I have finally finished the novel but did not read all of the afterword.  Towards the latter third of the book, it struck me that “Little Women” might be a deconstructionist work.  This idea caused me to pull out “The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms,” Second Edition by Ross Murfin and Supriyia M. Ray to either confirm or disproved my idea.  On p. 91, Murfin and Ray quote J. Hillis Miller (quoted as being the preeminent American deconstructor) in an essay called “Stevens’ Rock and Criticism as Cure” (1976) as stating that “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has alread dismantled itself.”  It goes on to state that deconstruction involves contradictory ideas standing next to each other.  So might not LW be a sort of tension-laden juxtaposition of text?  It is my understanding after reading the entry for deconstruction that Western cultures express themleves by means of binary opposition.  Examples include, but are not limited to, light/dark; presence/abscence; black/white and on an on ad nauseum.  In understanding this system of binary opposition, something (concept, noun, adjective, etc…) may be defined by what it is not.  For example, darkness is the absence of light.  In thinking about this concept, for lack of a prettier word, I remembered Dr. Campbell talking about how the sisters in LW yearn for family and the bonds it provides, as well as the yearning for independence and love and a life of their own.  When I apply a deconstructionist viewpoint to LW I see that perhaps it may just fit the definition.  They are women, not men, and so therefore not perceived as being readily able to attain the same rewards in life as men.  Yet somehow, they attain everything they want.  Even poor, pitiful Beth attains her sainthood in the end.  Father has gone off to war so they have only a mother who manages to effectively transport her charges through what is perhaps the most precarious and troubling times of their lives.  Further, they are not rich so they must be poor.  Poverty imbibes in them a grace of spirit and charity of heart not be felt by their wealthy peers. 

As a final matter, I just want to mention the tension aspect of the text.  It appears as if all of these binary juxtapositions infuse the text with tension.  It seems inevitable that if an entity is one thing and therefore not another, then tension must ensue.  I feel that this is a very surface-level discussion of deconstructionism and by no means do I mean to suggest that I am an expert in the field.  However, I feel strongly, that every worthwhile text contains deconstructionist elements.