The best-known classic Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was published in 1869 and read and loved by a wide audience, mainly made up of children and young adults, over the years, yet after more than nearly 150 years it still holds its place among the most popular children's books in the world. Although Alcott wrote Little Women at the time as a “manual of conduct for young nineteenth-century American girls” (Gheorghiu, 2015, p. 39), it now has a worldwide audience, which is significant considering that, as a for children, leaves a noticeable impact. on its young readers. Looking at the novel from a gender perspective, I aim to discuss in this article the issues of femininities and masculinities constructed in its society, the way young men, but especially girls, are trained and expected to become ladies and accomplished gentlemen. Through the characters in the novel, I will discuss how these traditional gender roles are deconstructed by some characters in the novel, primarily Jo and Laurie, while at the same time comparing Jo to her three sisters who fit the description of female fulfillment, and how the deconstruction of Alcott and the challenge reaches a limit in the context of marriage. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Little Women revolves around four young girls, March sisters named Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, who live in New England during the time of the Civil War. Since their father is at war, their family consists of only their four sisters and their mother, making it a completely female space. Although each sister is naturally different from the other, as already mentioned there is a clear contradiction and disparity between the appearance and characteristics of Jo and her sisters. Looking at the phrases that Alcott uses to describe the sisters for the first time this difference emerges: the older sister Margaret, or Meg, is "very pretty", "plump and fair" and has "big eyes, full of soft brown eyes". hair, a sweet mouth and white hands" (Alcott, 1947, p. 6) while Elizabeth, or Beth, is described as "a rosy, straight-haired, bright-eyed thirteen-year-old girl, with a shy manner, a timid disposition voice and a peaceful expression", and the youngest Amy is "a true Snow Maiden, with blue eyes, yellow hair curled to her shoulders, pale and slender, always acting like a young woman mindful of her manners" (p. 7). These descriptions seemingly define these three sisters as cute, shy, peaceful, pale, and polite; making them fall within the confines of feminine achievement. Yet, when the reader looks at how Jo is described , the second eldest and the main heroine of the story, comes across a rather opposite image: Jo is “very tall, thin, dark”, “never seems to know what to do with her parents”. long limbs", "has a mouth determined, a comical nose and sharp gray eyes", "her hair long and thick... her only beauty... is usually wrapped in a net, so as not to get in her way", she has "Long shoulders, large hands and feet , a shifty look at her clothes and the uncomfortable look of a girl who was rapidly becoming a woman, and he didn't like it." Jo's image is almost completely opposite to that of her sisters; she is neither beautiful, nor petite, nor does she know how to take care of her appearance like a polite young woman, but above all she is very uncomfortable with the change in her body and with the fact that she is turning into a woman. Considering she prefers to be called Jo, instead of using her full name Josephine, it's uncomfortable for her to havea female body is reflected in the change of its name, to a male one. Yet it is not just the name that makes her masculine, because in the novel she is described as a boy and a tomboy, who uses slang, whistles and generally behaves in an unfeminine way. When criticized by her sisters for using slang words because "it's so childish," her response is, "That's why I do it." Jo's preference to behave in a masculine and boyish manner is not an unconscious act or desire, as she is well aware that she wishes to be a boy and does not like the traditional roles that girls are subjected to: "It's enough it's bad to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys' games, work and good manners. I can't get over the disappointment of not being a boy; and now it's worse than ever, because I'm dying to go and fight with dad, and I can just stay at home and knit, like an old lady!” Although this quote suggests a gender shift in Jo's character, by most critics, readers and Alcott herself, Jo is considered and identified as a tomboy. To delve deeper into tomboyhood and Jo's masculine behavior, I want to refer to Judith Halberstam, according to whom tomboyishness is the result of the restriction of female freedom. In their book Female Masculinity they discuss that: The tomboyishness tends to be associated with a “natural” desire for greater freedom and mobility that children enjoy. It is most often read as a sign of independence and self-motivation, and tomboyishness may even be encouraged to the extent that she remains comfortably tethered to a stable sense of feminine identity. Tomboyishness, however, is punished when it appears to be the sign of extreme male identification (taking a male name or rejecting any type of female clothing) and when it risks extending beyond childhood and adolescence. Halberstam's statement above about tomboy parallels Jo's lines as she wishes to be a boy because she "likes boys' games, work and manners" as they provide fewer restrictions and more freedom overall, instead of being stuck in restrictive domestic duties and manners. that are forced and placed on girls and women. Another freedom given to men is to go to college, which Jo longs to do but is unable to fulfill, which she verbalizes as "How I wish I went to college!" when he learns that Laurie, their neighbor, is going to college soon. He also "takes the name of a boy" as Halberstam suggests, and serves as the head of the family since the father is absent; “I'm the man of the family now that dad isn't around,” he says, thus showing “signs of extreme male identification.” However, she is unable to resist through clothing, as one thing a girl is severely barred from in nineteenth-century America is cross-dressing or male clothing; essentially, she's not allowed to wear anything that doesn't involve a dress, which is another restriction on Jo's way of behaving; a restriction on his bodily movements and one on his male identification. Therefore, the best thing he can do to feel boyish or masculine is to take a boy's name and position himself as the "man of the family." This is also verbalized by Beth, one of Jo's sisters, when she says: “Poor Jo, you can't help it if you wish to be a boy; so you must try to be content with making your boy name, a brother who plays for us girls. The question that remains is whether Jo's tomboyishness is punished for being extreme or not. I will return to this towards the end of this article. While Jo is wrapped in her deconstructive femininity, there is another character who challenges iestablished gender roles: Laurie Laurence. The Marches' wealthy neighbor, Laurie, whose real name is Theodore Lawrence, takes the feminine-sounding nickname Laurie. When Jo credits the name "Laurie Laurence" as strange, Laurie shares why he is called that: "My first name is Theodore, but I don't like it, 'cause the boys called me Dora, so I made them say Laurie instead ". ." "I hate my name too: so sentimental! I wish everyone would say Jo instead of Josephine. (Alcott, p. 34) It is notable that Laurie's previous nickname also had a feminine sound, perhaps even more so than Laurie. The change from Dora to Laurie shows that even after adopting a new nickname, he remains within the bounds of his effeminacy. The problem with Laurie is that he is considered effeminate, both by the other characters in the book and by the readers, for being a "nice" and "very polite" boy and wanting to be a musician rather than take up a "serious" profession. Alcott, by giving opposite-sex names to Jo and Laurie and calling them atypical of what society expects through their genders, challenges traditional gender structures and stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. In fact, in an episode of the popular TV show Friends, in which two characters decide to read each other's favorite books, one of the characters is unable to distinguish Jo and Laurie's gender due to the supposedly non-gendered names. correlate with their genders. The show's dialogue follows as: Joey: These little women. Wow! Chandler: You like it, huh? Joey: Oh yeah! Amy just burned Jo's manuscript. I don't see how he could ever forgive her. Ross: Umm, Jo is a girl, it's short for Josephine. Joey: But Jo has a crush on Laurie. (Ross nods) Oh. You mean it's like a girl thing? Because that's the one thing missing from The Shining. Chandler: No, Laurie is actually male. Joey: No wonder Rachel had to read it so many times. As seen in this example, by using names and appellations as an agent, Alcott is playing with the concepts of femininity and masculinity, to the point that Jo and Laurie are mistaken for the opposite sex due, above all, to their names, but also to their characteristics and the specific way in which they reject their assigned roles. What this entails is the question of male and female identities. Alcott obviously challenges the notion of gender through these two characters, but what gender identity do Jo and Laurie actually belong to? According to Judith Butler, “there is no gender identity behind gender expressions; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Gender Trouble, 2010, p. 34). That is, despite Alcott's specific gender attributions to Jo and Laurie, their identities arise from the way they act, which therefore gives Jo a masculine identity, while simultaneously giving Laurie a feminine one. Gender is nothing other than “performance”, “as the effect of a subtle and politically imposed performativity, it is an 'act'” (2010, p. 200). One way in which genre acts exactly like performance in Little Women is through the staging of Jo's plays. Possessing a writer's genius, Jo constantly writes stories and plays, the latter of which she and her sisters later perform. Jo's choice of roles to play is, without a doubt, always male, while her sisters Meg and Amy, defined by everyone as elegant, polite and cute, play the role of the damsel in distress. “No gentlemen were allowed on the show; so Jo played male parts to her heart's content, and derived immense satisfaction from a pair of rust-colored leather boots given to her by a friend, who knew a lady who knew an actor." Inin some sense, the only opportunity Jo has to dress masculinely, one of her unfulfilled desires, is through the portrayal of male roles in these plays, which she approaches with great enthusiasm. His performativity of the role here is at the same time its performance of gender; although it is simply an "act", so is gender according to Butler. Just as Alcott plays with stereotypical gender roles and deconstructs tradition, when class comes into play; there seems to be an obvious distinction between spaces dominated by women (the March family consisting of five women) and those dominated by men (the Laurence family which is completely male: Laurie, her grandfather and her guardian John Brooke). The descriptions of the two houses make this difference quite clear: The garden separated the Marquises' house from that of Mr. Laurence. Both were located in a suburb of the city, which still had a rural feel, with groves and meadows, large gardens and quiet streets. A low hedge separated the two estates. On one side there was an old brown house, with a rather bare and unkempt appearance, deprived of the vines that covered its walls in summer, and of the flowers that then surrounded it. On the other side was a stately stone palace, clearly indicating all sorts of comforts and luxuries, from the large coach house and well-tended gardens to the greenhouse and the glimpses of beautiful things that could be caught between the rich curtains. It might seem that the stark difference between two houses is the result of class and not gender, yet gender and class are quite intertwined in Little Women. Stephanie Foote mentions in her article “Resentful Little Women: Feelings of Gender and Class in Louisa May Alcott” that “bluntly, gender and class are inseparable as we look at the types of negative feelings the novel is about. This lesson may seem too obvious – gender and class, after all, are now part of an established mantra of subject positions – but it is worth repeating” (2005, p. 66). Gender and class are indeed inseparable in the novel, as the evident poverty that the March family suffers from is the result of the lack of male authority in the home, as the sisters complain about being rich when their father was at home. Although this poverty pushes Meg and Jo to work to support their family, and thus to achieve a certain level of female independence, it is nevertheless gendered as a result, placing the matriarchal March family in an inferior position compared to the patriarchal family of Laurences. Furthermore, while the fact that Jo writes short stories and plays (even managing to get the chance to publish them in exchange for a small sum of money) can be interpreted as feminine independence, Alcott is apparently not entirely capable of challenging the traditional norms, as some of the stories Jo has published (thriller stories in great demand) are considered “unfeminine” and “not suitable” for a woman, by Alcott herself: “Jo thought she was thriving well; but, unconsciously, it began to desecrate some of the more feminine attributes of a woman's character." For a writer like Alcott who can challenge gender roles in a nonconformist way, claiming that some writing is not suitable for women for fear of losing their “femininity” is contradictory. Furthermore, through the character Marmee (the sister's nickname for the mother), Alcott is instilling the concept of ideal femininity that is dependent, obedient, angelic: I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished and good; to be admired, loved and respected, to have a happy youth, to marry well and wisely, and to lead useful and pleasant lives, with a little care and pain to test them as God sees fit to send them..