Four Conventionalized Social Formulae in Little Women: a Survey across its Telecinematic Adaptations

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DIPARTIMENTO DI

FILOLOGIA, LETTERATURA E LINGUISTICA

CORSO DI LAUREA IN

LINGUE, LETTERATURE E FILOLOGIE EUROAMERICANE

TESI DI LAUREA

Four Conventionalized Social Formulae in Little Women:

a Survey across its Telecinematic Adaptations

CANDIDATO

RELATORE

Filippo Saettoni

Chiar.ma Prof.ssa Silvia Bruti

CORRELATORE

Chiar.mo Dott. Gianmarco Vignozzi

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Introduction

The purpose of the present thesis is twofold. Firstly, to examine how spoken discourse is represented in five telecinematic adaptations of Little Women, by taking into consideration four selected conventionalized social formulae. Secondly, to explore how such spoken features and their level of formality have changed over the years, to both adapt to the cultural values of the time period of production and suit the different audiences who were to experience the telecinematic product.

The reason why the different adaptations of Little Women were chosen essentially lies in the conversational nature that characterizes both the original novel and all its following telecinematic adaptations. As is well known, the story focuses on a typical American family from the late 19th

century, more precisely taking place during the years of the Civil War, and on the hardships (ranging from material poverty to inner insecurities) each family member has to overcome. Due to this domestic and intimate setting, the conversations between characters are ingeniously constructed to mirror real-life conversations; in fact, it is also thanks to the way characters speak that the story develops, and the audience is able to understand the existing relationships between the characters. For these reasons, it was possible to select four conventionalized social formulae, typical of spoken discourse, and explore how they were represented throughout the adaptations.

The present work can be divided into two main parts: chapters 1, 2 and 3 respectively contain a brief biography of the author and a theoretical background to the selected spoken features, while chapter 4 offers analyses of the aforementioned elements. The last chapter, the one dedicated to the conclusions, summarizes the main findings of the research.

More in detail, chapter 1 focuses on how Louisa May Alcott’s biography shaped the world of the March sisters and on how her own relatives and childhood memories inspired her to write one of the most popular and loved American literary classics of all time. More precisely, sections 1.1 and 1.2 respectively address Alcott’s relationships with her parents and her sisters; section 1.3 is devoted to Alcott’s most famous works and 1.4 pays homage to her last years.

Chapter 2 explores the success of the Little Women phenomenon, by considering how first it was received in the late 19th_{century (2.1.1) and how it is received today (2.1.2), with a particular}

focus on the legacy of this classic and on the reasons why everyone, regardless of gender, age, and cultural background, should read it. In addition, sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 are respectively dedicated to the international adaptations of the classic and to the five telecinematic products making up the corpus of this research. Finally, section 2.3 focuses on the nature of adaptations from a theoretical point of view, by highlighting their main characteristics and the complicated process of turning literary classics into filmic texts.

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Chapter 3 provides the theoretical basis for the analysis of the Little Women corpus. First, section 3.1 starts with a definition of conversation, by describing its main functions (3.1.1), the main linguistic approaches that have analyzed spoken discourse over the years (3.1.2) and the main characteristics of spoken discourse (3.1.3). Further, section 3.2 describes the four conventionalized social formulae that represent the object of analysis of this research: greetings and leave-takings (3.2.1), thanks (3.2.2), apologies (3.2.3) and, ultimately, terms of address (3.2.4). Finally, 3.3 discusses the similarities and the differences between spoken language and telecinematic discourse.

Chapter 4 instead is entirely dedicated to the analysis of the self-compiled Little Women corpus. In detail, section 4.1 is dedicated to a brief explanation of how the corpus was analyzed using the Sketch Engine software. As for sections 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5, they include the main findings of the research, by respectively focusing on greetings and leave-takings, thanks, apologies and, finally, terms of address. Each of these sections also contains a final wrap-up paragraph, including the most striking results of the correlated spoken feature.

The heart of the research, which is summarized in the “Conclusions”, is that the planned conversations in the five telecinematic adaptations of Little Women do not, in fact, differ significantly from spontaneous conversations, for they are mostly consistent with the assumptions and findings mentioned in chapter 3. Moreover, as hypothesized, the findings also suggest that the selected spoken features are in-line with the cultural values of the time period in which each adaptation was produced.

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1. Louisa May Alcott and how her life shaped the world of Little Women

“I like the independent feeling; and though not an easy life, it is a free one, and I enjoy it. I can't do much with my hands; so I will make a battering-ram of my head and make a way through this rough-and-tumble world.”

In a letter written to her father on the occasion of his birthday, Louisa May Alcott used such words to describe her strong character and resilient personality (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 78). In this heart-warming letter Alcott explained that, regardless of the adversities she will certainly come across in her life, she will uniquely depend on her writing skills to make a living and, at the same time, to financially support her family.

Without any doubts, anyone who has read Little Women, might find Alcott’s heartfelt words very similar to Josephine March’s - the writer’s most famous heroine - ambitious thoughts. In several passages of the novel, Jo reveals her hopes and dreams for the future: “I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous, that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream” (Alcott, 2001, p. 173) and again: “I shall write more, and he’s going to get the next paid for, and I am so happy, for in time I may be able to support myself and help the girls” (Alcott, 2001, p. 185). Finding some similarities between the two women’s speeches is obvious and this is because Louisa May Alcott cautiously shaped her heroine on the basis of her own strong-willed personality, just like the rest of the characters in Little Women, who were carefully modelled on real people, both relatives and friends, who belonged to her personal life, as it will be shown in detail later on.

1.1 Louisa May Alcott and her parentage

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, as the second daughter of Amos Bronson and Abigail May Alcott (Silverthorne, 2002), who had been married since the spring of 1830 (Strickland, 2003). Louisa’s father was an educator and philosopher and, for most of his life, he gave lectures and delivered speeches on philosophy, education and childhood; sometimes his ideas were so controversial and so ahead of his times, that they would cost him his work and reputation. As Silverthorne (2002) clearly recounts in Louisa May Alcott’s biography, in 1839 Amos Bronson had to close the school he had opened 5 years earlier in Boston, because of his controversial behavior, i.e. “discussing the miracle of birth with” his pupils (p. 23) or admitting a

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black girl to school, a delicate decision which caused the anger of several parents. Even other schools from different cities refused to hire him as a teacher because of his unconventional ways of thinking. Unfortunately, Louisa’s father proved to be a disastrous breadwinner on many occasions over the years, due to his limited practical sense and his low interest in making money (he refused to do any other kind of work, except for teaching, for regular wages); this was also the reason why Louisa would later decide to take the weight of her family on her own shoulders. However, inside the household Mr. Bronson turned out to be a successful educator for all his daughters: Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May, respectively born in 1831, 1832, 1835 and 1840 (Silverthorne, 2002). As it is explained in Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals (Alcott & Cheney, 2017):

If the father had to give up his cherished projects of a school modelled after his ideas, he could at least conduct the education of his own children; and he did so with the most tender devotion. Even when they were infants he took a great deal of personal care of them, and loved to put the little ones to bed and use the "children's hour" to instill into their hearts lessons of love and wisdom. He was full of fun too, and would lie on the floor and frolic with them, making compasses of his long legs with which to draw letters and diagrams (p. 16).

Another positive habit encouraged by Mr. Branson was the keeping of journals, since he considered it an important exercise to express one’s ideas and emotions; with this in mind, all members of the Alcott family used to keep their personal diary, which would be read aloud with the rest of the family to comment on it. Beyond any doubt, Louisa was fond of this activity, which allowed her to express herself freely and to give full vent to her own creativity (Silverthorne, 2002).

Abigail May Alcott (or Abba as she was known to all) was, on the other hand, completely different from her husband, with whom she did not always agree but whom she continued to love, respect and help in the implementation of his projects throughout her life (Alcott & Cheney, 2017). From this point of view, she was remembered by her daughters as the most devoted wife they had ever known, but most importantly as a hard-working, diligent mother and caring benefactress. In fact, she first worked as a matron in a health resort and, later, she took a post as a charity agent of numerous Unitarian churches. To earn her money, she had to distribute food to the poor and find employment for poor women (Strickland, 2003), in other words:

Abba worked hard, doing a great deal above and beyond her poorly-paid duties as a social worker. She collected bundles of supplies and clothing for the poor, ran a kind of employment agency for women, collected money from anyone she could badger into giving to the needy, and sometimes fed the hungry out of her own slender means (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 43).

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Besides representing “the warm, loving heart of the Alcott household” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 9) and the income producer of the whole family, Abigail also embodied the characteristics of the perfect teacher: not only did she teach her daughters how to clean, cook and sew (skills that would always prove fruitful in the Victorian society of their time), but she also watched over and directed her girls’ moral and spiritual development and seldom restrained their imaginative fun and games (Silverthorne, 2002). On top of this, Mrs. Alcott also taught her daughters three significant rules for living, that would accompany them for the rest of their lives: “rule yourself, love your neighbor, and, do the duty which lies nearest you” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 50).

From such interesting glimpses of private life, it is easy to notice how Mr. Bronson and Mrs. Alcott reappear in Little Women as Mr. and Mrs. March. As far as the paternal figure is concerned, one can notice that Mr. March is portrayed as a beloved but secondary character, who is immediately sent off to war to fight in the bloody Civil War (1861-1865); as a consequence, readers cannot make his acquaintance until the very end of the first volume, when he comes back home for Christmas. Due to his duties to the country, Mr. March leaves his wife “to struggle with the problem of raising four daughters alone and on very little income” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 10), just like it happened to Mrs. Alcott, who was elevated to the role of breadwinner by her idle husband.

Mrs. March, on the contrary, has a much more prominent role in the development of the narrated events. Very similarly to Mrs. Alcott, Mrs. March explains to her little women how to become model wives, by teaching them the skills required in a domestic environment, but also encouraging them to follow their passions and to carefully listen to their consciences, so that they can become good and respectable people.

One more constructive family tradition which was supported by the Alcotts and Marches alike, was the reading of The Pilgrim’s Progress, which was a favorite bedtime book:

The stories of Christian’s journey read so dramatically by their father became a part of the little Alcotts’ thinking. They often imagined they were pilgrims making their way through life bearing packs of their sins on their backs. They also made up games using characters from the book such as Obstinate, Mrs. Much-afraid and Mr. Ready-to-halt, and places such as Vanity Fair and the Delectable Mountains. In Little Women, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy also thought of themselves as pilgrims trying to reach the Celestial City (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 28).

1.2 The Alcott Sisters, or Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May

Another significant element in Louisa’s childhood was the special bond she had with her three sisters: Anna, Elizabeth and May, with whom she shared unforgettable memories. Despite their hard times and their poverty, they spent hours together laughing, having fun, reading and inventing plays to

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perform for relatives and neighbors. Such activities allowed them to give vent to their imagination, to develop their promising talents and to strengthen their bond as sisters in the process. It is interesting to notice how each Alcott sister, like each March sister in Little Women, had a special talent: Anna (Meg) for acting; Louisa (Jo) for writing; Lizzie (Beth) for music; and May (Amy) for painting.

Family jokes, games and laughter were at the center of the Alcott household, but what Mr. Bronson and Mrs. Alcott valued and cherished the most was the unique bond between the four sisters, who were able to care for each other regardless of the petty quarrelling, which could arise from time to time between siblings. It is very interesting to notice how the leisure activities, which filled the Alcott house with lightheartedness and high spirits, are also present in the world of Little Women. In fact, the four March sisters used to re-enact the creative plays invented by Jo, who would always direct and suggest her sisters how to better play their roles; alternatively they would also impersonate the respectable members of the prestigious Pickwick club (named after Dickens’ famous club), which was invented by the Alcott sisters in the first place: “the only members were the Alcott sisters, and their most important project was to publish a newspaper filled with sentimental stories by Anna, lively poems by Louisa, and simple tales by Lizzie and May” (Silverthorne, pp. 38-39).

One last curious habit of the Alcott sisters was the weekly pillow fight on Saturday nights, when the little sisters would jump out of their beds and playfully fight each other and their father as well; such weekly tradition is not included in Little Women, but Louisa decided to insert it in one of her works, Little Men, where an adult Josephine March describes one of the curious rules of the unconventional school she runs:

I was to allow a fifteen-minute pillow-fight every Saturday night; and they promised to go properly to bed every other night. I tried it, and it worked well. If they don't keep their word, no frolic; if they do, I just turn the glasses round, put the lamps in safe places, and let them rampage as much as they like (Alcott, 2004, ch. 1).

Despite the fun activities of their happy childhood, the Alcott sisters had to grow up, roll up their sleeves and start working to provide for their own poor family. Their employments mainly included: domestic service in other people’s homes, sewing, and, above all, teaching.

Anna was the first who started teaching, both to her sisters and to neighboring children, who paid a small enrolment fee with the purpose of attending her lessons. Even Louisa decided to embrace the teaching career, albeit with some reservations, for it was far more profitable than sewing. Although she did not like educating children very much, due to her short tempers, she continued to do it for more than nine years, thus showing a great sense of duty (Strickland, 2003). These are the words Louisa used to describe her experience in teaching:

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I like it better than I thought, though it's very hard to be patient with the children sometimes. They seem happy, and learn fast; so I am encouraged, though at first it was very hard . . . for as a school-marm I must behave myself and guard my tongue and temper carefully, and set an example of sweet manners (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 55).

However, while Anna and Louisa worked as babysitters or teachers, the two younger sisters lead a different type of life: May went to school and Elizabeth was the housekeeper, or the “angel in a cellar kitchen” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 58), as Louisa used to describe her.

The Alcott sisters spent their childhood and adolescent years in this way: in a mixture of fun and duty, but there are two worth mentioning events in Louisa’s life, which marked the end of her lively childhood.

In June 1856 Louisa’s fragile sister Lizzie contracted scarlet fever from some poor children, whom their mother had nursed in the previous weeks; this event marked the end of poor Lizzie’s life, whose frail health would never recover. Everyone, especially Louisa, nursed the child with all their heart and strength for more than a year, but Lizzie was so weakened that she gave up the fight on March 14, 1858. Louisa confided in her diary in this way, remembering the painful days of her sister’s departure:

My dear Beth died at three this morning, after two years of patient pain. Last week she put her work away, saying the needle was "too heavy", and having given us her few possessions, made ready for the parting in her own simple, quiet way … Tuesday she lay in Father's arms, and called us round her, smiling contentedly as she said, "All here!" I think she bid us goodbye then, as she held our hands and kissed us tenderly. Saturday she slept, and at midnight became unconscious, quietly breathing her life away till three; then, with one last look of the beautiful eyes, she was gone (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 86).

Shortly after, on May 23, 1860 the eldest of the Alcott sisters, Anna, got married to John Pratt with a simple ceremony held in their rustic garden; as Louisa recalls in one of her diaries, that day was: “a lovely day; the house full of sunshine, flowers, friends, and happiness” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 107).

Not only did the ceremony represent the union of two newlyweds in love, but it also represented a big source of mourning for Louisa, for this meant that Anna had to leave her paternal house and put an end to their childhood: “I moaned in private over my great loss, and said I'd never forgive J. for taking Anna from me; but I shall if he makes her happy, and turn to little May for my comfort” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 88). It is crystal clear how this wedding mirrors Meg’s wedding in Little Women, which was not well received by Jo, so strong was the affection for her sister.

Because of these two events, Louisa lost two sisters within a short time and this shook her so much that she even thought of committing suicide: one day, as she was walking over the milldam in

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Boston, she thought of throwing herself into the water (Strickland, 2003). Fortunately, she immediately came to her senses, comforted by the thought that the rest of her family still needed her and that it would have been cowardly to leave them alone. With this in mind, she went home, and with a firm and indomitable heart, she decided to focus on the one thing that had always given her comfort: writing.

1.3 Louisa May Alcott, her writing career and rise to fame

Louisa always fancied writing, since she was a little child, and it was around 1840 when she first started writing down her thoughts in little poems and in the pages of her cherished journal (Silverthorne, 2002). One of her first poems was called “To the First Robin” and it was composed after the discovery of a weak robin that she and her sisters had nursed and fed; when her mother read this little piece of poetry, she prophesized: “You will grow up a Shakespeare!” (Strickland, 2003, p. 52). Above all, it was Mrs. Alcott who encouraged her daughter the most in the development of her writing skills and, as proof of her trust in Louisa, she gave her a pencil case at the age of ten and a pen at the age of fourteen; however, not only did she praise her daughter, but she also gave her useful advice and careful admonitions to become a loving daughter, as well as a humble writer. In her journal Louisa recalls the beginning of her literary career with such words:

Fired with this modest ambition, I continued to write poems upon dead butterflies, lost kittens, the baby's eyes, and other simple subjects till the story-telling mania set in; and after frightening my sisters out of their wits by awful tales whispered in bed, I began to write down these histories of giants, ogres, dauntless girls, and magic transformations till we had a library of small paper- covered volumes illustrated by the author. Later the poems grew gloomy and sentimental, and the tales more fanciful and less tragic, lovely elves and spirits taking the places of the former monsters (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 351).

So the years passed, in a mix of work and scribbling, until 1851, when Louisa saw her first published piece on Peterson’s Magazine (a popular women’s magazine of the time). This poem, with the title of “Sunshine”, made her an actual published author at the sweet age of eighteen, even if she decided to publish it under the pen name of Flora Flairfield (Strickland, 2003). Moved by such enthusiasm, she went straight on writing and, in a short period of time, she got in touch with several editors who decided to publish her first two prose works: The Rival Painters and The Rival Prima

Donnas, two novels which included sensational scenes, love and treachery and which earned her a

total of $ 15.

However, the first work with her actual name on it only appeared in 1854, when a collection of poems and fairy tales for children was published in a first edition of 1600 copies under the title of

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Flower Fables, which earned her $ 32 (Silverthorne, 2002). Obviously, the young writer was very

satisfied with this significative milestone, for she was gaining fame, as well as earning money that would allow her to lead an independent life: “my book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa would amount to something after all, since she could do so well as housemaid, teacher, seamstress, and story-teller. Perhaps she may” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 69).

As she was spurred by enthusiasm and ambition, Louisa continued writing and publishing her sensational short stories and novels as fast as they were wanted; such stories were described by the author herself as “trash and rubbish” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 94) but, nevertheless, they sold well and earned Louisa a great amount of money. It was in this period that Louisa began to think about writing her masterpiece, which however had to wait a few more years before being published.

In fact, in those years the Civil War broke out, more precisely on April 15, 1861; this event abruptly changed American lives from North to South. Louisa was so shaken by the barbarity of the war, that she decided to do her best to help the poor wounded American soldiers; for this reason she decided to offer herself as a nurse (since she could not enlist as a soldier even if she wanted to) at the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, where she saw with her own eyes the dramatic consequences of the war on American soldiers, who were as afflicted in heart as in body. In her journal she explained: “I've often longed to see a war, and now I have my wish. I long to be a man; but as I can't fight, I will content myself with working for those who can” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 112). This experience absorbed her to such an extent that even her health was severely tested; however, Louisa turned out to be an excellent nurse, full of attention and concern for all the wounded.

From those days spent looking after soldiers, she managed to come up with a piece of work that was a great success: Hospital Sketches. It was published in August 1863 and it described the poignant stories of the soldiers who were tenderly nursed in the hospital; copies were sold so quickly that the publisher could not print them fast enough to meet the demand. The enormous success of the book was due not only to the fact that American citizens wanted information about the fates of their loved ones in hospitals, but also thanks to Louisa's simple and touching descriptions of the hospital life, which managed to satisfy the readers’ thirst for knowledge (Silverthorne, 2002).

In the following years, Louisa continued to publish short stories as well as other novels, such as Moods, a story about a passionate tomboy who yearns for adventure, which was published in 1864, after several retouches requested by the publishers. But it was in 1867, after a long and relaxing trip to Europe with her younger sister May, and after becoming the editor of a children’s magazine, that she started conjuring up the world of Little Women. In fact, one of her publishers had asked her to start working on a book for girls; this happened very much to her disappointment, for she claimed

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she did not know much about girls (except for her own sisters) and understood - and liked - boys better (Silverthorne, 2002).

As a consequence, she put that project aside, after a few disappointing attempts. Anyway, in 1868, during a period of peace and serenity for the Alcott family (Mr. and Mrs. Alcott were comfortable in Concord, May was busy teaching drawing classes and Anna was looking after her lovely babies with her husband John), Louisa sought a place to isolate herself. Here she gathered her ideas and came up with the perfect project for her following novel: she was laying the foundation for her Little Women, where she wanted to describe the happy childhood memories, she had shared with her three sisters. As she confesses in her journal, the novel is full of elements which are reminiscent of specific people, places and activities which defined Louisa’s own life, such as

the early plays and experiences; Beth's death; Jo's literary and Amy's artistic experiences; Meg's happy home; John Brooke and his death; … Mrs March is all true, only not half good enough. Laurie is not an American boy, though every lad I ever knew claims the character. He was a Polish boy, met abroad in 1865. Mr. Lawrence is my grandfather, Colonel Joseph May (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 168).

She was so enthusiastic about her project that she wrote the novel in one blow: she started it in May and by July 15 the first part of the book was completed. One of Louisa’s publishers showed this first half of Little Women to some young girls who “were unanimous in their praise of it and delighted that someone had finally written a book just for them” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 68). With such warm enthusiasm the book was allowed to print and appeared in September 1868.

The success was so immediate that Louisa’s publisher urged her to ultimate the second part of the story, that would focus on the lives of the grown-up March sisters who had blossomed into lovely wives and caring mothers. Even if the author was not completely convinced about this project, her fans had become so devoted to the four sisters that she eventually gave in and started writing a chapter a day, so that she managed to send the manuscript of part two to Roberts Brothers by the end of 1869.

During the sales of Little Women Louisa’s publishers gave her valuable advice that would allow her to financially sustain her relatives and to stop worrying about family debts once and for all, that is to say keeping the copyright of her novel. This would allow her to earn money on each copy sold and to have control over the future of the book. After such useful guidance, Louisa wrote in her journal:

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paid up all the debts, thank the Lord! – every penny that money can pay, – and now I feel as if I could die in peace. My dream is beginning to come true; and if my head holds out I'll do all I once hoped to do (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 176).

In the following years Louisa continued to extend the world of Little Women, by adding sequels to the original work and including recurring characters who were largely and deeply loved by the public; the other books that completed the Little Women series are: Little Men and Jo's Boys, which were respectively published in 1871 and 1886 (Alcott & Cheney, 2017). In Little Men she again wrote about herself as Jo March Bhaer, who has matured into a “genial, comfortable kind of person” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 80) with a genius for understanding little boys and who still enjoys flying a kite. John Pratt is there as Meg’s husband, John Brooke, as he was in Little Women. Abba and Bronson reappear as Mr. And Mrs. March, as does May as the artistic Amy; moreover, the fun, the games and the tricks the children get up to are largely based on childhood experiences of the Alcott sisters and of their friends.

Taking a last look at Louisa's career, it is interesting to notice how this is very similar to that of her duplicate Jo March. Both of them, in fact, began writing at an early age by inventing plays where they would perform as male characters. As they grew up, they both started selling stories they knew to be “rubbishy”, “but which [brought] in a little much-needed income from cheap magazines” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 12); finally, once they entered adulthood, they took inspiration from their own lives to complete their most important and most successful novel.

1.4 Louisa May Alcott’s last years

Not only do Louisa May Alcott and Jo March resemble one another in their careers as successful writers, but they also share several features of their romantic lives. Throughout her life Louisa always declared that she would never marry, due to her independent spirit and to the very low opinion she had of marriages, which, in her view, proved unsuccessful most of the times; “Louisa realized that even in a love match, a woman in the nineteenth century lost her identity when she married and had few rights of her own” (Silverthorne, 2002, p. 54). To this regard she wrote in her journal: “liberty is a better husband than love to many of us” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 171). In those years, Louisa also took a public stand in favor of the single life for women, for she published an article which was an attempt to persuade young women that the single life could be a happy one; “entitled ‘Happy Women’, the article consisted of sketches of spinsters like herself who led busy, useful, independent lives” (Strickland, 2003, p. 77).

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With these opinions in mind, Louisa created the character of Jo March in her own image and likeness: in fact, at different times in the book, the independent March sister declares: “I don’t believe I shall ever marry. I’m happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man” (Alcott, 2001, p. 381). Unfortunately, Louisa had to submit to the pressure of her publishers and of her readership, who wanted her to find a good and loving husband for Jo. In fact, since the release of the first volume of Little Women, both her readers and publishers insistently raised the question: would Jo marry Laurie? With irritation, she wrote in her journal: “Girls write to ask who the little women marry, as if that was the only end and aim of a woman's life. I won't marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone” (Alcott & Cheney, 2017, p. 176). But when Louisa dispatched the sequel of Little Women to her publisher on New Year’s Day, the story contained a sort of a compromise: she did not marry Jo to Laurie as she promised, but she had invented for her the kind Professor Bhaer (Strickland, 2003).

Contrary to Jo, Louisa never married, and she did not even have any children: this allowed her to continue taking care of her own family until the last days of her life. More specifically, she first took care of her sister Anna, whose beloved husband John Pratt died in 1870, much to everyone’s sorrow. To help her sister and her two nephews, Frederick and John, Louisa found a way to provide them with financial security: writing the novel of Little Men, where chapter 19 is a tribute to the deceased and well-loved character, John Brooke. Louisa even did more than that, in fact she decided to adopt her nephew John Pratt Alcott, so that he could manage her financial affairs and inherit the copyrights to her books after her death (Silverthorne, 2002).

Not only did Louisa financially help her sister Anna, but she also paid for May’s artistic education in France, where she would eventually find a French husband and have a daughter, whom would be called Louisa, after her generous and loving aunt. As fate would have it, May died shortly after the birth of her daughter, who was immediately sent to America to be cared for and raised by Aunt Louisa:

she became so absorbed in the baby for several years that she found little time for anything else - not even for writing in her journal. She showered Lulu with kisses, hugs, toys and clothes, playing with her and telling her stories […] by the dozens. It soon became clear that her niece had a personality much like Louisa’s own, and her aunt reported that her child had « a strong will and quick temper, but very tender, generous and noble instincts » (Strickland, 2002, p. 102).

Throughout these years Louisa also nursed her mother, who had developed heart problems and symptoms of mental confusion and finally died on November 25, 1877. After such a terrible loss,

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Louisa also found the strength to take care of her father, while her health was starting to deteriorate too. Mr. Alcott eventually died in March 1888 and Louisa died two days later.

During her last years, Louisa, who was suffering from pains, dizzy spells, headaches, hoarseness, indigestion, and sleeplessness, found once again relief in her writing; it was only during her writing sessions that she could momentarily forget about her illnesses, for in her mind she could be as lively and enthusiastic as she was in her adolescence. Even her doctor agreed that it was best for her to get the ideas out of her head, so that she could rest. It was around this time that she wrote the last chapter of the Little Women trilogy: Jo’s Boys; here Jo is middle-aged, and all the little women and men are grown-ups and pursuing their careers. The last chapter, entitled “Positively Last Appearance”, ends with the words:

and now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the March family (Alcott, 2014).

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2.The phenomenon of Little Women

2.1 The reception of Little Women

2.1.1 How Little Women was received in the past

Shortly after the release of Little Women on September 30, 1868, Louisa May Alcott was largely praised by many prestigious magazines of her time. On October 18, 1868 the Albany Evening Journal wrote: “‘Little Women’ is a charming story, which will set wild all the little women after it. It is bound to have many readers, and it will please all who like a sprightly, sparkling, lively story” (Clark, 2004, p. 61). Again, on that same day The Commonwealth wrote:

few writers bear along with them so successfully the expressions, desires, sympathies and feelings of children as Miss Alcott, and the happy consequence is that her portraiture of child-life is real, penetrating and abiding. The history of these four little women will be found faithful to life, and the source of infinite pleasure to all readers (Clark, 2004, p. 61).

Not only were reviewers largely satisfied with the originality of the novel, as one can read from the several reviews collected in Louisa May Alcott: The Contemporary Reviews (2004), but also young readers welcomed the book with positive enthusiasm. In only two weeks the book sold two thousand copies and by the end of October, “the printing presses were busy making more to fill the growing demand” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 1). As weeks went by, Louisa was besieged by thousands of letters from thrilled young readers who wanted to know the fate of the March sisters; for these reasons, the author set down to work and brought to life the second part of the beloved novel. If possible, its success was even greater. Her publisher Julian Hawthorne, in fact, explained her that the publishing house was loaded with work, since Chicago bookstores had ordered thousands of copies and other ten thousand books were ready to be shipped out (Rioux, 2018); as her publisher would define it: Louisa’s novel was, without doubt, the triumph of the century and it was destined to remain on bookstore shelves much longer than any contemporary storybook (Rioux, 2018).

Readers and reviewers alike were astonished by Louisa’s novel thanks to two main factors: its originality and its genuine descriptions of the characters, which made Little Women very different in style from any other children book of that time. Children books were quite popular in the American society of those years, but they were mainly stereotyped and, most of all, they failed in capturing the attention of young readers. As Anne Boyd Rioux (2018) explains, books for children were mainly

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influenced by Puritan ideals, which started declining by the beginning of the 18th_{century after being}

popular for more than two centuries. Such doctrine rewarded “stilted and pious” books, where characters were presented as only good or evil and their moral growth was denied; for these reasons such protagonists were not attractive enough to the average reader. Moreover, the end of the story was almost always predictable, for it consisted in the reward for good acts and in the punishment for bad behaviors. As for the narrating voice, it was usually the one of an adult wise preacher, who would strictly guide its audience.

Accustomed to such elements, readers could not help but marvel when they first read Little

Women, for it was “fresh, sparkling, natural, and full of soul” (Clark, 2004, p. 61), as the Boston Daily Evening Transcript would claim. Such naturalness came, without a doubt, from an unusual narrating

voice, which did not talk down to children as in other contemporary novels. On the contrary, it seemed to be one of them. As Rioux (2018) clearly points out, when the narrator preaches to her readers, she does it through the beloved character of Marmee or through one of the sisters themselves, with the result that she does not sound too moralizing or pedantic; in simple terms “there was also something revolutionary about a narrator who spoke directly to girls without correcting or admonishing them” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3). With these premises, it came as no surprise when Christian authorities “objected to the lack of overt religiosity in the book” and “advised Sunday school librarians against purchasing [it]” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3). However, sales continued to increase, without the support of local Christian authorities and average readers did not mind, for “America was becoming increasingly secular, and Americans no longer required that books for children preach the Bible” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3).

Not only did such originality please young readers, but it also entertained adult ones. Since the whole novel cannot be classified as child-only or adult-only literature, it is obvious that both categories of readers became interested in it. As Rioux (2018) warmly recalls in her book, everyone, from children to their grandparents and from merchants to lawyers, was reading it and was equally absorbed by it. In short, the novel became “a cultural phenomenon that knew no boundaries of age, gender, or class” (ch. 3).

Another aspect which interested readers of all ages was the way characters were described, for Alcott had been able to describe them in a lively and genuine way, by penetrating “the inner lives of the young” (Strickland, 2003, p. 71), who could finally see themselves reflected in the pages of a novel. Such identification with Louisa’s characters was possible because she had created authentic people with strengths and weaknesses (or “burdens” as they are used to call them), not idealized characters comparable to little saints. The March sisters themselves, in fact, are “real girls and not some didactic writer's notion of what girls should be like” (Strickland, 2003, p. 71).

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To take a closer look, Meg, the eldest sister, is portrayed as a diligent, pretty and loving girl, who looks after her younger sisters as a tender mother, and who dreams of having a caring husband, several children and a beautiful house to take care of. In other words, she is the most domestic in nature. But Meg is also the one who wrestles with envy of wealth and, most of all, with vanity: in fact, in the first chapter of the novel she cries “I think too much of my looks” (Alcott, 2001, p. 52) and during another episode further ahead, she is willing to suffer for the entire ball by wearing a pair of tight shoes, which she considered to be the prettiest.

As far as Beth is concerned, she represents, without shadow of a doubt, the closest stereotype of the saintly child: she is shy, sensitive, kind and always willing to help others. But however good she might be, she too has her little flaws. She is scared of people and she confesses to hate household chores; nevertheless, just like her sisters, she tries to do her best to overcome them.

Amy, the youngest March sister, is the opposite of Beth, for she is portrayed as an aspiring young artist with high ambitions, but with a selfish and self-centered character.

And finally, Jo is the most different sister of all. She is described as a free-spirited, independent and headstrong girl, with tomboyish behaviors. In other words, she simply rejects femininity, for she frankly confesses: “It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy” (Alcott, 2001, p. 47). But Jo has her flaws too, for she is rough and wild and possesses a quick temper, which very often gets her into trouble, as is clearly explained in the first pages of the novel: “[her] quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic” (Alcott, 2001, p. 78). As a consequence, it is evident that Jo fails to fit the model of the ideal heroine of conventional books and this is why she was so liked by many readers: “Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested” (Alcott, 2001, p. 444). Reading such descriptions, it is no wonder that the readers of that time could identify with the protagonists of the novel, for everyone could certainly find at least a piece of themselves in the colorful characters of the March sisters.

Despite the many praises, the novel received some criticism as well. One aspect which was largely criticized, especially from British reviewers, was the language used by the main characters: the March sisters did not express themselves in lady-like manner and only used Americanisms, which gave the novel a sense of vulgarity, to draw some descriptive terms from British reviewers (Rioux, 2018). Apart from these exceptions, the language used by Louisa May Alcott was, on the contrary, rather praised, since it introduced “the fresh language of American colloquialism” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3) in the American literature of the time, thus paving the way for “vulgar” speech, as the one used in

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who would appear later in 1884. However, in 1880, in order to

meet the demands of English readers, Alcott’s publishing house decided to publish a new cleaned up edition of Little Women, where slangs and colloquialisms were left out. Among the several examples, Rioux (2018) mentions: “ain’t is changed to ‘am not’ or ‘are not’ throughout; grub and peg become ‘work’; spandy becomes ‘new’; I guess not is changed to ‘I think not’; and red as a beet is now ‘red as a peony’” (ch. 3). It is also interesting to notice that such changes came not only to please English readers, but also to satisfy American ones, who “were increasingly anxious about regional dialects and informal slang and sought to impose a more regularized language on the nation” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3).

Linguistic changes notwithstanding, the popularity of Little Women continued to grow. Even after Alcott’s death, the novel never went out of print and several illustrated editions continued to proliferate, thus helping to reimagine “the novel’s key scenes for new generations of readers” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 3).

2.1.2 How Little Women is received today

All the positive aspects mentioned above, which contributed to the ever-growing popularity of the novel in the past, are still appreciated and make the book loved even in the 21st_{century. In fact, even}

today’s young readers fall in love with Alcott’s characters, who are described genuinely, as real people, struggling with their own flaws and daily problems. The novel also offers its readers different types of characters, with whom they can identify, just the same way younger readers did 150 years ago. Rioux (2018) clearly illustrates this form of realism in her book:

[Alcott’s] innovation was that she portrayed such fully realized characters that readers then and now have instantly felt as if they were real people, wholly unlike the idealized characters most common at the time. Each of the March sisters has a flaw she cannot easily overcome. Marmee admits her failings. Laurie struggles to do the right thing. Even Professor Bhaer is afraid to propose to Jo and proves himself to be, like all the other characters, only human. The plot moves along much like real life, with small trials and triumphs. The great crises in the novel are death and loss—again, as in real life (ch. 6).

Despite its undoubted popularity, Little Women is rarely taught in Anglo-Saxon schools; as Rioux (2018) reveals: “according to the 2012 What Kids Are Reading report only 0.08 percent of the 7.6 million American students surveyed had read Little Women the previous school year” and again “in the 2016 surveys, conducted in the U.K. as well as the United States, Alcott was not mentioned

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in either report, which represented the reading habits of 9.8 million students in the United States and 750,000 in the U.K.” (ch. 7).

These data can be easily explained thanks to two issues. The first one is the fact that young readers prefer more contemporary novels and tend to abandon more sentimental books similar to

Little Women; both boys and girls want to read about adventures, and they are more interested in

fantasy, rather than realism or domestic drama. As evidence of this fact, let us mention the growing popularity of fantasy sagas written specifically for young readers, such as Harry Potter or The Hunger

Games. Therefore, it is obvious that the plot of Little Women may appear more boring and

monotonous and fail to appeal to younger readers, who are attracted to more sensational novels. While the first issue was connected to personal reading habits, the second one is closely related to the school environment; here, in fact, teachers tend to prefer other classical novels and to leave

Little Women on the back burner. Such exclusion is motivated by the fact that teachers are worried

about the responses of the boys in the class, who are usually unwilling to read books about girls, while girls are normally made to read novels focusing on boys. As Rioux (2018) largely explains, basing her opinions on statistics, in Anglo-Saxon schools, both in America and in the U.K., the classics presented to young students, are the ones with a male protagonist, such as The Adventures of

Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Lord of the Flies, while little attention is

granted to novels with girls as main characters. Consequently, books such as The Diary of a Young

Girl and To Kill a Mockingbird, are mainly taught for their historical and delicate themes, and

definitely not for the presence of a female character. In other words:

[educators] have flattened the options so that texts about boys predominate—the more male focused and the more contemporary, the better. And to be sure, plenty of anecdotal evidence shows that teachers and librarians are not handing Little Women to boys; on the contrary, they, along with parents and peers, are actively discouraging boys from picking up or checking out so-called girls’ books at all (Rioux, 2018, ch. 7).

Bearing in mind such discouraging data regarding the literary habits of young readers, Little

Women should be promoted more, as its contribution may go far beyond that of many other

contemporary books. First of all, reading this novel may help children to understand something about their identities and, most importantly, something about others as well, for it is no secret that literature might play a major role in the developing of empathy (a very much needed capacity in a world like ours, where The Different is often demonized). If it is common for girls to read book about boys, then boys should be encouraged to read novels about girls as well, which would allow them to see the world differently and experience life from a female perspective. And “what better book than Little

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the rigid gender boundaries that persist?” Rioux (2018, ch. 7) asks. The characters of Jo and Laurie are portrayed as two nonconformists and, as a consequence, can be seen as an example for those young adults who are still discovering their true identity. On the one hand, girls could find a positive, alternative model in Jo’s boyish manners, which do not allow her to conform to the conventions of the perfect lady of the 19th_{century. Jo is not pretty as her sister Meg, she is not patient and kind as}

Beth and, without a doubt, she is not as elegant as Amy; yet her character remains one of the most loved by the public and provides a good model for non-conformist behaviors. In other words, “rather than conforming to ideals of femininity or succumbing to their destructiveness, as her sisters do, she figures out how to thrive in spite of them” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 8). Likewise, today’s girls may not fit into the descriptions of the ideal girl perpetrated by our society, but, as Alcott teaches us, there would be nothing wrong with it.

On the other hand, Laurie could be a role model for today’s boys too: he was bullied at school, he does not love sports, he has a passion for music and he too, like Jo, challenges the classic role of a 19th century man, which was imposed by Victorian society. In other words: “Little Women is the perfect text for examining with students how gender is constructed and how it is often imposed from without, not from within” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 7).

To conclude, the power of Little Women may lay in its realistic and genuine plot, which may sound outdated and boring to more lively readers, but which may help, in the meantime, both “young and old, male and female, to think about the complex issues of identity formation and maturation, and what role gender plays in them” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 7).

2.2 Little Women and its adaptations

Since its first appearance in 1868 Little Women has inspired many readers of different ages, different genders and different social backgrounds, as was outlined in the previous paragraphs. In addition, the novel also fired the enthusiasm of several authors, playwrights, screenwriters, and novelists who readapted it in various forms and with many different techniques. It is obvious that each work may have a different level of faithfulness to the original, depending on the tastes of the creator and of his/her times. Before describing the five adaptations that I have selected as the most representative and as the object of this research (2.2.2) a general outline of the main international adaptations of the novel will be presented, in order to give a concrete idea of the novel’s impact worldwide.

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2.2.1 Little Women as a global phenomenon

One of the first adaptations of the novel was for the stage, as Rioux (2018) recalls in her book. It first came out as an amateur production in schools and community theatres and it was later brought to Broadway as a musical at the beginning of the 20th_{century. Such adaptation represented a sort of}

struggle for its creators, since the heirs of Alcott’s copyrights were not convinced by the project, for they conceived the novel as the story of their family and thought that a Broadway production would be too much publicity for them. Finally, after several talks, the play premiered in October 1912 and everyone was so satisfied with the representation of Alcott’s story, that it ran “for 203 performances on Broadway and toured the country for two years” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 4). Moreover, several revivals of the play were also performed in the 1930s.

Between the 1930s and the 1940s, when radios were highly popular and families gathered around them to listen to soap operas and quiz shows, a new type of adaptation arouse: radio dramas, which were a great success among the public (Leitch & Hand, 2017). Between 1935 and 1950 at least eight dramatizations of Little Women were performed, but it is possible that they were even more; this, however, cannot be known exactly, for radio dramas were performed live, both in the U.K. and in America, until after World War II.

However, as television gained more and more audience, Little Women also moved into this new medium and several tv adaptations were released throughout the years; sometimes as movies, other times as musicals (1958) or ballet versions (1976), as was the case in America, Canada and Britain. The novel was also adapted for television in various languages in other parts of the world, such as Italy, China and Brazil in the 1950s; and Mexico, Argentina and Spain in the 1960s. Moreover, during the 1980s, Little Women was also showed on tv, both as a movie and as a tv series, in Japan (Rioux, 2018).

Finally, in more recent years, the novel was adapted into an opera, which premiered in 1998, and into two musicals, one being performed in Broadway in 2004 and the other being performed in London in 2016. It is important to notice how, “despite adapters’ avowals of fidelity to the original text, each [adaptation] reinvented Little Women for a new generation, sustaining Alcott’s story as a living text growing and changing with time” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 4).

2.2.2 The corpus for this study: five adaptations of Little Women

For the purposes of this research, I decided to take into consideration five adaptations of Little Women (not mentioned above) of which four are movies and one is a tv series. I chose to focus on these

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specific works because I wanted to include in my corpus all the cinematic adaptations (both in black and white and in color) which have been released until now. Moreover, I also wanted to include a recent tv adaptation, for I think it would be interesting to compare the two media (i.e., cinema and tv) and to ascertain whether a different medium offers stimulating aspects to discuss or not.

The five texts also differ in terms of time; in fact, all of the selected adaptations belong to different historical periods, ranging from the 1930s to the present. The differences between the adaptations will certainly be useful to witness how the selected spoken features, which are the object of investigation of this study, have changed over the years and how they have adapted to different audiences. In what follows, I will provide a brief description of the texts that I have selected, in order to show how they reflect the cultural tastes and values of the era in which they were released.

The first element of the corpus is the black and white sound film, which was released in 1933 and directed by George Cukor. During the 1930s, the novel regained its prominence and became a best-selling book in England and America, as Rioux (2018) underlines. This can be easily explained thanks to the fact that, during the Great Depression, readers and audience wanted to escape from the troubles they were living and found their strength in literary works, such as Little Women, where poverty, simplicity and resilience were the main pillars of the plot. With this in mind, director George Cukor created a “lively comedy to entertain his audience, instilling the hope that they would surmount all the problems and the sufferings due to the Great Depression, in the same way that the March family overcame the hardships of the Civil War” (Bruti & Vignozzi, 2021, p. 2). As Rioux (2018) notices, in the movie there are several references connected to hardship and deprivation (that would disappear in later adaptations), such as the opening, when Marmee “provides aid to a poor man who has lost three of his four sons to the war” (ch. 4), and the scene dedicated to the Hummels’ poverty. It is also interesting to notice how hard work in the domestic household is highly praised, while other aspects, such as Jo’s writing career are neglected (Bruti & Vignozzi, 2021). Given the predicament, the director wanted to convey a sense of commitment towards one’s own duties inside the family in time of needs, rather than praising personal interests and individual careers.

Among the many celebrities starring in the movie, one in particular is worth mentioning: Katherine Hepburn, starring as Jo March. According to her own statements, the actress was thrilled to play the protagonist of the movie, for she felt a strong connection between her strong personality and the one described by Louisa May Alcott: “she completely empathized with Jo’s desire to be a boy—when Hepburn was ten, she had shaved her head, worn boy’s clothes, and changed her name to Jimmy” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 4); in other words, Hepburn essentially played Jo as herself. When the movie was released, reviewers largely praised Hepburn’s performance and the whole public

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immediately fell in love with her portrayal of Jo March, which stayed in the audience’s hearts for many years.

The second cinematographic adaptation to be considered is the one which was released in 1949. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy, produced by Metro-Goldwin Meyers, which starred June Allyson as Jo, Janet Leigh as Meg, Elizabeth Taylor as Amy and Peter Lawford as Laurie. When considering this movie, it is worth noting how the cultural values of the late 1940s heavily affected it and made it very different from its predecessor, at least in terms of atmosphere. While the 1933 adaptation opens with a montage of soldiers heading off to the Civil War, the 1949 movie opens with a lively Jo, who jumps the fence on her way home while her sisters are watching her from the window; and even the other scenes of poverty, that characterized the 1933 film, are diminished as well. This can be easily explained thanks to the fact that, by the late 40s, audiences did not want to be reminded of war or deprivation. On the contrary, they wanted a more colorful and livelier (sometimes too artificial) representation of the outside world, which could inspire and move them at the same time. Another aspect which characterizes this movie is the inclusion of a shopping scene, which is not present neither in the novel, nor in any other adaptation. In the scene, the public can see the four March sisters heading downtown and spending the money Aunt March had previously given them. At first, they buy something for themselves, but in a second moment they change their minds and end up buying something for Marmee instead. This quite long scene exemplifies the new American value of the time, consumerism: “the movie thus supported the idea that consumerism was the patriotic duty of American women after the war. They were to rebuild the population and the economy by marrying, having babies, and filling their homes with new products” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 4). Nevertheless, in this adaptation, Jo’s writing career receives more attention than in the previous movie.

The third text in my corpus is the 1994 cinematographic adaptation, which was released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Gillian Armstrong, featuring many celebrities of the caliber of Winona Ryder (Jo), Trini Alvarado (Meg), Samantha Mathis (old Amy), Kirsten Dunst (young Amy), Claire Danes (Beth), Susan Sarandon (Marmee) and Christian Bale (Laurie). As Rioux (2018) explains, the movie was a commercial success, for it earned more than $50 million at the box office and gained the worldwide recognition of epic family story, suitable not only for girls but for all types of viewers. The movie also became the most loved adaptation of the novel for most Little Women fans, especially for those under fifty. Bearing in mind the two previous adaptations, the 1994 movie has, without a doubt, a more feminist outlook. This can be easily explained by looking at two characters: Marmee and Jo. The former is a wise mother, who preaches her daughters about the importance of women’s education, about their role in the society and, lastly, about their need of freedom; such encouraging words make Susan Sarandon’s portrayal of Marmee one of the most

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faithful to the original, especially if compared to previous adaptations. As far as Jo is concerned, she is so inspired and moved by her mother’s words, that she tries to become a successful writer throughout the movie and she eventually succeeds, thanks to the useful help of Professor Bhaer - unlike in the novel, where “she achieves considerable success on her own” (Rioux, 2018, ch. 4).

In my opinion these points, that is to say Jo’s writing career and the feminist perspective on women’s life, are better taken care of in the fourth and last cinematographic adaptation in my corpus: the 2019 movie. This film, which was produced by Pascal Picture and directed by Greta Gerwig, is the most recent one and it represents the adaptation of the novel for most Little Women fans who belong to Generation Z, namely those individuals born between 1995/1996 and 2010. As Peter Debruge (2019) writes in his review of the movie: “if every generation deserves its own ‘Little Women’ adaptation, Greta Gerwig has done this one proud with a lively — if oddly nonlinear — retelling”. I myself entered the world of the March family by first watching this specific adaptation, which features a dazzling cast, comprising Saoirse Ronan (in the role of Jo), Emma Watson (as Meg), Florence Pugh (as Amy), Eliza Scanlen (as Beth), Laura Dern (as Marmee), Timothée Chalamet (as Laurie) and Meryl Streep (as Aunt March). From a narrative and technical point of view, this movie is constructed quite differently from the previous adaptations, for it is entirely told from Jo’s perspective. Narration moves back and forth in time, alternating girlish memories of her childhood (mostly told in the first volume of the book which takes place in 1861) and episodes of her later life as a young woman (those that occur in the second part of the book, after Meg's wedding, more or less in 1868). As I said before, this adaptation takes into consideration Jo’s career more than any other adaptation: in fact, the movie starts and finishes with the protagonist inside a publishing house. While in the first scene Jo timidly hands over to a skeptical publisher one of her sensational novels, which pays her little money, in the last scene, after turning her family history into a novel, she proudly sees it published. In this movie Jo is able to become a successful writer without the help of any man, but only by relying on her own strength and determination.

The fifth and last Little Women adaptation I chose to add to my corpus is not a cinematic one, but a British 3-episode miniseries, directed by English director Vanessa Caswill and aired on BBC One on Boxing Day 2017. The cast includes both American and British celebrities, such as Emily Watson (Marmee), Maya Hawke (Jo), Willa Fitzgerald (Meg), Kathryn Newton (Amy), Annes Elwy (Beth), Jonah Hauer-King (Laurie) and Angela Lansbury (Aunt March). The miniseries is quite faithful to the original novel as Eleanor Bley Griffiths (n.d.) explains in her review of the adaptation. She writes: “thankfully the drama stays true to the spirit and the plot of Louisa May Alcott’s most famous novel”, and again, “luckily [Vanessa Caswill] has been wise enough to preserve all the key moments that readers will remember no matter how many years have passed since they last picked

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the novel off their bookshelf”. Despite these merits, it is interesting to notice how the audience was not quite convinced about this particular adaptation; in fact, many of the viewers who commented the movie online on their social networks preferred the interpretation of earlier adaptations and in particular they criticized the one at issue for “the score, the casting and the choices” (Allen, 2017).

Finally, it is interesting to focus on the relationships that exist not only between the original text (the novel Little Women) and its adaptations, but also between the adaptations themselves. Elisa Bussi (1999) clearly explains these types of implicit relationship in the introduction to her book

Letteratura e Cinema: Il Remake. Here she contends that several versions, or remakes as she labels

them, can arise from a specific literary source text (i.e., the Ur-text), with which they can share a certain number of elements, depending on how much screen writers and authors want to remain faithful to the literary work. Later on, Bussi (1999) also offers an interesting metaphor about the nature of adaptations; in fact, she describes them as branches or ramifications growing from the same tree. Just as these branches have the ability to intertwine, meet and communicate with each other, the different versions, or adaptations, of a source text can communicate with each other, sharing certain aspects and complementing each other. This intertwining of adaptations is also very popular with the public, who can judge and compare with their own eyes the different versions of a source text and choose which one they prefer. With regard to this, Bruti and Vignozzi (2021), when dealing with some adaptations of Little Women for the screen, explained that the phenomenon of adaptations “creates a chain of re-readings, mutual influences and intertextual references that may contribute to the success of a remake as the audience is stimulated to reinterpret and rebuild its own updated versions of the story” (p. 3).

In the case of the Little Women phenomenon, we can affirm that the two-part novel, published by Louisa May Alcott, represents the literary source text for all the following adaptations. More specifically, in the case of my corpus, the 1933 black and white movie “represents the archetypical sound adaptation, i.e., the first cinematic adaptation where the movement between two different semiotic registers (literature and sound cinema) happened” (Bruti & Vignozzi, 2021, p. 2). As far as the other works (i.e., the 1949, 1994, 2019 movies and the 2017 tv series) are concerned, one can think of them as re-adaptations, that is to say “new, more contemporary, and sometimes also innovative, cinematic readings of the same literary text […] that are inevitably indebted to the previous adaptation(s)” (Bruti & Vignozzi, 2021, p. 3).

The intertextuality between the different adaptations may refer to a wide variety of technical aspects, which can range from scenography, to photography, from the musical score to the plot, and so on. An example of such intertextuality may be traced in the 1949 movie, for its director and scriptwriters basically reused both the script and the musical score of the 1933 movie and slightly