jo and laurie

[kaye and carm]

why is everyone so worried about jo and laurie fighting if they get married? lots of couples fight! they have a solid friendship that would be marital bliss in such sexist times. did you know that one of the reasons that louisa may alcott made jo end up with the professor was because she never felt the close fatherly affection from her own dad? that why jo ended up with such a father figure. screw the whole "daughters choosing men who are like their fathers" go for the hot red blooded male!<br>ps: we hate bronson alcott

[soulsistachick]

To start off with I thought laurie and Jo should have been together but futher on in the books series: little men, good wives, Jos boys I realized that to spoil that unbreakable friendship wouldn't have been fair on all parties involved. Seeing the love that Mr Bhaer has for Jo ohhh it's just so sweet

[alejandra]

It just bothered me so much that they didn't end up together..... granted, when you read little men you understand better the whole thing.... but no.... Jo and LAurie were meant to be together.... why didn't they? I will never understand

[RJbibliophil]

It seemed to me while reading that they would get married later on in the book, but Jo knew it wasn't to be. Besides, Mr.Bhaer and Jo were made for each other. And Laurie is so happy with Amy.

[alejandra]

I never liked Amy....

[Alisija]

me, too. Amy is so... i don't know what to say... I just Don't like her.

[mrs lawrence]

to me amy was a spoilt little girl. she didnt deserve laurie!! jo and laurie were so perfect. i cant stand that proffessor:flare: i watched the movie and spent the rest of the weekend crying that laurie and jo lost out. it was almost heartbreaking but i am overemotional!!!!!!!!!:bawling:
shame.... and yes laurie is gorgeous...:)

[mazz]

this story is quite spiritual and yet you all seem to view it as just another soap opera... Just because he is cute doesn't mean Jo should have married laurie. He was her friend and fellow prankster and yes you do assume they will marry but they don't and that's what makes it a good story. Jo needs an intellectual match, someone who challenges her thoughts, next time you read the book think of Gabriel Byrne he is handsome and plays the role in the movie, and is a much better vision than the one in the book.

[Sibyl]

I think Jo and Laurie were perfect together and while the professor may have been what Jo needed at the time (to teach her, to guide her and all that jazz), to me he didn't represent love. Laurie was passionate, yes even too much at times, but he was young... and I feel like Amy's so wrong for him.

[alejandra]

I still feel that Laurie was right for Jo in every aspect..... the professor.... I don't know.... he was fine but he was too much of a father figure from my point of view....

[booksbuddy]

I also think that jo and laurie must be to-gether but.........

Jo hadn't done right by refusing Laurie on the context that they have similiar behaviour and will end up fighting all day inspite of Lauries's saying"You can mould me as you want to,Jo"

Laurie always liked Jo.Whatever she says or whatever she does.I don't know what louisa had thought while doing this.

Secondly,Amy,she was the most idiotic character in the novel.She refused to come back when beth,her loving sister was dying and was busy in her affair with laurie.Means it's totally rubbish!!!!

I think Louisa wants Professor type husband for herself in real life that's why she had done that as in her real life she didn't married anyone.But she had created a great deal of emotional controversy.I really felt so emotionally depressed after reading till i didn't started another one.

[alejandra]

I agree..... Laurie was so understanding with Jo.... I don't believe in the whole opposites atract thing.... yes they opposites are attracted to each other but after a while it only causes trouble.... Talking from personal experience it is not too bad to fall for someone just like you....
Anyway I also liked the professor, he was fine, but why did Laurie had to end up with Amy! That's what really bothered me.

I never saw it from the perspective that you pointed out, booksbuddy, I thought it was interesting

[booksbuddy]

One more thing i had felt in laurie and Amy's relationship that they were praising eachother so artificially and upon the things that really don't deserve a praise.Means their relationship seems like artificial.

Secondly,Louisa hadn't mentioned details of Amy and laurie,their love came sudden in the novel as both were not having any such previous feeling for each other.Louisa had made haste in completing last scenes of novel especially,amy and laurie's sudden love story.

But,inspite of all this,it was really a good novel to read.

[ladyflorange]

I was never bothered by the fact that Jo and Laurie don't end up together. For me that was never the point of the book, I never thought that they were going to be together. Laurie and Amy suit far better, and I don't think that it's true that they don't have any feelings for each other until they get engaged, it's just that the whole Laurie loving Jo thing is built up much more, and the whole point of Laurie loving Amy is that it is sudden - he suddenly realises it, so it makes sense that it's not built up that much, and I think that makes it all the more beautiful. The bit where he proposes on the lake always brings a tear to my eye. I also think that Jo ends up being happy with the professor in a way that she would never have been happy with Laurie. Basically, I just love the way the story pans out, and out of all the characters, I have to say it's Meg, not Amy, that's my least favourite. She always seems so one dimensional... but that's just me.

[JosephineMarch]

I think Professor Bhaer was the perfect person for Jo, he could balance out her qualities, but Laurie could not, this was the reason she turned him down, and he (Laurie), like Jo, had a quick temper. To Kaye and Carm on the "lots of couples fight!" comment: It is one thing for a pair to quarrel every now and again, but when they both have tempers it is easy for one person to provoke the other, this would have meant that arguing would have been frequent. And, as a result, they (Jo and Laurie) would have been unhappy in the end. If they did marry it would have eventually gone downhill.

[EmeraldZen]

I disagree. Prof Bhaer was a father like figure who basically was inserted into the novel by Alcott to please her publishers and created a boring conventional marriage for Jo. There's very little passion there...and whatever existed is completely gone by Little Men and Jos Boys.

Jo and Laurie have that fire, and spark, and deep connection through their already established beautiful friendship...yes if they had gotten married, they would have argued and faught every once in awhile. But this is what marriages of equality are about (certainly not what she had with Bhaer), and their passion (not just in the romantic sense, but overall) would have kept them deeply in love and fulfilled with their relationship.

Instead we have Jo married to Bhaer - she gives up her independence, her writing, and becomes a conventional wife and a teacher. She basically gives up her dreams...and I found that very sad.

[petaflop]

"...she knew that the boy Laurie never would come again..."

There may be sadder words in literature, but mention LMA and I can't think what they might be.

It was the old "loved him but not in love with him." He became her brother and her BFF when she was 15, and remained so forever.

About Amy, Laurie himself said it best:

"...when I saw her in Switzerland,
everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got into
your right places, and I felt sure that it was well off with the
old love before it was on with the new, that I could honestly
share my heart between sister Jo and wife Amy, and love them dearly..."

[kiki1982]

Though I've only read the bits with Prof. Baehr, it seems indeed that he was not really a man for Jo...

I'm not sure, he's very intelligent and all, but I think too much of a sentimental man for the feisty Jo. She stops writing almost because he tells her she's a lousy writer, I feel. The more I think about those two the more I feel it's a bit creepy. He would be a doting husband, but I think she would kind of regret the fact that she married someone who is not tickling her strong character. It would become a bit suffocating.
It's a bit like a Wentworth marrying Lizzie Bennet. It would never work.

[petaflop]

Wentworth marrying Lizzie Bennet

Oh, dear. I am now officially laid down upon the bed. Could someone please dab my temples with a bit of rosewater?

When you can, read Little Men and Jo's Boys
Miss Louisa channels her inner Tim Gunn and makes it work.