Little Women

Abstract

Little Women has remained enduringly popular since its publication in 1868, becoming the inspiration for a whole genre of family stories. Set in a small New England community, it tells of the March family: Marmee looks after daughters in the absence of her husband, who is serving as an army chaplain in the Civil War, and Meg, Jo,Beth, and Amy experience domestic trials and triumphs as they attempt to supplement the family's small income. In the second part of the novel (sometimes known as Good Wives) the girls grow up and fall in love. The novel is highly autobiographical, and in Jo's character Alcott portrays a strong-minded and independent woman, determined to control her own destiny. The introduction to this edition provides a fascinating history of the Alcotts,and of Louisa Alcott's own struggles as a writer.

Syntactic Means of Expressing Emotivity (On the Basis of the English Literary Works)

“…In the present research of the emotivity of the female authors (henceforth FA) literary works in the XIX c. (Alcott, 1996;Bronte, 1996) and XXI c. (Harris, 2007;Mendelson, 2008) three types of the syntactic expressive meansexclamatory sentences, repetitions and partial constructions are under investigation ( The emotional expressive colouring that transmits the emotional perceptible state of the speaker is concentrated in the exclamatory sentences. The present research of this type of the indirect stylistic nomination of the emotivity contains 222 examples (49%) -121 (46%) -XIX c. and 101 (52%) -XXI c. and it is the most quantitative in this category of the stylistic means (Figure 1).…”

“…"Hold you tongue, you disrespectful old bird!" (Alcott, 1996) the moral humiliation of the interlocutor and the extreme irritation of the speaker is being outlined.…”

“…said Amy, who had not the remotest idea what the Row was and wouldn"t have asked for the world." (Alcott, 1996).…”

“…"What a strange yet pleasant day that was!" (Alcott, 1996). In the last example the vividness of the emphatic construction of the sentence is reinforced by the antithesis that sharply contrasts the opposite features strange yet pleasant day.…”

“…"What a sly fellow Laurie is!" (Alcott, 1996) -Agnes from the novel of L. M. Alcott «Little women» characterises Lory as sly because he said that any hat fitted her although she fancied to choose in the latest fashion.…”