Louisa May Alcott and the Textual Child by Kristina West

Author:Kristina West
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030390259
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This notion of sisterhood is one that depends on both patronage and gratitude, an unequal social status that is understood as such by both ‘sisters’: the poor girl must be grateful to the point of abjection toward the normalized middle classes, showing the power imbalance between the girls. Phebe’s ‘proper’ attitude is contrasted to the women Rose first tries to help in her chosen career as a philanthropist in Rose in Bloom. Finding her inheritance a burden, Rose ‘wanted to begin at once to endow hospitals, build homes, adopt children, and befriend all mankind’; again, the sentimental trope of adoption is considered as a solution to the world’s ills.19 But Alcott soon subverts this model of philanthropy as Rose’s first attempt reveals unexpected obstacles:[I]t was a pleasant sight to see the comfortable rooms filled with respectable women busy at their various tasks […] But, presently, Rose was disturbed to find that the good people expected her to take care of them in a way she had not bargained for.20

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