About Louise Marie Alcott allegedly agreeing to marry Jo because evil sexist society!
This is from another thread, but it's so interesting that I can't help but to start a new thread.
The following quote is from an Elle article:
https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a30832148/little-women-greta-gerwig-adaptation-louisa-may-alcott/
Jo’s marriage, which was originally written in the back half of the book in a sequel called Good Wives, was written because readers in the 1860s could not understand that a woman wouldn’t marry. In real life, Alcott herself never married. At the end of Gerwig’s film, Jo tries to make the case that her heroine shouldn’t marry. Her editor, Mr. Dashwood (Tracy Letts), pushes back, arguing that fans will want to see the heroine with a husband.
You know the drill: evil men wanted women either married or dead! Pay attention to the "because readers in the 1860s could not understand that a woman wouldn’t marry", we'll go back to that later.
Elle references a New York Times article that interviews Greta Gerwig, the director.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/movies/greta-gerwig-little-women.html
Alcott’s readers demanded that Jo end up married — presumably, to the handsome boy-next-door, Laurie — Alcott complied, with a wry twist. In the back half of the book — originally published as a sequel, under the title “Good Wives” — Jo does get married, but not to Laurie. “Jo should have remained a literary spinster,” Alcott wrote to a friend, but she felt so pressured to satisfy expectations that “I didn’t dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her,” with an older German professor. The only way Alcott could forge an independent life as a woman was to sell an alternate reality of her life — one in which Jo was not so independent.
It seems that Gerwig was right and evil sexist society would force the heroine to marry (or die), isn't it? Evil men would prevent Jo from being independent!
Well, now, let's check the whole quote by Louise Marie Alcott, without convenient editing.
Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn’t dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her.
It happens that the truth was... that the ones who pressured LMA were young female readers wanting a romantic happy ending!!! However, with some convenient modern-day editing, that become "because readers in the 1860s could not understand that a woman wouldn’t marry".
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
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