Louisa May Alcott: Author of beloved “Little Women,” also of “Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power,” both with unacknowledged multiple personality

Another film version of the beloved novel, Little Women, is due later this month. Most reviews and appreciations of the novel and its adaptations say things like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/books/little-women-alcott-anniversary.html

Reviews rarely mention, and so most people don’t know, that Alcott also wrote novels like Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power, in which the female protagonist is a Jekyll/Hyde character (but published twenty years before Stevenson’s novel).

The following brief past posts will give you additional appreciation of Little Women, the author, and her writing process.

August, 27, 2017

Louisa May Alcott: Before “Little Women,” she wrote “blood-and-thunder” stories with femmes fatales, not only for money, but because A. M. Barnard preferred.

“I fancy ‘lurid’ things,” Louisa May Alcott wrote in her 1850 journal, “if true and strong also” (1, p. xii). And she said in conversation, “I think my natural ambition is for the lurid style” (1, p. xxvi). So who was this who expressed a preference for the lurid, Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women) or A. M. Barnard (her usual pseudonym)?

Most of her sensational tales, what she called her “blood-and-thunder” works, were published under a pseudonym or anonymously, but “The Mysterious Key has a male hero…and…was published over the name of Louisa May Alcott. The possibility suggests itself that Louisa insisted upon secrecy less for her blood-and-thunder stories in general than for her passionate and angry heroines in particular” (1, p. xvi).

“Her characterizations were natural and subtle and her gallery of femmes fatales forms a suite of flesh-and-blood portraits. Her own anger at an unjust world she transformed into the anger of her heroines, who made of it a powerful weapon with which to challenge fate. The psychological insights of A. M. Barnard [her pseudonymous personality] disclose the darker side of the character of Louisa May Alcott” (1, p. xxviii).

Stephen King infers that there were “two Louisa May Alcotts,” and although the conventional one, the author of Little Women, came to predominate, the sensational tales give us “…a fascinating look into a divided mind that was both attracted to themes of violence and sexuality and ashamed by its own interest” (2).

1. Louisa May Alcott. Behind a Mask: the Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott. Edited and with an Introduction and Afterword by Madeleine Stern. New York, William Morrow and Company, 1975/1995.

2. Stephen King. “Blood and Thunder in Concord.” New York Times, September 10, 1995. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/13/nnp/18425.html?mcubz=0

August 28,2017

“Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power” by Louisa May Alcott writing as A. M. Barnard: Woman, background like Alcott’s, portrayed as psychopath.

The protagonist of this novella is a poor, 19-year-old governess who uses her skills as an actress to trick her rich, elderly employer into marrying her.

Louisa May Alcott, herself, had a background in theater and was once a poor, 19-year-old lady’s companion, who had to flee her position, because her employer, the lady’s elderly brother, made inappropriate advances.

So I would have expected the governess in this story to have been portrayed sympathetically, with her marriage a triumph, if not for feminism, then at least class struggle and social mobility. But the narrative portrays the governess as a triumphant, scheming psychopath.

Another interesting thing about the governess is that she passes herself off as being nineteen, but she is actually thirty. The reader is told that she is thirty and shown her removing her disguise in private. The latter scene made me think of Dr. Jekyll’s turning into Mr. Hyde. Indeed, at another point in the story, she is referred to as a Scottish witch (Robert Louis Stevenson was Scottish).

But the governess’s transformation reverses Stevenson’s scenario. In A. M. Barnard’s story, the bad personality is the real one. Barnard’s story is like Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde told from Hyde’s point of view (except that Barnard’s story was written twenty years before Stevenson’s).

Maybe Louisa May Alcott was “Dr. Jekyll” and A. M. Barnard was “Mr. Hyde” in a novelist’s normal version of multiple personality.

1. A. M. Barnard (pseudonym of Louisa May Alcott). “Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power” (1866), in Louisa May Alcott. Behind a Mask: the Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott. Edited and with an Introduction and Afterword by Madeleine Stern. New York, William Morrow and Company, 1975/1995.

September 1, 2017

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott: Is Laurie complimenting Beth, or saying that her music is composed by an alternate personality?

In the brief passage quoted below, there are two ways to interpret what Laurie says to Beth. Most readers rely on the narrator [and Jo], who interpret what Laurie says to Beth as a “compliment.”

However, if narrators are not always reliable, and you entertain the possibility that Laurie means what he says, then what he may be saying is that Beth has an alternate personality who takes over when she is alone, and composes music of which her regular, “stupid” personality is unaware.

“…There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one…” [says Mrs. March].

“…I knew a girl, once, [says Laurie] who had a really remarkable talent for music, and she didn’t know it; never guessed what sweet little things she composed when she was alone, and wouldn’t have believed it if any one had told her.”

“I wish I’d known that nice girl, maybe she would have helped me, I’m so stupid,” said Beth, who stood beside him, listening eagerly.

“You do know her, and she helps you better than any one else could,” answered Laurie…Beth suddenly turned very red, and hid her face in the sofa-cushion, quite overcome by such an unexpected discovery.

“…Beth…could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment” (1, p. 61, book 1, chapter VII).

This is as far as I’ve read, and I’ve been paying attention mostly to Jo. But now that I think of it, Beth is the character whose behavior has been most puzzling.

1. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy [1868-69]. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott: Narrative multiple personality, out-of-character behavior, imaginary friends at age thirteen, the first sixty pages.

After my last post—questioning the reliability of the narrator and suspecting that Beth has multiple personality—I looked back at what I had noticed about the narrator and Beth in the first sixty pages.

I had noticed that the narrator is usually third person, but occasionally switches to first person: “And I think Jo was quite right” (1, p. 34). “They would have been still more amazed, if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked on the study door” (1, p. 56).

The narrator switch is all the more remarkable since conventional wisdom is that Jo, an aspiring writer, is the author’s alter ego. So this novel has at least three narrative perspectives—third person, first person, and Jo—making it another novel with narrative multiple personality.

Regarding Beth, the above quote notes behavior that is so out of character for her that the narrator feels the rest of her family will be amazed when they hear about it (about this, the narrator is reliable). Moreover, Beth’s “little world was peopled with imaginary friends” (1, p. 38) at age thirteen.

There seems to be a pattern, and it is not subtle.

1. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy [1868-69]. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

September 3, 2017

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott: 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.

September 4, 2017

Louisa May Alcott: Like her character, Jo, the author seems to have had two rival identities; one tried to delete evidence of the other.

“In Little Women, Alcott based her heroine ‘Jo’ on herself. But whereas Jo marries at the end of the story, Alcott remained single throughout her life. She explained her ‘spinsterhood’ in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, ‘I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body...because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.’ However, Alcott's romance while in Europe with the young Polish man Ladislas ‘Laddie’ Wisniewski was detailed in her journals but then deleted by Alcott herself before her death.”

Wikipedia. “Louisa May Alcott.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_May_Alcott

September 5, 2017

Louisa May Alcott: In Part II of “Little Women,” Jo, Alcott’s alter ego, will call her productive periods of writing a “vortex,” but what is that?

A vortex is a whirling movement that draws you into it, irresistibly, as, for example, a whirlpool.

And a whirlpool would not be a good metaphor for the manic episodes of bipolar disorder, which some people have associated with creative genius.

However, a vortex could be a metaphor for being drawn into an altered state of consciousness in which the person feels taken over by forces beyond their control (perhaps alternate personalities).

But let me read Part II and see what Jo actually says.

September 6, 2017

Jo’s “vortex” in “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott: It is something she falls into, seizes control of her mind, and provides divine inspiration.

In Part II, Chapter IV, “Literary Lessons,” a third-person narrator quotes Jo and describes her “vortex”:

“Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and ‘fall into a vortex,’ as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace…

“…her family…during these periods, kept their distance…

“…when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh…The divine afflatus usually lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her ‘vortex’ hungry, sleepy, cross, or despondent.

“She was just recovering from one of these attacks when she was prevailed upon to escort Miss Crocker to a lecture, and in return for her virtue was rewarded with a new idea” [writing thrillers for the money] (1, p. 211).

After publishing her first novel, Jo criticizes the critics: “Some make fun of it, some over-praise, and nearly all insist that I had a deep theory to expound, when I only wrote it for the pleasure and the money” (1, p. 217).

“Vortex” metaphor

Jo would “fall into a vortex,” which is a “writing fit,” “divine afflatus,” and “one of these attacks.” “Vortex” combines elements of falling into something, having a seizure, and divine inspiration. It is a state of mind she falls into (like a whirlpool), that takes control of her, and provides content that seems to her like it is not her own imagination, but comes from somewhere and someone else (divine inspiration).

Of course, not all her writing is a product of the vortex, per se. Her writing also includes “parts that were taken out of real life…and scenes that I made up out of my own silly head” (1, p. 217).

Question

Who or what takes control of Jo’s mind when it is seized from her in this pleasurable way? I will continue reading, and see if the novel has anything more to say about it.

1. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy [1868-69]. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

September 9, 2017

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott: Jo’s personality radically changes at end of novel, probably because author’s personality switched.

Jo, at the end of the novel, is not the same as Jo at the beginning: she does not have the same personality.

At the beginning, she identifies herself as the boy or man of the house, who would never get married; moreover, she is a dedicated writer, whose writing process is epitomized by her “vortex” (see previous posts). At the end, she is no longer male-identified, is married, has children, and is not a writer.

This radical transformation of Jo’s personality has been called “The Horror of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women,” and interpreted as the author’s pandering to her readers’ wish for a traditional ending (1). I agree that the character’s personality undergoes a radical transformation, but have a different reason for it.

Alcott could have gotten Jo married, but left her personality unchanged in private, or at least in the privacy of her own mind. And Jo’s marriage could have left her free to pursue her writing, just as Amy’s marriage left her free to pursue her art. So I don’t believe that Alcott had to change Jo’s personality for commercial reasons.

What, then, does explain the radical change in Jo’s personality? My theory is that the author had multiple personality, and one personality wrote the beginning of the novel, but a different personality wrote the end of the novel.

Such a thing may be more common than you think. In past posts, I have cited similarly remarkable inconsistencies and contradictions between the beginnings and endings of other novels—e.g., Nabokov’s Lolita and Oates’ You Must Remember This—and, in the context of other things known about the authors, had to come to the same conclusion.

1. Angela M. Estes and Kathleen Margaret Lant. “Dismembering the Text: The Horror of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women,” pages 564-583, in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy [1868-69]. New York, W. W. Norton, 2004.

Note added September 10, 2017: Why did the issue of Jo’s marriage prompt the author to switch narrative personalities? The reason is that alternate personalities are relatively specialized and narrow-minded. In this case, the alternate personality who approved of marriage, and could write an ending involving marriage, did not approve of a woman's being boyish or a writer, so when marriage was in, boyishness and writing were out, even in private.

September 13, 2017

Louisa May Alcott: Alcott says stories “grow as they will” and are provided by character alternate personalities; then she transcribes it for publication.

Alcott describes a writing process similar to that described in past posts by Mark Twain and Edward Albee. Twain would wait for his creative, alternate personality to “fill the tank,” and then Twain would take the story from the tank and transcribe it for publication. Albee said that his plays were prewritten for him.

Alcott said: “My methods of work are very simple…My head is my study, & there I keep the various plans of stories for years sometimes, letting them grow as they will till I am ready to put them on paper.

“Then it is quick work, as chapters go down word for word & no need for alteration…

“While a story is underway I live in it, see the people, more plainly than real ones, round me, hear them talk, & am much interested, surprised or provoked at their actions, for I seem to have no power to rule them, & can simply record their experiences & performances” (1, p. 320).

The difference between constructed characters and character alternate personalities is that the latter are experienced by the author as more real than real, and as having minds of their own.

1. Madeleine B. Stern. Louisa May Alcott: A Biography. Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1996/1999.