Next the girl’s father requested that they help prepare dinner before they set to work on their homework. Madeline watched amazed as all four girls, their mother and their housekeeper set to work without complaint. “I have never cooked or cleaned in my life,” exclaimed Madeline, whose father tended to make meals around her home, “how ever do they manage to balance education and the domestic expectations and requirements of being a girl?” “Some aspects of Victorian childhood seem completely foreign to me such as children in the workplace and the gender expectations of little girls. However, there are also many aspects of Victorian childhood which are similar to those in the 21st century such as play time and an education system,” she considered.
After dinner the girls listened to their mother read a chapter of Pilgrims Progress, they had no children’s books of their own, and then were tucked lovingly into bed by their Marmee. As Madeleine fell asleep on the cot next to Louisa it surprised her that she felt so comfortable here. When she woke up the next morning she was even disappointed to discover she was back in her own bed. She failed her Little Women test but every time she saw the dusty novel on the shelf it reminded her of where she had come from.
FIN
Works Cited
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women & Good Wives. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2006.
Clavert, Karin. “Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood.” The Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: Norton, 1999. 67-80.
Formanek-Brunell, Miriam. “The Politics of Dollhood in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: Norton, 1999. 363-381.
Guttormsson, Loftur. “Parent-Child Relations” Family Life in the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli. London: Yale University Press, 2002. 251-281.
Hart, Roger. English Life in the Nineteenth Century. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Inc., 1971.
Maynes, Mary Jo. “Class Cultures and Images of Proper Family Life.” Family Life in the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli. London: Yale University Press, 2002. 195-226.
I chose to name my protagonist after Madeleine L’Engel, the author of A Wrinkle In Time, a popular children's novel about time travel, published in 1962. L’Engel not only reflects modern children’s literature but also gender in relation to education and profession in the 20th and 21st Century. It is interesting to compare her to Jo March or Louisa May Alcott both whom became authors despite that Victorian era "professions were slow to admit women's members" (Hart 99) during the Victorian era.
Though Western culture in the 21st Century operates on a highly gendered social system there is some flexibility. It is socially acceptable for girls to participate in sports and demonstrate their intellectual ability. Contrasting Madeline to her more stereotypical classmates allows the reader to establish a context of gender and childhood in the 21st Century. This is important to recall when Madeline reaches the 19th century as it allows for comparison without judgment.
Jo is often chastised for her unladylike behaviour. She is described as "careless," (Alcott 28) and apologizes for being "rough and wild" (Alcott 14).
“A back-fastening gown was worn by girls until twelve or fourteen, and by boys until breeched around five. The gown most often resembled a woman’s but those worn by boys resembled men’s coats. “In many regions coming-of-age ceremonies had long involved the adaptation of adult costume.” (Maynes 220) Such an act is demonstrated in Little Women when Meg says, “If only I had silk!...Mother says I may when I’m eighteen.” This reflects that Victorians viewed childhood as a separate stage in life as well as the gender divisions they applied to their children.
Industrialization took off during this period and "[m]any of the new factories and mines depended on children workers...Children often worked as many hours as adults"(Hart 71). In 21st Century Western culture child labour is viewed as cruel, however, for many families at this time and before this time it was necessary for children to work to help support their families.
“Lousia May Alcott was, in real life, her own most famous character. Her readers will recognize events and real people who were main characters in Little Women, and in other books and stories she wrote.” Therefore Little Women is probably a relatively accurate description of life at this time.
Beth’s Dolls are an important symbol in Little Women. For Beth her use of dolls, “’develops and educates the young girls maternal instinct, and in so doing helps to elevate her to the pinnacle of true womanhood’… fictional characters encourage[d] the pursuit of feminine submission to masculine dominance” (Formanek-Brunell 372). Today little girls still play with dolls. However, after the civil war, “[d]oll stories provided companionship and the seed of fantasies, which brought girls beyond the confines of the material world”( Formanek-Brunell 376).
I believe that the Victorian era is an important part of the historical process that shaped modern norms of family life and notions of childhood. As a collective society we, like Madeline, tend to self-confidently judge and condemn the Victorians and yet, “childhood as Americans or Europeans of the 21st century understand the term began- roughly speaking- around the 1860’s” (260 Maynes). In a sense, Victorians are still with us, because the world they created is still here, but changed.
“The father was the natural head of the household, and his natural right expected the unquestioning obedience of, not only his children, but his wife… The children were expected to be dutiful, and to follow examples of good conduct set by their parents, take pride in the family name, and look upon their childhood as preparation for adulthood” (Hart 101)
At this time, “social values and objectives took precedence over academic goals: schooling was not to foster any inappropriate vocational aspirations in their [parent’s] daughters. Parents wanted them to make good marriages and to be prepared, according to the domestic ideology, as the mothers of future generations” (Guttormsson 269).
Alcott’s Little Women can be viewed as a transitional book. Books that came before Little Women were not specifically addressed to children or young adults. “[B]ut the child-centered cult of domesticity came to be specialized to the children’s department of middle-class children” (Guttormsson 265). Women’s fiction, in other words, was becoming little women’s or girls fiction.
While children were expected to behave in accordance to their parents they were also seen as, “pure and innocent beings, descended from heaven and unsullied by worldly corruption” (Calvert 79). This is a complete contrast to the expectation of “obedience” (Hart 101) and “preparation” (Hart 101) which was also the social norm. This demonstrates the drastic restructuring of childhood in this period from the practical expectation to the romantic idea of childhood we have today.
