Little Women and its Endless Adaptations
Why do we keep remaking Little Women?
Sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March first appeared on the pages of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women in 1868. These characters captivated readers across the United States, with the first volume of the book selling out almost immediately. The past 150 years have been no different. In fact, Alcott’s novel has never been out of print. It's therefore unsurprising that the March sisters have featured in a myriad of film adaptations since.
Spanning from the silent film era to the most recent adaptation in 2019, seven films have arisen from Alcott’s vast success. This leads me to question: “What is it about this particular story that appeals to every new generation, and why is it that we keep remaking Little Women?”
I would argue that it’s the realism of the novel, the magical pictures Alcott crafts of everyday life, that appeal to so many readers and viewers alike. When I first read Little Women at age twelve, I was drawn into the world of 1860s Massachusetts. Although I read this book in 21st-century Scotland, I gained great comfort from the characters within the pages. Like many others, I could relate to the March sisters’ unrelenting quest to find their place in the world and the big dreams they had which often turned out to be small realities.

In Little Women (2019), Jo asks her sisters, “Who will be interested in a story of domestic struggles and joys? It doesn’t have any real importance.” Well, I believe the century-crossing success of Little Women aptly answers this question: everyone. This beautiful realism may be down to the semi-autobiographical nature of the novel. Alcott based Meg, Beth, and Amy on her own sisters, which provided the novel with true and tangible emotions, adding a sense of depth which many readers still value today.
However, if the novel alone provided this sense of comfort, then why have so many filmmakers chosen to put their own spin on Little Women? Cynics might argue a new adaptation is a guaranteed money-maker, but I’d like to take a more hopeful approach.
In the past 150 years, societal attitudes towards women have changed drastically. Although Little Women has always functioned as a somewhat feminist work, the most recent adaptation was the first to leave Jo’s romantic ending radically ambiguous. In every rendition so far, including the original novel, Jo ends up married to Friedrich Bhaer. In contrast, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019) allows audiences to interpret Jo’s marital fate for themselves.
It's this constantly changing, but always applicable, idea of Little Women that has provided so many filmmakers with inspiration to adapt the novel for modern audiences. As well as this, I believe the characters within the pages of Little Women transcend time. The endlessly relatable, continually engaging March sisters naturally caught the attention of many filmmakers. Director Greta Gerwig even stated, “It was something I wanted to do because it was the book of my youth, of my childhood, of my heart, of my ambition, of what made me want me to be a writer, and also what made me want to be a director.”
Clearly, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is one of those rare artworks that keeps on giving. For me, no Little Women adaptation will come close to Gerwig’s 2019 creation. However, I look forward to the inevitable evolution of Little Women on the screen, and what it will reveal about the timeless and changing nature of Alcott’s characters.
I’ll leave you with another quote from Greta Gerwig. One that perfectly sums up why we keep adapting Little Women, and why I don’t believe we will ever stop: “Little Women is one of our great works of American literature, and I think, as with all great works of literature, when you revisit them, they reveal something new.”
Illustration by Amelia Freeden
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