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AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Keywords

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, feminist transcendentalism

Abstract

Little Women follows four sisters as they find their individual roles in society and their castles in the air. The children's story shows the rise of feminism through transcendentalism philosophy, shown by each daughter's work through their Pilgrim's Progress to perfect themselves, and to be a future benefit to their society. Their continual self-improvement remolds the transcendentalist philosophy to not only include women, but to confront and reform the ails of a society, whereas Emersonian transcendentalism limits itself to secluding to one's own provincial, albeit perceptive, thought. It is a change much needed in an era following the Civil War, calling for the inclusion and equality of all to create a happier world. Through its reformed, somewhat Margaret-Fuller-esque turn on transcendentalism, Little Women introduces the female transcendentalist to literature--several women who are not motivated by marriage or by pleasing a man but finding and perfecting themselves thereafter the world around them, through whatever role that may be.

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