Teaching Goodness: Can a Victorian Novelist Influence Today’s Teens?

Despite contemporary depictions, the real message of Little Women is deeply Christian.

Every year, just before Christmas, I pull out my old copy of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and reread the first line, in which Jo March grumbles, “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.”

The novel features the four March sisters, who live in Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War. The girls’ father is serving far away as a Union chaplain; their mother, “Marmee,” has the responsibility of bringing up their four lively daughters in a home that is shabby but filled with love.

If you have watched any of the many filmed adaptations of the novel, you may be surprised to learn that Marmee believes her most important job as a mother is to help her daughters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — draw closer to God, to rely on Him in times of trouble, and beg His forgiveness when they go wrong. I say “surprised” because the book’s deeply Christian messages are largely left out of the films, especially the more contemporary ones.

Underlying Threads

For instance, on Christmas morning of 1861, the girls discover that Marmee has tucked a New Testament under each of their pillows — books that will, she explains, help them live out the teachings of the great Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. Oldest daughter Meg announces she plans to read from her copy each morning, and encourages her sisters to do likewise. Half an hour later, the girls cheerfully agree to take their Christmas breakfast to a poor family in the neighborhood. “That’s loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it,” says Meg afterward, quoting Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.

A few chapters later, Amy, in a fit of temper, burns up a collection of fairy tales Jo has written. Jo refuses to forgive Amy, although Marmee urges her to not let the sun go down on her anger (Ephesians 4:2). Jo’s bitterness toward her sister nearly leads to Amy’s death by drowning.

“It’s my dreadful temper! I try to cure it; I think I have, and then it breaks out worse than ever. O mother, what shall I do?” a sobbing Jo asks.

“Watch and pray, dear; never get tired of trying; and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault,” Marmee tells her, adding, “My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning, and may be many; but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him … His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of life-long peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little prayers, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows …”

Jo then prays “the sincerest prayer she had ever prayed,” and drew “nearer to the Friend who welcomes every child with a love stronger than that of any father, tenderer than that of any mother.”

Recurring Theme

The sisters lean heavily on God when a telegram announces their father is seriously ill at a Union hospital in Washington. As she boards the carriage that will carry her to the train station, Marmee bids her daughters goodbye, saying, “Hope and keep busy; and whatever happens, remember that you never can be fatherless.”

When Beth is overcome with worry over their father, she goes to a closet and prays, just as the Bible commands. But then Beth falls ill with typhoid fever — so ill that the doctor urges the girls to send for Marmee. Knowing this means Beth will likely die, Jo and Meg begin making deals with the Lord.

“If God spares Beth I never will complain again,” Meg whispers.

“If God spares Beth I’ll try to love and serve Him all my life,” Jo responds.

Little Amy, who has been sent to stay with a crochety aunt lest she catch the fever, turns to God in a serious way for the first time in her young life, praying daily in a little chapel that God will preserve her beloved sister.

The Real Message

Recent films based on Little Women reflect the feminist view that women should focus on careers; they make much of the fact that Jo wants to be a famous writer, and Amy dreams of becoming a great artist. But the true focus of Little Women is on the need to improve one’s character. Each of the sisters is aware of her own particular shortcomings: a fondness for unaffordable luxuries, a bad temper, extreme shyness, and selfishness. Chapter by chapter, we observe the sisters attempting to overcome these character flaws which, they learn, cannot be achieved after just one or two tries. Marmee confesses to Jo that she has fought to control her own temper for 40 years.

The fact that the four sisters are not goody-goodies, and regularly fail in their attempts to overcome their faults (just as real-life people do) adds greatly to the book’s appeal.

Little Women was an instant bestseller in 1868, and has never been out of print. I believe one of the reasons girls love this Victorian-era novel has to do with the fact that it makes the characters’ efforts to be good, overcome faults, do their duty, and joyfully serve others seem deeply appealing. While the films based on the book are flawed, they often drive girls into reading the book on which the films are based.

If there is a young girl in your life, consider giving her a copy of Little Women for Christmas. And then take her out to lunch to discuss the book: its worldview, its amusingly flawed characters, the manner in which the sisters conduct their romances and professional aspirations, and why the adventures of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy remains so popular today.

Louisa May Alcott helps modern teenagers — so tragically influenced by the deceitful teachings of television, the internet, and sometimes their own parents — get a glimpse of how beautiful life can be, even in the midst of tragedy, if they do their best to obey God and to love and serve one another.

Anne Morse is a freelance writer living in Maryland amidst towering piles of books. She has never had to endure a Christmas without any presents.