![]() Jo wasn’t the girl for me, though I went through a brief tomboy phase in a vain effort to please a very butch 3 rd -grade bully, and though my diaries from about age 8 to about age 10 are filled with Jo-like phrases such as “harum-scarum” and “niminy-piminy.” No, my key to self-understanding was Amy. ![]() In this framework, our proper orientation to the novel is made clear: loving anyone but Jo, one may as well long for a corset. “Gloves are the most important thing,” says the insufferable Meg. ![]() After all, who was Jo but our tomboy self, our “behind the mask” self, our struggle against normative femininity? Then, too, it’s a sign of self- mis understanding to identify with the novel as a whole too closely, given the long history of criticism situating it as the apotheosis of disciplinary intimacy-the iron fist of patriarchy clad in the lemonade-soiled glove of familial sympathy. ![]() It’s a complete cliché for a lesbian to claim Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as a key text in her self-understanding and relationship to the world. ![]()
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