Little Women Character Research

 Candidate Declaration - I confirm that the attached portfolio is all my own workThe first novel of ‘Little Women’ was originally written in 1868 by Louisa May Alcott. When it came out it was immediately a big hit and soon enough Mrs Alcott released a second novel after the popularity. The novel has been a major success, even to this day creating new movies and plays for years and years.  

My character, ‘Theodore "Laurie" Lawrence’, – a rich young man who lives opposite the March’s, older than Jo but younger than Meg. ‘Laurie’ is the "boy next door" to the March family and has an overprotective paternal grandfather, ‘Mr. Lawrence’. After eloping with an Italian pianist, ‘Laurie's’ father was disowned by his parents. Both ‘Laurie's’ mother and father died young, so as a boy ‘Laurie’ was taken in by his grandfather. As he is preparing to enter Harvard, he meets ‘Jo’ and they become best friends, but as they get older, and feelings start to grow ‘Laurie’ admits these feelings to ‘Jo’. However, ‘Jo’ does not feel the same way, leading to ‘Laurie’ being heart broken and moving to Europe to escape everything. This is where he finds ‘Amy’, ‘Jo’s’ sister, once again spending time with a ‘March’ sister ‘Laurie’ falls in love. Only this time his feelings are requited, and they end up getting married.

Throughout the play we see many different sides of ‘Laurie’, I have explored these closely in order to come to terms with what type of person he his. At the beginning of the play, we see him being quite flirty towards ‘Jo’, through this we see his more charming side. Nevertheless, it is obvious throughout the play that he is kind, whenever anyone needs anything ‘Laurie’ is always the first to respond. For example, when the scarlet fever hits ‘Beth’, he is immediately there to help her and the family. He goes to nearly every sister to see how they are, even making promises to the younger ‘Amy’ to tell her how her sister is doing, to take her on car rides and other sort of things. In other points of the play, we see how Laurie can be quite cheeky and more sarcastic, this is most prominently seen at the midpoint of the play, where he isn’t fully an adult yet and this must come across, so the character has different points of development. 

To further my research of the time period we had lesson on etiquette. This involves how they behaved back in the late 1800’s. We had a full lesson, in which we were split into groups and had to read out a passage of a book on how to behave properly at this time and then we needed to act out the book. My group was given the task of how one asked a lady to a dance and how to offer a helping hand in the rain. We thought we did this very well; we produced a good little scene to show exactly how to perform these acts. This helped us understand how to act all the way through the play, even when we weren't talking. A character like ‘Laurie’ would always be sitting and standing up straight with his hand usually behind his back, always showing respect toward whoever, he was speaking too. 

To fully immerse ourselves in the time, I had to learn everything that was going on around them in the time period. Such as, what was scarlet fever and why was it so terrifying and dangerous, this isn’t something we can necessarily relate to today as scarlet fever has all but been wiped out. Furthermore, the play occurred during the American Civil War and I had to take into consideration how that would affect not only mine but the other characters as well.

little woman the book which was an immediate success. Was based on her recollections of her own childhood,little women describes the domestic adventures of a new England family of modest means but optimistic outlook. 

In 1869 Alcott was able to write in her journal: “Paid up all the debts…thank the Lord!” She followed Little Women’s success with two sequels ,little men Life at Plum field with Jo’s Boys (1871) and Jo’s Boys and How They Turned Out (1886). Little Women also inspired numerous movies, including the 1933 classic, starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo, and Greta Ger wig's 2019 adaptation. Alcott also wrote other story's drawn from her early experiences: An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870); Aunt Jo’s Scrap Bag, 6 vol. (1872–82); Eight Cousins (1875); and Rose in Bloom (1876).

little women the book- written by Louisa may Alcott 1868