Author: Niina Niskanen
Narrator: Niina Niskanen
Unabridged: 0 hr 40 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 10/31/2023
Join me on a journey to study Amy March and her real-life inspiration May Alcott Nieriker. The misconceptions about Jo´s insecurities and especially about her looks. Society likes to put two characters against one another but is this true to reality? Find out that and more in the Little Women podcast.
People often praise Jo for being a tomboy and how she rejects femininity, but Jo´s idealization of the masculine has very toxic elements. Amy is a character who is more governed by her brain, whereas Jo is in fact governed by her emotions, which is considered a feminine trait. In the novel, Jo struggles to show her feelings because she considers that weak and "feminine". When their father is wounded in the war she shouts to her sisters not to cry. A couple of years later Laurie says that she doesn't show emotions and calls her out about it. Because Jo tries to shut down an important human part of herself, simply because she considers it feminine, is actually something that slowly eats her inside and contributes to her loneliness. This is why the umbrella chapter is so important because Friedrich says to Jo that it is okay to be vulnerable.
Amy does the opposite. She considers rational marriage with Fred Vaughn because it allows her to secure her family´s financial future. When Laurie reminds Amy that she is her mother´s daughter, and she simultaneously inspires Laurie to become a productive member of society, Amy allows herself to listen to her heart and her own feelings and allowing herself to become more open and it is this inner work that the couples do in Little Women, that makes these relationships work.
Unfortunately, the adaptations rarely pay any attention to this. There are people who have not read the novel, have only seen the films, and don´t understand why the couples end up together. This is because the adaptations, never bother to show what actually happens between these people in the novel.
The CliffsNotes study guide on Turgenev's Fathers and Sons supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries...
There was a real-life Friedrich Bhaer. In fact, Louisa May Alcott wanted to marry him and even start a school with him. This man appears in literal disguises in all of her novels. He is Friedrich in Little Women, Mac in Rose in Bloom and David in Wo...
Little Women Podcast examines the intersections in Louisa May Alcott´s Little Women. Hosted by Alcott essayist Niina Niskanen with regular visits from literal scholars and Little Women fans.This is what the listeners say about Little Women Pod...
Nigerian novelist and professor Chinua Achebe was acutely conscious that Western views of Africa were inevitably the views of a culture that assumed itself superior. When confronted by what it took to be an inferior culture, the West identified itse...
Emily and I combined our powers once again to discuss Jo's and Friedrich's relationships and Louisa May Alcott's attraction toward intelligence. When Friedrich gives feedback to Jo, Jo appreciates it, because she wants to develop as a writer. ...
Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a woman (or, for that matter, a man) to choose to wear them? Meditat...
A Chekhov Humoresque includes:"The Proposal" starring: Jo Anne Worley, Marvin Kaplan and Richard Herd."Tobacco" starring: Paul Keith."The Boor" starring: Samantha Eggar, Charles Shaughnessy, and Tom Williams.
Fear is one of the most primal human emotions, and one of the hardest to reason with and dispel. So why do we scare ourselves? It seems almost mad that we would frighten ourselves for fun, and yet there are thousands of books, films, games, and othe...
Uncover the theories behind the Master of Horror's macabre tales: It, The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, Misery, Pet Semetary, and so much more!Gothic media moguls Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence, authors of The Science of Monsters and The Science of Women i...