A novel that was first written in 1868, over 150 years ago, Louisa May Alcott’s pioneering tale of four sisters and their domestic troubles in a time that was less than kind to women has become a staple in every decent bookcase across the country and, indeed, the world. Now, in 2019, Greta Gerwig has brought the March family into the modern era, with her on-screen adaptation.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Alcott’s book has been pushed off the page and onto our screens – it’s actually the eighth. But what Gerwig does that so many before have failed is she captures the powerful feminist message that was very much in play throughout the novel. She hasn’t forced any 21st century messages of feminism into the narrative not because they’d be out of place, but quite the opposite: they’re already there. Countless lines from the novel itself have been used in the movie, from Marmee’s “I’m angry almost every day of my life” to Amy’s perhaps naïve insistence that she wants “to be great or nothing”.
These Little Women were never anything of the sort; Alcott created a series of complex, ambitious, creative girls, all with different dreams and goals in life, all with varying degrees of “importance”. And yet, as Meg says, just because those dreams are different, doesn’t mean they are any less valid. Which is exactly the point that Alcott is trying to make: these young women have the power to do whatever it is they want with their life and it doesn’t matter what they choose, as long as they have the freedom to choose it for themselves. Women are more than just vessels for love; they are kind, passionate, caring, troubled, difficult, in all manner of speaking. In making the voice of society speak through the abhorrent Aunt Marge, both Alcott and Gerwig are demonstrating how they feel towards the pressure society places on young women to marry and have children – a pressure that has survived as long as the novel has.
Alcott has been continuously praised for capturing domestic life with her moments of intense sadness followed immediately with intense pleasure, and Greta Gerwig manages to seamlessly lift these flashes of humanity from the page and translates them for the screen. She has made Alcott’s writing accessible for those who, for whatever reason, do not engage with literature, and opens up a world for women, creatives, and romantics alike.
It is ironic, then, that perhaps Gerwig’s greatest masterpiece has been snubbed at the Golden Globes. Ironic, but very much in keeping with the novel. While the clocks may have moved forward, and the calendars flipped for 150 years, the struggles faced by women are timeless.
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