The focus of this seminar will be on a theoretical approach called Aesthetics of Character, with examples from the novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Various terms, coined by theorists of this approach, will be explained through some examples taken from the novel cited above. To begin with, this approach is about what the characters' function is in the narrative and how the characters are characterized. According to it, characters are agents who perform actions in a story. They can be people, anthropomorphized animals or objects. There are two main theoretical approaches within this, and these are the mimetic and semiotic approaches. While the mimetic approach views characters as real people, the semiotic approach views characters as just a collection of words. In the 1960s and 1970s another approach appeared. It was called the socio-historical approach to literature and was mainly concerned with how the characters' behaviors resembled those of real people and whether their portrayal is faithful to the overall script or its gender role. In close connection with this, another term appeared, called gender performance, which implies that both men and women behave according to the norms and expectations set by society. For example, while men were allowed to be active, assertive and dominant, women were supposed to be submissive, dependent and passive. Exceptions, both for men and women, were not cheerfully accepted in society. This is the main reason for the appearance of another term, closely related to the terms gender roles and gender performance, called gender stereotypes. Examples of gender stereotypes can also be found in the book Little Women, mainly through the characters of......middle of paper......representatives of the society of their time. Besides that, we could also see that women are much more oppressed by society. Their freedoms are limited. This is why we say that girls are doubly oppressed in children's literature. Furthermore, it is said that "in literature boys grow up, while girls get smaller". Jo's character is the perfect example of this. Although at the beginning of the story Jo was very much a tomboy and a "deviation" from the script, as the story developed, her character went through the process of assimilation, until eventually she became much more like "a should be a true lady. Works Cited Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993. Nikolajeva, Maria., 2005, 145-154.