Sunday afternoon, we drove to Flint to see the Flint Young People’s Ballet Theatre adaptations of Snow White and Little Women. The Snow White adaptation was done very well, the dwarves being especially amusing. The Little Women adaptation was very slow in places and we often felt we were simply watching ballerinas standing or sitting and doing nothing in particular. So, I’m not so sure Alcott’s story is suitable into translation as dance. We did think all of the dancers did a really fine job and Sarah especially watched for tips on how to improve her own techniques. A word of caution if you go to the University of Michigan Flint Theater on a Sunday, parking is in the open lot down the street — not in the nearby parking garages (we drove around in circles for about 15 minutes to figure this out) and it is free even though you must pull out a ticket to open the gate.
The story of Snow White is thought to have been first published in a collection of folk tales between 1812 and 1815 by the Brothers Grimm and first published in English in 1823. Why seven dwarves? Because the number 7 was considered a magical number, think of all the 7’s in the Bible. Disney’s Snow White movie came out Christmas 1937 and was the first feature length cartoon. This movie had a profound impact on me. There was a little white church on a road we drove by often when I was a child and I insisted that it was really Snow White’s house.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born 1785 and 1786 in Germany. Jacob was 11 when their father died and three years later they were sent to live with an Aunt. Possibly the source of their fascination with wicked caretakers? They became librarians in 1808 when their mother died, providing for their younger siblings. By 1812 Children and Household Tales was published — a collection of folk tales. The first of many librarians to provide the world of children’s literature with its best books. Wilhelm died in 1859 and Jacob in 1863.
Lousia May Alcott wrote Little Women in 1868. It always bothers me when I read that Little Women was simply based upon Alcott’s own experiences growing up. It implies that the story is autobiographical in nature and until recently, I thought it was. But the truth is, Alcott just used what she knew from her life, her sisters and her parents to create a fictional story, no differently than any other fiction writer. There are important differences between her real life story and the one she created in Little Women.
In one of my other posts (Literary Musings) you will see mention of a book (Susan Cheever’s American Bloomsbury) that details Alcott’s experiences growing up in Concord, Massachussetts with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville. Alcott grew up very poor and this in turn motivated her to write, to try to support her family herself.
Louisa’s father Amos Bronson Alcott was a transcendentalist philosopher and education reformer and moved his family to Concord to live on Emerson’s property after his Temple School failed. He did not serve in the Civil War. Abigail was his wife. Henry David Thoreau also lived there and became one of Louisa’s teachers and he is the person she modelled her character Laurie after. Thoreau never married and died in 1862.
Louisa too never married. She was not even that young during the Civil War, her birth year being 1832. In 1858 the Alcotts moved to Orchard House and it is there she wrote Little Women. During the Civil War, Louisa served as a nurse in Washington, DC. She had to get special permission to do this as she was a single woman. There she became ill and never fully recovered. During her years after, she was treated with mercury and this poison ended her life in 1888, just two days after her father died. She is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
Bronson and Abigail had four daughters: Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May. Meg was modelled after Anna. Anna didn’t marry until 1860 and it was her wedding that was fictionalized in the book. In 1877 with Louisa’s help, she bought the Thoreau house in Concord.
Beth was modelled after Elizabeth, but Elizabeth was not the youngest daughter. She was born in 1835 and died in 1856. She did contract scarlet fever from a poor family her mother was caring for, and recovered. Two years later, she died.
Amy was modelled after May. May was a prolific artist and studied art in Europe with funds from Louisa. Louisa published her first book Flower Fables in 1854 and was able to provide for her family like her father never had been. May married in Europe then died soon after giving birth. Her daughter named Louisa was raised by her Aunt Louisa.
Louisa May Alcott was a successful children’s book author and was adept at translating her life experiences into deeply moving fictional stories. We do her a disservice when we present Little Women as nothing more than a re-write of her life.
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