As a favorite Attic novel becomes yet another film, we’re getting into everything to do with Little Women and Louisa May Alcott. In this classic Attic on Eighth piece, we discuss the novel and its most recent adaptation by Greta Gerwig.

That Little Women is a much-loved text here at The Attic on Eighth is no secret. Shortly before the creation of the site, a couple of us got together back in 2016 to simultaneously reread the novel, talking our favorite points and bonding over our love of the timeless story. It isn’t a text for all, but it is one that can burrow its way into your soul for life once you’ve let it in. Written by Louisa May Alcott in the 1860s and published in two parts, Little Women in 1868 and Good Wives in 1869 (the two are often published together now, under the first title), Little Women is the novel that brought Alcott fame and that became the American novel for young women at the time. An immediate best seller, it never went out of print and has remained a classic ever since. It’s nearly impossible to grow up in an English speaking environment without encountering the novel or at least an adaptation of it at some point, and for those of us who love our period dramas… it is a must.

Unsurprisingly, Little Women has been adapted for the screen many times over the past century, the most notable occasions being the 1994 film by Gillian Armstrong (starring Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Christian Bale, Claire Danes, and a young Kirsten Dunst), the 2017 BBC/PBS miniseries (starring amongst others, Maya Hawke, Angela Lansbury, Emily Watson, and Michael Gambon), and now, a new film by Greta Gerwig (starring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, and Lauren Dern). Every one of these adaptations draws on different elements of the text, adopting different storytelling techniques, and ultimately proving time and again that Little Women is a timeless story, remaining fresh for generation after generation of actors, readers, and fans alike.

With Little Women on our minds this week with the recent release of the Gerwig film, six Attic writers – Olivia Gündüz-Willemin, Eliza Campbell, Lauren Olmeda, Milena le Fouillé, M.A. McCuen, and Jess Armstrong – are coming together to discuss the novel, the characters, and its adaptations.

Let’s begin…

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**How did you first discover Little Women? Did you read the novel as a child? Come across the 1994 film? Or only discover it as an adult?**

Olivia Gündüz-Willemin: Little Women came into my life when I was 7 or 8 years old. I read another of Alcott’s novels beforehand – Eight Cousins – and fell very much in love with her writing and style. I was already far gone into the period drama world by then, thanks in part to Frances Hodgson Burnett and a 1993 adaptation of The Secret Garden that I would watch over and over… and of course, thanks to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. Little Women felt like a step up from Wilder (and thankfully for us all, has aged much better). I read it over and over again, picking out favorite passages and illustrating favorite scenes. Shortly thereafter, I found the 1994 Gillian Armstrong adaptation and loved it just as much. Everything about the Little Women universe has been comforting to me since, and I’m always happy when another adaptation comes around because it feels like there are almost endless ways to interpret and adapt the text.

Lauren Olmeda: I read Little Women as a child, of course, but revisiting it a few years ago when we read it as a group was pure magic. For some reason I hadn’t latched onto it when I was young – not sure why, as it was exactly the type of book I’d have been drawn to.

M.A. McCuen: As an English teacher, I feel a bit embarrassed to admit I haven’t actually read Alcott’s text yet. But that doesn’t mean that Little Women doesn’t hold a fond place in my heart. I watched the 1994 version of Little Women when I was eight or so. I remember loving the cozy atmosphere of it. Then last year I also watched the 2017 BBC version as well. But honestly, I didn’t love any of the films as much as the most recent 2019 version.

Jessica Armstrong: Unlike Olivia and Lauren, Little Women did not picture as part of my childhood reading. Despite hearing lots about it in the hype building up to the recent film adaptation, I was entirely unfamiliar with the story until last month. It was chosen as a Book Club December read, and I was pleasantly surprised by the story. I hadn’t expected to enjoy it as much as I did!

Eliza Campbell: Little Women was barely on my radar until the summer of this year when the trailer for Greta Gerwig’s film was released! I’d certainly heard of it but had decided long ago that that kind of thing definitely wasn’t for me. But the trailer seemed so beautiful and fun that I picked up the novel and read it between August and November of this year. I was right to think that the book wasn’t for me, but I can appreciate why people love it now and have a fondness for it that wasn’t there before.

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The inescapable question – are you Meg, Jo, Beth, or Amy?

LO: I am Jo. I know that everyone thinks they’re a Jo, but I actually am. Loud personality, sometimes to the point of being rude/obnoxious. Always been a reader and a writer. Married my intellectual match. What more can I say?

MAM: I resonate the most with Jo. I love to write and teach. I have big dreams and I’m not keen on letting convention stand in my way. However, I think I have a bit of Meg in me, in that I have a very typical oldest sibling personality, and a bit of Amy in me, in that I love aesthetics and pretty things.

JA: My friends have likened me to Jo – passionate when needs must, loyal, and fiercely stubborn. However, I see myself in all of the sisters – dutiful like Beth, practical like Meg, and with Amy’s ambition. It’s difficult to choose!

OGW: Walking out of the film last week, my husband turned to me and said “Wouldn’t you say you’re a little bit of each of them?!” and I feel like that’s exactly the point. They each capture such personalities that it’s hard not to relate. In my heart though, I’m a little Amy and a little Beth. Growing up and reading the book for the first time, I was even younger than Amy, and art, not literature, was the most important thing. Girly, dramatic, pragmatic, easily upset, and always aesthetically preoccupied. I thought it wasn’t such a good thing to be, but now I’m not so sure. I really do feel Beth and her terror of the world too, though.

EC: The ones I most want to be like are Beth and Jo but I don’t think I’m like any of the sisters really.

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Have you seen the Greta Gerwig adaptation yet? What did you think? Any Favorite parts?

OGW: I personally really liked that Gerwig interwove the two timelines of the story together to create something new. Telling the story this way allowed it to age along with us and to put the creative process at the forefront of everything, rather than to just tell the tale chronologically. I also loved (most of) the casting, the aesthetics. Loved that Amy finally got the depth she deserved and that Beth was portrayed in such a fantastic way. I also really enjoyed that Bhaer was adapted in a super likable way.

Milena Le Fouillé: I loved nearly everything about the movie, but what stands out for me is Greta Gerwig’s incredible talent for casting and directing actors, a skill that is very often overlooked. Not only is everyone in the movie brilliantly cast, but every actor and actress interact very well with one another. I entered the movie worried that Florence Pugh’s charisma was going to crush her partners down, and even though I came out thinking of her as the true revelation of Little Women, she also let her partners shine. I was not looking forward to Emma Watson as Meg, as I’ve never connected with her as an actress (even though I think she’s a remarkable person and activist) and I did not even mind her acting in the movie. It is a real achievement on Greta Gerwig’s part.

LO: Like Olivia said, I loved the flashback aspect. It helped the viewer develop nostalgia that isn’t present in any other adaptation, or really even in the book itself, at least not to these heights. But I really loved every single minute of the film. The dialogue is fresh without feeling over-modernised, which is important. The clothes, the music, the hair (the HAIR!) – Greta Gerwig is just a genius.

MAM: I loved so much! I think one of my favorite parts is how real the characters felt. Even though it was a period piece, no one felt like they were doing “period acting,” it all felt like they were real, complex people, acting authentically. I loved Timothee Chalomet, Florence Pugh, and Saorise Ronan. After binging so much Grantchester last month, I was also excited to see James Norton as John. I was also a fan of the structuring of it: beginning at the end to set up Laurie and Amy so well, emphasizing Jo as a writer, and using flashbacks to draw out contrasts. It was so entirely lovely.

JA: I was utterly mesmerised throughout, but I love how Greta Gerwig frames the party scene, particularly the choreographing of Jo and Laurie’s alternative dance. For me, it captured the sense of carefree, childlike abandon – particularly as it runs parallel to the dance which is presented as a heavily orchestrated social construct. I also absolutely adored the aesthetics of the beach scene – here, the costuming, music, and cinematography come together to create a truly special moment.

OGW: That dance!!!!

EC: Every single costume and lighting choice! I thought some of the casting choices were excellent too.It just radiated passion and warmth and a true love for its source text (and also how the text had come to be viewed by the women that love it).

Dare I ask – any reservations?

MLF : This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really didn't like Amy's monologue ("don’t tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition"), not because it isn't true, but because I feel it had already been well established in previous scenes (especially the one where Aunt March tells a very young Amy that she's the only hope of her family) and because it bears no consequences (Amy ends up rejecting both Fred Vaughn and Laurie's initial proposal, which puts her at a great financial risk). I can't help but feel that the monologue was added to really insist on the fact that the movie was socially conscious and feminist, but without adding much emotional depth or stakes to the plot — something that Jo's monologue ("but I'm so lonely") did much better, in my opinion.

OGW: Hmm that’s an interesting point about Amy’s monologue. I do feel like quite a few things were too heavy handed in the way they tried to tie to current feminist discourse that would have been better off being simply shown rather than explicitly spelled out, for sure. This is definitely not going to be a popular opinion, but I personally hated how heavily Gerwig blurred the lines between Jo and Louisa May Alcott. I know it’s a thing people love and it’s more justified in Little Women than just about any other work of fiction, but I still don’t love it. Also, I will never ever get over Emma Watson being cast as Meg. I feel like she assassinated her character and her presence just feels like a rotten tooth in an otherwise flawlessly cast film.

LO: I love Laura Dern so much. But I don’t think she’s the right Marmee. I’m sorry!

EC: Emma Watson has never spoken a truer word than when Meg tells Jo she’s not a great actress.

Let’s talk aesthetics! Something Gerwig has mastered incredibly well in her film is the creation of the aesthetic world of the March family. Obviously that’s something we care about here at The Attic. What then were your favorite aesthetic elements?

LO: I want to live in this film. The New England scenery throughout the seasons is absolutely breathtaking, and Gerwig nailed winter especially. Christmas is my favourite time of year, so any scene with hanging dried oranges and lit candles on the tree spoke to me (despite the obvious dangers of lit candles on a Christmas tree!) And can we talk about the knitwear? I am going to make myself Jo’s beret soon.

MAM: I agree with Lauren. I also want to live in this film! I adored every bit of Amy in Paris. Belle Epoque Paris was gorgeous and lush. And that art studio? Dreaminess for days! The seaside scenes were also beautiful and one of the most beautiful settings that Gerwig assembled. The score also added so much and I know I’ll be using as go-to background music from now.

OGW: Honestly, same. I know the aesthetics weren’t flawless or even historically accurate (the hair!!!), but they feel like the visual embodiment of comfort. I want all the patterns, the knitwear, the wallpaper. The cakes. And yeah, Jo’s beret. My favorite visual element though was a scene of Amy, where she was wearing a white floral gown, sitting in the grass and painting in Paris. My favorite painting of all time is Monet’s “Femmes au jardin” and it’s a painting I used to use as a child as visual inspo for Little Women, painting Amy as the woman who’s sitting in the grass. The scene in the film, featuring a very similar gown, felt like it popped out of my childhood drawings and felt like a personal clin d’oeuil that’s going to stay with me for a long time.

JA: I’m in total agreement with everyone else – if Little Women was an alternative universe, I’d be relocated immediately. Like Lauren, I adored the seaside scenes, but what really stood out for me was the developing aesthetic of the March’s attic. I loved Gerwig’s juxtaposition of its initial function as the location for the Pickwick Club, where the sisters consolidate their bond with Laurie, with its final location as Jo’s solitary writing space, and where she admits her loneliness to Marmee. While it mightn’t be the most beautiful aesthetic, I loved how it serves as a place for creativity and passion throughout the film. The candles, bare wooden floorboards and strewn papers will always take me back to writing essays as a student under a flurry of inspiration!

EC: As everyone says, it’s just a gorgeous film! I was a particular fan of the costumes (Jo and Laurie’s clothes swapping made my heart break in half). Jo’s bobble beret and Amy’s gorgeous blue dress in the first scene spring to mind in particular.

Let’s discuss the ending of the film. Gerwig went down a slightly ambiguous path with the way she ended her film, interweaving scenes of her pursuit of Freidrich Bhaer and the publication of her novel, allowing for the implication that Jo does not actually marry Bhaer at the end, only writing such an ending for publication. Did you see the end of the film this way, or did you interpret it in a way that was closer to the text of the novel?

OGW: I appreciate the interpretation and like that the ending can be read differently. I know so many people see themselves in Jo, and imagining her as a modern character… I can see it. Personally though, I really like what the film did with Bhaer – casting Louis Garrel was inspired and finally making him feel younger and like an intellectual match for Jo was just… great. So in my book, “Under the Umbrella” definitely happened.

MLF : I’m really biased, Louis Garrel being my childhood crush, but I couldn’t possibly imagine Jo turning down Freidrich Bhaer in this version. Have you seen him? At one point in the movie, one of the characters comments on the fact that he is very handsome, and every single people at my screening burst out laughing, because yeah, that’s what we had been thinking all along. I also feel that casting Garrel in that role was smart, because the fact that English is his second language explains, if not excuses, the extreme bluntness with which he criticizes Jo’s work at the beginning of their relationship. The movie does a very good job of establishing the importance of an honest reader in a young author’s life. Freidrich makes it very clear that he does not have any talent or literary ambition himself, but that he will always support Jo and provide constructive criticism of her work. His character completes Jo’s arc , and for that reason, I choose to believe that Jo actually ends up with him – disheveled kiss under the umbrella and all.

LO: Ooh, I didn’t see it this way! To me it felt more like Jo had finally realised she could want both things in her life: a partner and a published work. She didn’t want to give up her original principles in her own book, as evidenced in the scene where she states that if she’s going to sell her heroine into marriage she might as well get some money of her own. But I think the film implies that Jo found peace in her decision to be with Friedrich – I definitely believe the umbrella scene is real and not just a scene from her book!

MAM: I read about this interpretation after and I know for some viewers that interpretation was so empowering, but that wasn’t how I saw it. To me, it was quite empowering to see that she could have both – a marriage and her dreams. When her publisher encouraged Jo to add the umbrella scene, I took that to be advice that opened her up to the idea of love in her own life story as well. I did truly love the final scene of the film where Jo has her school, her sisters, her love, and her writing. How truly uplifting to see envision a future where women can a full life of their dreams? It seemed simply idyllic to me.

JA: I am in complete agreement with everyone else - when I read about this interpretation, I was slightly baffled! I had never considered the turn of events it that way, but like Lauren, had viewed it as exemplifying Jo’s realisation that it would be possible to have the best of both worlds: a profession, and someone to share that with. I also refuse to see the impassioned umbrella scene and gloriously nostalgic final moments as a mere page filler.

EC: I think it’s interesting that people think the scene in the rain was so important to the end because I didn’t see it in that way at all (I am a LW novice but that part of the book read a little more dreamy and unreal than the rest of the romances). What stuck with me most at the end was the way Gerwig places emphasis on all kinds of love and how women can have them all or choose certain ones. Familial love, platonic love, romantic love, love for one’s work. It’s all there as the credits roll. I think the way that the film is crafted at the end emphasizes that choice.

Finally, what do you think of the way that people sometimes use Jo as a stand-in for Louisa May Alcott herself, claiming that Jo is Louisa, and thus applying facts of the writer’s life to her character’s?

JA: Biographical context is an element of literary critique which has always fascinated me. While we can certainly draw parallels with Jo’s fictitious and Louisa’s life circumstances, such as Louisa and Jo’s writing of sensational stories under a synonym, and both having three sisters, I think it is always a blurry line of enquiry.

While Jo proclaims that Little Women is a story about “my life, and my sisters”, I think Little Women as a novel obviously will not capture Louisa’s life verbatim, but could definitely be considered a means of exploring and reflecting upon her experiences.

OGW: I loved the writing scenes and the publishing scene in feeling and visual aesthetics, but I think it went a bit too far. It’s possibly silly, but it was the “J.L. March” stylization on the cover of the book in the film, with the two initials, that sent me.

EC: I think applying an author’s biography to any fictional character is a risky game because you have to both ignore and add a lot at the same time. From the writing I definitely got that LMA saw herself in Jo but then again I think she sees herself in all her characters. Adaptation has to have something new to say about a work, or at least a bit of a manifesto on how a work should be read, and I think Gerwig’s creative hypothesis brought something new to what is a very old text and I appreciate that.

Olivia Gündüz-Willemin is Editor-in-Chief of The Attic on Eighth. She is dedicated to reading her way through the world and trying to stay as calm as possible.

Eliza Campbell is Culture Editor at the Attic on Eighth. When she’s not reading, writing, or in a rehearsal room she loves to sit in galleries, libraries, and coffee shops listening to period drama soundtracks and watching the world go by.

Lauren Olmeda holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international relations. She works in public affairs in Dublin, Ireland and is Editor-at-Large of the Attic on Eighth.

Milena Le Fouillé is an art historian based in Paris, France, with a specialty in nineteenth and twentieth century art and a strong taste for mythology, fairy tales and legends. She's probably hiding in a museum's cafeteria right now, reading a novel when she really should be working.

M. A. McCuen is a secondary English literature teacher based in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally from Michigan, she has a BA in English and French from University of Notre Dame and a M.Ed from Creighton University. Having previously lived in France and Ireland, she spends her scant free time plotting ways to travel the world on her teachers salary.

A self described student for life, Jessica Armstrong left one university for another, and now works in Belfast. When she isn't trying to reduce her caffeine intake or levels of sarcasm, she can probably be found trying to get through as many Victorian tomes as possible.

Discussing Little Women

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How did you first discover Little Women? Did you read the novel as a child? Come across the 1994 film? Or only discover it as an adult?

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