Jo and
Louisa is the same person.

Like Alcott, Jo writes and abandons writing gothic potboilers, sensational fiction. Jo and
Alcott both declare their intentions never to marry. Clearly, there are few similarities between
Jo and Alcott, but, as much as we would like them to be, they are not the same person.

The most significant difference between Jo and Louisa can be seen in Jo's eventual
acceptance of her expected feminine domestic role finally as opposed to Alcott's refusal to
marry and insistence on supporting her family with the money she made through writing.
Alcott continues writing until the end of her life. Jo's reason behind writing sensational
fiction is that she wanted to support her family. Saxton quotes in Alcott’s words: "Though an
Alcott I can support myself. I like the independent feeling; and though not an easy life, it is a
free one, and I enjoy it. I can't do much with my hands; so I will make a battering ram of my
head and make a way through this rough-and-tumble world" (Saxton, 1995: 210). Alcott, like
Jo, wrote to support her family.

Alcott created a perfect version of herself in Jo, and a perfect embodiment from the point of
view of her father, in the largely absent Mr. March. Jo enacts the role Louisa refuses.
Eventually, Louisa became frustrated with the public's insistence that she must be Jo and
complained: "Why people will think Jo small when she is described as tall I don't see; and
why they insist that she must be young when she is said to be 30 at the end of the book." (qtd.
in Saxton 349). Still, Alcott's reading public wanted her to be Jo, and as a result, they often
assumed that Jo and Louisa was the same person, as this letter from a young fan illustrates in
Letters: “We have been reading Little Women, and we liked it so much I could not help
wanting to write to you. We think you are perfectly splendid; I like you better every time I
read it. We were all so disappointed over your not marrying Laurie . . . we all liked Laurie . .
.” (Ibid: 324).

In Little Women and Good Wives, Jo March, the protagonist, the second oldest sister among
the Match sisters, has been regarded by critics as an exceptional character contrary to typical
nineteenth century domestic woman.

Jo’s rejection of conventional female identity

At the beginning of the novel, Jo exclaims: “It’s bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like
boy’s games and work and manners. I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a

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boy…go and fight with papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman!”
(Alcott, 1868: 9). Jo clearly demonstrates that she wants to be the man of the family, not the
little woman; she wants to be a soldier in the army, and not a seamstress.

Her denial to accept a traditional role is also displayed in her dislike and changing of her
name. This is depicted in chapter three when Jo encounters Laurie at the Gardiners’ New
Year’s ball party. As Laurie calls Jo “Miss March”, Jo replies “I’m not Miss March, I’m only
Jo… I hate my name, too—so sentimental! I wish everyone would say Jo, instead of
Josephine” (Alcott, 1868: 32). As she sees herself as the only man in her family, she
consciously often “plays a masculinized role.” This can be seen in her strong desire to
protect her family and keep it together at all costs.

When Jo publishes her maiden story and receives the appreciation of her family and the
future prospect of payment for her next stories, she is enthralled: “I shall write more … and I
am so happy, for in time I may be able to support myself and help the girls”. (Ibid: 151). Thus
she has the potential to become a breadwinner for her family. When she wins a hundred
dollars for writing a sensation story, through her prize money she buys Beth and her mother a
vacation at the seaside, and her other writing also buy the family basic necessities. Jo thus
depicts her power as a writer as well as her potential to serve as the ‘man’ of the family.

Jo’s attitude toward beauty

Compared to Jo, Meg the oldest of the March sisters is aptly fitting in conventional Victorian
domestic sphere, much more lady-like, and has many feminine qualities. As an eldest sister,
she follows Marmee’s footstep, she tries to mother her younger sisters. But she also possesses
Victorian vices- She loves beautiful, luxurious things and is concerned about her gesture,
posture and attire. Thus Meg yearns to be ‘real lady’ as per Victorian domestic parameters.

In contrast, Jo as a typical tomboy, unlike Meg and most girls of her age, she “never troubles
herself much about dress” (Ibid: 30). Jo constantly shows her lack of interest in beauty and
elegance by her behaviour. She defiantly asserts that: “I don’t believe that fine young ladies
enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burnt hair, old gowns,…”(Ibid: 36).
All these things don’t matter for her. “If people care more for my clothes than they do for me,
I don’t wish to see them.” (Ibid: 273). The implication is that she is more concerned with
internal qualities than external.

Jo’s unconventional language

Jo’s language again depicts her unconventionality and non-femininity. Unlike her sisters Jo
uses so called slang language. This can be observed at the very beginning of the novel. “Jo
does use such slang words! … I detest rude, unlady-like girls” protests Amy, the youngest
March sister. However, Jo insists: “that’s why I do it” (Ibid: 9). We can see that she realize
and even understands that slang and “strong words” are not appropriate language for a lady
but she likes such expressions showing her desire to be a tomboy.

Louisa introspects herself through Jo’s persona when she says, “A quick temper, sharp
tongue and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups
and downs, which were both comic and pathetic” (Ibid: 67). This can be seen in the scene in
which Jo and Amy meet Aunt Carrol and Aunt March who want to test the two and decide

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which of them should be offered the opportunity to accompany Aunt Carroll to Europe. In
being asked questions by Aunt Carrol, Amy acts herself to being nice and agreeable by
docilely answering : “yes, aunt …”, “I’m willing to”… while Jo gives her vent to irritation in
a serious of decided remarks on the topic of patronage by saying “I hate to be patronized… I
don’t like favors … I’d rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.”(Ibid:
283). Aunt Carroll was not satisfied with Jo’s “blunt manners and too independent spirit”
(Ibid: 293). Thus Amy bags her reward-going abroad with Aunt Carroll, while Jo loses her
chance to go abroad even though she longs to go. Aunt Carroll’s denial of Jo reveals that
sometimes Jo would be more fit and appropriate in the man’s world rather than in the
women’s domestic sphere.

Is Jo’s dream of being a female writer realistic?

Jo’s dream of being a writer is characterized through various stages. The first stage is depicts
her uncertainty. That’s why she describes it as “Castle in the air” (Ibid: 138), and she hopes
that someday her dream will turn into reality. In the beginning, she does not see her dream as
feasible. After her first story is published, Jo’s passion for writing soars high and high. As the
narrator tells us: “when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon,
and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather”(Ibid: 252).

Josephine March, also known as Jo in domestic sphere was famous for rejecting the rules of
so called traditional society and was always following her heart. She persevered and finally
achieved her dream to become writer in so called male dominated field and era. Thus
untraditional character of Jo March is inspiration not only women of her age but for women
of all ages.

REFERENCES:
1. Alcott, Louisa M. Little Women, Boston: Robert Brothers, 1868.
2. Douglas, Ann."Louisa May Alcott". American Writers: A Collection of Literary
Biographies, New York: Scribner. 1979
3. Saxton, Martha. Louisa May Alcott- A Modern Biography: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
1995.
4. Showalter , Elaine . "Behind a Mask." In Alternative Alcott, American Women
Writers Series. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

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