Everybody Needs a Good Foil

So I need to write before I forget all the things I was thinking about in class.  For one, I really believe in the idea that all these characters are bouncing off each other and none could really exist as the person they are without each other.  Lucky for me, although I do not have any sisters, I have an amazing best friend who manages to be the Meg to my Amy and the Beth to my Jo all at the same time.  And maybe she’s the Meg to my Jo as well, who knows? But I do know that when Amy desperately wants limes, Meg is there to tell her that you aren’t the worst person alive just because you want something for yourself.  And when Jo is worried that she’ll never get things right it is Beth who believes she can be whatever it is she wants to be.

But let’s not forget Marmee.  Let’s not forget the strength Marmee has in supporting all of her little women.  Isn’t she just amazing? I sure think so.  She teaches Meg how to be the domestic woman that also has a mind and the ability to be the support system her husband will need.  I do not think that this makes Marmee or Meg any less of a strong or even feminist woman.  Marmee doesn’t want Meg to be a simpleton, she wants her to be a wife who is a confidant, a friend, and a rock of support.  Marmee wants Jo to embrace her own spirit and intellect while also knowing that family will always be the center of her strength.  Marmee lets Beth know that it is OK to have fear as long as one has faith.  As for Amy, Marmee is both supportive yet firm in order to teach her that while it is fine to be silly in one’s youth it is more than necessary to grow out of it at some point.

Now, without any segueway (sp?)  at all, I love Professor Bhaer.  I totally by it.  Unfortunately I think the film adaptation we just watched doesn’t do him justice.  (You will see when we reach the 1994 version that I will have MUCH more to say)  Anyways, when I first read and reread Little Women I knew that Jo and Laurie could not and would not end up together.  Sure they were great friends, but as lovers they would kill each other.  Jo wasn’t ready to be tied down by Laurie because he wasn’t strong enough.  Jo does need someone who will challenge her and who will be like a father figure.  As for Laurie, I think him and Amy make perfect sense.  Amy grows up to be a woman who will not only fit into Laurie’s world but will compliment his personality.  While perhaps outwardly she seems to be the delicate arm candy Jo predicts Laurie will marry, I truly feel that she inspires him to be all that he can be.  Laurie couldn’t have ever really changed to suit Jo because she wouldn’t let him.  She wanted him to be her Laurie, her childhood friend forever.  Amy not only allows Laurie to grow up, she insists upon it.  So while Laurie is being forced to grow up, Jo is having her eyes and her heart opened up by the older and wiser Professor – whom, I might add, I pictured as a handsome gentlemen not a silly old fool like in the 1933 version.

So in summation, I couldn’t imagine the novel (or film adaptations) without ANY of the March girls and I truly feel that Professor Bhaer was not well done in this version.