6.4: Sentiment, Religion, and the Power of Womanhood
The Wide, Wide World is an 1850 novel by Susan Warner. It was published under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell, and is often called America's first bestseller. This text went through fourteen editions in two years, and may ultimately have been as popular as Uncle Tom's Cabin with nineteenth-century American readers. At the beginning of the novel, Ellen Montgomery is driven from her home. She travels through the world and encounters a variety of difficult circumstances. Through these challenges, she begins to craft an identity based on Christian values and principles. The book ends on the verge of her adulthood and marriage, which was the only acceptable form of maturity for a young girl at the time. This book is a textbook example of domestic fiction, and was largely forgotten until recently. Read the short first five chapters to get a sense of this work. While you are reading, identify the generic traits of the domestic novel.
This short piece offers a good introduction to Alcott and her most famous novel Little Women.
Read Alcott's famous novel set during the Civil War in this two-volume version, which was published in 1868 and 1869. Alcott's Little Women depicts the lives of four sisters and their relationships to one another, to men, and to their family. It offers a good cross-section of the experiences – domestic and otherwise – of the new American woman. Think about these discussion questions as you read through this text:
- Why do you think Little Women is divided into two halves? How do the tone and structure of the story change between the two? What is lost? What is gained?
- Is the March family realistic?
- Does Little Women reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes?
- Despite the importance of Christian faith to the March family, why do you think Louisa May Alcott chose to make the religious references in the novel abstract instead of specific?
- Is Little Women really a "children's book"? What aspects of it seem directed at or appropriate for child readers? Adult readers?
- How does this novel address the question of women's place in society at the time?
- Which relationships are the most important in the novel? Why?