Keywords
film adaptation, cinema, reader-response theory, self-recognition, enchantment
Abstract
Despite the cinematic success of Greta Gerwig’s 2019 Little Women, literary scholars have yet to compare Gerwig’s directorial moves to Louisa May Alcott’s nineteenth-century novel. Relying on reader-response theory and peer-reviewed literature relevant to Alcott’s text, I examine Gerwig’s statements in interviews following the production of her film, focusing on comments that speak to her subjective response as a reader of Alcott’s novel. Rather than apply reader-response theory to this discussion broadly, I concentrate on what reader-response theorists call self-recognition and enchantment within the context of Gerwig’s response to Alcott’s Little Women. Further acknowledging this paper’s limitations, I narrow its scope to the director’s portrayal of Jo March’s literary ambition within the public sphere. In doing so, I conduct a close reading of the adaptation’s opening and closing scenes, which resituate Jo centerstage, comparing those scenes to similar passages in Alcott’s novel. While Gerwig’s film is arguably heavy-handed in its recontextualization of much of the book, as critics observe, this paper argues that Gerwig’s film is less of an objective reflection of Alcott’s Little Women and more a vivid portrayal of Gerwig’s own self-recognition and enchantment as an Alcott-loving reader.
Issue and Volume
19.1
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Wells, Britney R.
(2026)
"Jo March and "Me": Self-Recognition and Enchantment in Greta Gerwig's Portrayal of Literary Ambition in Little Women,"
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 19:
Iss.
1, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol19/iss1/1