“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott (post 5): Does the masculine “Jo” personality of Chapter I switch to a feminine personality in Chapter XIV?

Chapter I of Little Women, in its introduction of Jo, lays great emphasis on her masculine identification. She has a “gentlemanly manner.” She is chided for whistling, because “It’s so boyish.” She says, “I like boy’s games, and work, and manners. I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy, and it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with papa [in the Civil War], and I can only stay at home and knit like a poky old woman.” At age fifteen, she continues to be a “tom-boy,” and declares, “I’m the man of the family now papa is away.”

In Chapter XIV, Jo, one year older, has just published her first short story, “The Rival Painters” (which also happens to be the title of the first story published by Louisa May Alcott). When her older sister, Meg, shows signs of being marriage minded, and chides Jo for unladylike behavior, Jo says:

“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time, Meg; it’s hard enough to have you change all of a sudden; let me be a little girl as long as I can.”

My question is why the Jo described in Chapter 1 would say “let me be a little girl as long as I can.”

Readers, if they wanted to, could come up with a rationalization for the apparent contradiction. For example, they could argue that the Jo of Chapter XIV is not talking about gender, but about age only, and that all she is saying is she is not ready to grow up. But in that case, she could have said to let her be a boy or a child as long as she could. The “Jo” personality described in Chapter I would not refer to herself as “a little girl.”

Interestingly, her first story is published under the name “Miss Josephine March.” Why doesn't she publish it as “Jo March” or at least “Miss Jo March”? Perhaps because “Jo” is the name of her boyish personality, and the short story is a romantic tale of a sort that her boyish personality would not have written.

Another possible explanation for the inconsistency between Chapters I and XIV is that it was caused not by a switch in the character’s personality, but by a switch in the narrator. Perhaps the two chapters were written by different narrators, who differed in their perspectives on that character.

All I can say for sure is that there is a discrepancy between the two chapters. If you have a better explanation for it, please submit your comment.