Little Women

"Elizabeth Lennox Keyser's new study, Little Women: A Family Romance considers the book as exactly that; a romance. In writing Little Women, Alcott romanticized her own family, depicting it as she wished it had been rather than as it actually was. Keyser focuses on the dynamics of the family, especially on the sisters' relationship among themselves and with their mother and on what Freud calls "the liberation of an individual ... from the authority of his parents," a necessary but painful process. Finally, Keyser views Little Women, for all its realistic detail, as a romance in Nathaniel Hawthorn's sense, plumbing the depths of the human heart and interrogating the nature and possibility of human happiness." "As Keyser demonstrates, Little Women possesses the richness and complexity of great literature and can be successfully taught or discussed at almost any level. While children will continue to read Little Women for its sentimental portrayal of an idealized family, adults can challenge themselves by reflecting on the questions this work raises in their lives and about their own families."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved