Little Women Movie Analysis Essay Example

The film “Little Women” shows how life was during the civil war. While their father was away at civil war, the mother and children are left behind taking care of the house. Four sisters Jo, Beth, Amy, and Meg were left at home with their mother. Each sister had their own passion whether it was writing or painting or playing the piano. Jo specifically took her passion which was writing and kept trying and trying to write a book and make money by selling her book. Because they were poor, their only way of making money was selling their books or paintings. They had no other way of making money because their father was not home. Growing up each sister wanted to fulfill their dream. As Jo was growing up, she wrote many fiction novels and after getting rejected by authors, she stopped writing. Once her sister Beth was getting sicker, Jo wrote to her because Beth loved her writing. After Beth’s death, Jo began to write again and eventually published her own book and opened a school. 

As the sisters get older, the film starts to show how life was for every character. One pursues her dream of writing; she moved to New York for a while to seek advice for her writing. However, ends up coming back to her home after becoming unsuccessful. Eventually, as each of the sisters become adults, they start to think more of marriage. The film showed how each sister searches to find a husband. One of the sisters, Meg always wanted a family of her own and ends up getting married first. Amy ends up marrying one of her childhood friends and Jo ends a marrying a writer. In the end, they all have their own families.                                  

Historically, this story occurred in Concord, Massachusetts between 1863 and 1866 which was also during the Civil War. The film showed that women were expected to get married and have families rather than have a career. Women were meant to stay home and take care of their family and home; it was the husband’s job to make the money. Even if women wanted to work or purse their dreams, they didn’t really have the opportunity too. Most women desired to marry rich because it was the only way they could supply for the family. Elders would also tell women to marry rich because only men could really work. The husband would provide the money for the family and the women would take care of the family. However, if you were poor, women had to work outside the home. In the film, the two oldest girls worked as a tutor, and the other helps serve an older lady.  It was hard to make money for women because their main job was to take care of the household. Women tried to marry rich because it was their only way of having money. Amy emphasizes that in a scene of the film; she said that marriage is an economic proposition. That the children are the husbands because he is the one who pays. Women were expected to marry. The film showed that one of the sisters, Jo, didn’t want to get married as a girl but later on get married. This shows that even if some girls didn’t want to get married, once they are old enough, they must marry. 

Another historical significance from the film is that education was becoming more important. Young boys and girls were sent to school if they were not working. However, because education was still new, the public school system wasn’t very good. If a student did something wrong, the teachers would punish them by hitting them. If a family could afford a tutor, they would teach their kids at home. Rich families were most likely to hire to a tutor for their children. Apart from school, girls were also taught how to become good housewives. Mothers would teach them good manners as well as take care of the home. How to cook food, clean the house, so that they know what to do when they get married. 

In my opinion the film was really interesting. It showed how each sister grew up from childhood to adults. Each sister had their own passion growing up. One sister loved to play piano, one loved to paint, and one loved to write. However, most of the sisters wanted to get married and if not, were in a way forced too. The film didn’t play in order, it switched from the present and the past. It was hard to follow along sometimes because it didn’t tell the audience “Six months before” so I had to figure it out sometimes. I also found interesting that the film would show the present without any context, but the next scene had context and explained what had just happened. Overall, the film was to show how life was for the poor and how they supplied for their families while fathers were at war. Showing how each sister grew up and how different each one was, was very interesting.