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I was just wondering how the Civil War has influenced Alcotts writing, I know she wrote some a book about her experiences as a Civil War nurse and at the start of Little Women she mentions that their father was a chaplain. I've been reading her other books and there doesn't seem to be any mention about the Civil War or is it just cause it was published after the war? I dont really know.
Have you read work, a story of experience? Thats quiet differnt from her other loneger novels and ddefinatly involves the war. obviously their is little women, and the fact Mr March is away because of the war, which ends up having something to do with why they are poor and Jo cuts off her hair.
I seem to remeber reading somewhere that Alcott didnt belive in love and was an ardant feminist and blantantly addmited to writing stories that would sell and after a war, I really think people are looking for 'happy' stories.
An intresting thing about Alcott novels, is she always uses the same plot device a 'beloved' but not really important to the story charcter dies and this profoundly affects the principle charcters, although it doesnt always happen in the time line as it were, in eight cousins for instance roses' father dies just beofre the story begins but his dying is what leads to her meeting all of the rest of them and starting the story, and I dont know if youve read the sequeal so wont spoil that for you, but in little women it was the sister who dies Ive blanked. In an Old fashioned girl a character dies, in the key and what it opened again, jo's boys, little men, good wives-over and over again she uses the same device-, Jack and Jill, a modern cincderella, pretty much all of them.
I wonder if the war might be why death turns up so often?
Oh thanks youre right