Little Women: Friedrich Bhaer and Louisa May Alcott´s love for Germany
Think of you! I do not think of you; you are always before my soul -Goethe
Poet Ezra Pound said that literature does not exist in a vacuum and semi-biographical novels are exactly that, semi-biographical. A work of fiction strongly influenced by events in an author’s life. Writer Janet Manley describes Fritz Bhaer as a perfect mystery. A perfect crush. He is the perfect text: a space offering up multiple interpretations.
The key ingredient in understanding Friedrich´s character lies within Louisa May Alcott´s love for Germany, German people, German language, German philosophy and most importantly German literature. We might even refer Louisa May Alcott as a germanophile, a person who has a great interest in German culture.
In this article, I will be using the names Friedrich and Fritz simultaneously. For those of you who have not read the books, Fritz is the nickname Jo uses on her husband.
Germany in Little Women
On the very first chapter of Little Women, Jo wishes a copy of Undine and Sintram as a Christmas present. Undine and Sintram is a collection of Scandinavian and Germanic fables written by French-German author Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué.
Marches help the poor Hummel family who has immigrated from Germany. Beth and Marmee are especially close to them. Beth catches the Scarlett fever which is terrible, but the Marches never blame the Hummels. Epidemic diseases were rather common back then and Louisa always writes about the Hummels with great sympathy.
On the first chapter of Little Women, Amy wishes coloured pencils for Christmas presents. The brand of these pencils is Farben which was an actual 19th-century German pencil company.
In the chapter “Camp Lawrence” John Brooke translates a German song for Meg and reads her parts from “Mary Stuart”, a play that was written by German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller.
On Meg´s and John´s wedding Laurie suggests that they dance as the Germans do.
When Jo stays in New York, her hostess in the boarding house is Mrs Kirk. “Kirk” is an anglicized last name from German word Kirche, meaning church.
What it comes to the 19th-century German culture and the influences of German immigration into American culture March trilogy is consistently favourable towards it.
One of Louisa´s favourite authors was the German poet Goethe and Goethe was one of the models for Friedrich´s character. In Little Women, on her grand-tour in Europe with aunt March, Amy visits Goethe´s house, writes home and tells about it. On her first trip to Europe Louisa, herself made a pilgrimage to Goethe´s House.
Went to Wiesbaden first, a pleasant, gay place, full of people. Saw the gambling hall and people playing, the fine grounds and drives, and then went on to Frankfort. Here I saw and enjoyed a good deal. The statues of Goethe, Schiller, Faust, Gutenberg, and Schaeffer are in the squares. Goethe’s house is a tall, plain building, with each story projecting over the lower, and a Dutch roof; a marble slab over the front door recording the date of Goethe’s birth. I took a look at it and wanted to go in, as it was empty, but there was no time (Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, letters and journals).
The most obvious and most important German influence in Little Women is, of course, the love of Jo´s life, Friedrich Bhaer.
A Man From Berlin
Friedrich is introduced quite early on in the second par and Jo is curious about him from the moment she sees him and she finds him to be a kindred spirit.
As I went downstairs soon after, I saw something I liked. The flights are very long in this tall house, and as I stood waiting at the head of the third one for a little servant girl to lumber up, I saw a gentleman come along behind her, take the heavy hod of coal out of her hand, carry it all the way up, put it down at a door nearby, and walk away, saying, with a kind nod and a foreign accent, “It goes better so. The little back is too young to haf such heaviness.”
Wasn’t it good of him? I like such things, for as Father says, trifles show character. When I mentioned it to Mrs K., that evening, she laughed, and said, “That must have been Professor Bhaer, he’s always doing things of that sort.”
Mrs K. told me he was from Berlin, very learned and good, but poor as a church mouse, and gives lessons to support himself and two little orphan nephews whom he is educating here, according to the wishes of his sister, who married an American. Not a very romantic story, but it interested me, and I was glad to hear that Mrs K. lends him her parlour for some of his scholars. There is a glass door between it and the nursery, and I mean to peep at him, and then I’ll tell you how he looks. He’s almost forty, so it’s no harm, Marmee.
There is a bit of a debate about Friedrich´s age. Jo is about 24 when she travels to New York. Fritz is 16 years older than Jo, which would mean that Friedrich is about 38 — 39 when they meet. The reason behind the 16 year age difference is that the main model for Friedrich was philosopher Henry David Thoreau and the age difference between the two was exactly the same. Louisa loved Henry all her life. He appears in multiple literal disguises in Louisa´s novels, often as the protagonist´s love interest. He is David in Work story of experience, Mac in Rose in Bloom and Alec in Moods.
In Little Women musical Friedrich is slightly younger. When he goes to court Jo we find out that he has just had his 35th birthday. In the book, Friedrich returns to Jo´s life in late spring, some months after Beth´s passing. If we combine the two, we can make an assumption that Fritz was born in the spring.
If Fritz is almost forty after the American civil war this means that he was born sometimes between 1825–1826. Friedrich is very extroverted. He enjoys lively conversations, makes friends easily, sees beyond cultural boundaries, he is deeply religious, honest, cultured but also quite a romantic. It is not a coincidence that Friedrich is from Berlin, by the time Alcott wrote Little Women, Berlin was gaining more importance and would become the capital of the new German Empire in 1871 (Armknecht).
While being born and living in Berlin Fritz would have absorbed all that the city had to offer. Architecture, literature, philosophical circles, symposiums, markets and Biergartens. It is mentioned in the book that Fritz speaks several languages, and in the books, he speaks French a few times. Berlin was one of the most multi-cultural German cities in the 19th century and there was a large French-speaking immigrant population. Fact that Fritz speaks several languages indicates that he has done some travelling and is in that sense as much of a cosmopolitan as Amy and Laurie are.
We learn that Friedrich used to be a respected professor in Berlin and this only increases Jo´s interest i him.
Jo valued goodness highly, but she also possessed most feminine respect for intellect, and a little discovery which she made about the Professor added much to her regard for him. He never spoke of himself, and no one ever knew that in his native city he had been a man much honoured and esteemed for learning and integrity, till a countryman came to see him. He never spoke of himself, and in a conversation with Miss, Norton divulged the pleasing fact. From her, Jo learned it and liked it all the better because Mr Bhaer had never told it. She felt proud to know that he was an honoured Professor in Berlin, though only a poor language master in America and his homely, hard-working life was much beautified by the spice of romance which this discovery gave it.
It is very likely that Louisa had Humboldt´s university in her mind. During the time when Louisa did her first visit to Germany, it was known as the University of Berlin ( Universität zu Berlin). University was established in 1809, which makes it only fitting that Friedrich would have studied and worked as a professor there. University is known for producing some of the most well-known German thinkers and philosophers.
Friedrich´s Journey to America
We are not told a lot about Friedrich´s family. We find out that he had a sister, Minna, who married an American and on her death-bed, she asked Fritz to take care of his nephews and raise them in America. It is not part of the canon, but I have read couple fanfics where Minna´s husband was an American journalist who abandoned his family and Minna was also quite possibly a journalist. This would explain why Friedrich does his best to look after the boys, wants to be a good role model and someone who never abandons them. Book does imply that Friedrich and Minna were very close.
This is a common narrative pattern in Louisa May Alcott´s novels. In Work story of experience protagonist´s love interest, David has lost the connection with his sister and is filled with joy when he finds her. In Moods, the character of Geoffrey Moore takes care of his ill sister until she passes away. A devoted Little Women reader might even notice that in Greta Gerwig´s film Friedrich says it is hard to lose a sister.
In the 19th century, German immigrants were the second biggest group of immigrants in the US only surpassed by Irish immigrants. March family (and the Alcott´s in real life) were descendants of Irish immigrants. Between 1847–1855 German immigrants came to the US in large numbers. Many came in the hopes of a better way of life, others because of individual curiosity, economic hardships, political struggles or religious persecutions. Many escaped crop failure and famine. When we first meet Friedrich we find out that he has been living in New York for five years, which means that he arrived in 1860. In the early 1860s, main transportation across the Atlantic was made with sails and the trip could last one to three months. This would mean that Fritz would have arrived with a sailing ship that was designed for a cargo carrier. These ships were quite hazardous and the accommodations were small and dark. The second wave of German immigrants arrived at the end of the 1860s escaping the German wars.
Friedrich´s reasons for leaving his home country are family-related. There are a couple of occasions in Little Women that do give an impression that Fritz has faced oppression and discrimination and Jo does make a note to herself that he must have had a hard-life. It is not a coincidence that Jo and Friedrich meet in New York of all places. Many of the German immigrants moved into the cities in the north, like New York, which already had established German communities. These communities were tight. When Friedrich comes to visit Jo in Concord the reader finds out that he has German friends there.
Louisa May Alcott´s transcendentalism
Louisa May Alcott was born into New England´s transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism was very much an American movement but its roots were within German philosophy and romanticism. Especially in the transnational ideas of Immanuel Kant and his new ethic of “universal hospitality”. There are a couple of basic principles within transcendentalist philosophy; Human beings are inherently good and pure. Nature was the ultimate mediator and expression of God who was present all around. Self-reflection and being true to-one self was encouraged. From a very early age, Louisa practised self-reflection and observance and from her novels, Little Women and Old Fashioned girl have biggest transcendentalist influences.
Little Women film from 1994 is one of the rare adaptations with clear references to transcendentalism. When Jo meets Friedrich they talk about German philosophy. Jo mentions that her parents were part of “rather an unusual circle in Concord” and she mentions that she adores Goethe. Friedrich quotes a poem from another transcendentalist, Walt Whitman and Jo join him. Transcendentalist believed that it was through the observation and appreciation of nature that the human soul was enlightened. The idea of being truly authentic self becomes part of their conversation.
Transcendentalist love for nature can be seen in the movie in the presence of flowers and plants outdoors and indoors. Proposal scene in the movie and in the book takes place in nature and it correlates the way in the book Friedrich has kept Jo´s poem.
“Be worthy, love, and love will come,” In the falling summer rain.
Louisa May Alcott was surrounded by the greatest thinkers of her time, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her father, Bronson Alcott, showed her an idealistic and ultimately unworkable version of the movement. Throughout Louisa’s childhood, Bronson pursued philosophical ideas by establishing the Temple School where he sought to teach children according to his transcendental ideas. Some of Bronson´s ideas were too radical for the parents and eventually, he was forced to resign when he took a black child as a student. Soon after the closing of the Temple School, the family moved to a farmstead to establish a Utopian society called Fruitlands. There, they attempted to live off the land, follow a strict vegetarian diet, and more fully implement the ideas that Bronson deemed important. Fruitlands was a terrible failure. The Alcotts were subjected to backbreaking work but barely survived the winter. After a little less than a year on the homestead, they left Although Louisa had seen her father’s transcendentalist projects fail, she still believed in the philosophy as much as he did, and blamed the setbacks on poor planning and execution. In her books, she would correct his mistakes (Matteson).
It was after this that they moved to Concord, Massachusetts, where the transcendentalist movement started to take shape. Emmerson was a good friend of Bronson and Louisa frequently borrowed books from Emmerson´s library and learned about nature from Thoreau. Margaret Fuller made an everlasting impression on Louisa with her philosophy and feminist ideas. It was unusual for the time for mother work outside the home but Abba Alcott did. Bronson had the determination to give his daughter a proper education, also unusual for the time. Abba had less interest towards the ideological side of transcendentalism but more in what practical tools transcendentalism offered. Alcott has mixed emotions about Transcendentalism. Intrigued and inspired by the ideal of self-reliance, she still knew from first-hand experience that ‘self-reliance really meant reliance on others and required the self-sacrifice of family members’” (Boyd). Louisa wanted to tie the two opposite knots of her parent's ideas.
This drew her to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s theories and ideas, as they presented a more complete way of living out the transcendental philosophy. Her journals illustrate her love for his philosophies, calling him “the man who has helped me most by his life, his books, his society”. Emmerson´s philosophy on how good deeds bring happiness and satisfaction to one´s life deeply effected Louisa and her written works. Louisa was as well heavily effected by Goethe´s ideas of self-reliance. The topic of self-reliance is a constant theme in Little Women and essentially important when getting to know the characters.
As a German immigrant, Professor Bhaer understands and experiences hard work and struggle. He bares in mind the responsibility he has in caring for a woman if he is to marry. He is more grounded and stable than Laurie, whose idealized hopes of marriage remind me of Louisa’s own descriptions of her imprudent father (“…he was a man in a balloon, with his family holding the ropes trying to hold him down to Earth”) (Rhone)
In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw, and Laurie’s voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, “I will be good, oh, I will be good!”
But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest, and tapping on the outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly, “Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that? It’s as soft and white as a woman’s and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin’s best gloves and pick flowers for ladies” (Little Women, Chapter 39).
Amy being a working-class girl she doesn´t have any problems reminding Laurie that he has not worked a day in his life.
Many Alcott scholars believe that poor nutrition in Fruitlands might have effected on Louisa´s hormonal balance. Same way as Jo, Louisa was a tomboy. Louisa was very protective over her mother who she adored and her love for her family was fierce. From very early on she took the role of the provider or the way Jo describes herself as the Louisa was upset when Anna announced that she was getting married. Anna was 28 and Louisa was 27 at the time. “man of the house”, some Alcott scholars believe that this was something that affected o Louisa´s gender confusion. Anna Alcott was 11 years older than her literal counterpart Meg March when she married. Same way as Jo grieved Meg marrying, so did Louisa. Not because John, real and the fictional was a bad person but because it meant the change in the family dynamics. In the book, Jo says that she´d rather marry Meg herself, which has led many to believe that Jo is a lesbian, but with Jo, there is no context for her fear because Jo´s childhood was quite safe and idyllic, whereas Louisa´s was more unstable and turbulent, the family went through a lot together. It happened only three weeks after they had lost their sister Lizzie, so Louisa´s wish to keep the family together and fear of losing it are understandable.
A lot of the misunderstandings surrounding Little Women is the modern reader's inability to understand the 19th-century world view. I would recommend reading Susan Bailey´s eye-opening article on 19th-century female relationships in Little Women.
John Pratt passed away in 1870 and Louisa in grief wrote to her journal that he had done more good to our family than he ever realized.
Adventures inside one´s head
We live in a culture in which it is common not to try and understand what the other says and means, in this case, the author, but to assume it is some preconceived idea or trope we have in our heads of something we hate, we love, or we want to think that we are. It is a pity that it is so, because when we erase the fragility and faults of characters, we deprive ourselves of seeing the reflection of our own in them, and learn and grow. The several Little Women adaptations have participated in the confusion and caused misconceptions because the filmmakers have reflected their own ideas and desires to the characters.
Masculinity and femininity are social structures made of biological and cultural factors. Jo struggles to find a balance between the two during a time when the world between men and women was separated.
There is a stereotype that Jo is quite adventurous. Is she? She is quite adventurous inside her head and she is good at making up stories and likes acting. Writing is a safe escape to live vicariously because she can do that from a safe place. With Laurie, she can live in a boys world through his masculine energy. Jo likes to speak about sports and such but because of her gender, she is prevented to join any teams.
In the first book after Laurie pretended to be John Brooke and forged love letters and deeply hurt Meg (which has never been included in movies), he asks Jo to go to Washington with him and surprise Mr Brooke. Jo is tempted by the idea, but she sees that such a trip is Laurie´s way of getting away from his grandfather. Jo likes to dream but she knows that reality would be completely different, and Laurie never grows if he doesn´t learn from his mistakes.
There are certain elements within Jo that in the 19th-century context and even today are considered traditionally “feminine” and some of the modern-day readers like to ignore them. Louisa´s attempt however is not make certain habits in a person clearly masculine or feminine but blurry the lines. Jo is good at sewing, in fact, she is a good dress-maker, likes to knit and mend clothes. Louisa herself liked sewing. We see all the girls sewing together at the beginning of the 1933 film and in the 1949 film Jo sews and knits. In the book, Jo sees that Mr Bhaer is mending his own socks, and she is both surprised and impressed about it. She is impressed with how self-reliant he is. Some readers have found it odd how Jo wants to start a school for boys. When Jo sees the hungry look in Laurie´s eyes when he looks at her family she practically adopts him. Louisa in her personal life was devoted to charity work and she worked as a nurse in the civil war. Taking care of others was something that came naturally to her.
Gender fluidly continues in the sequels. The character of Nat is very sensitive, musical and a lot like Laurie. Dan is almost “too masculine” and doesn´t want to show his vulnerability. In Little Men Jo´s niece, Daisy complains how boys won´t include her into their games and Jo privately thinks that in the house that is filled with boys the only girl is the most difficult to please. She gets Daisy a small toy stove and teaches her to cook while turning it into a play. This is not the 15-year-old Jo who thinks that everyone should be like her, instead, she supports Daisy´s individuality. Daisy´s femininity is balanced by Nan, who is another tomboy. Even her name is a mixture between Nat and Dan.
Jo doesn´t like to go to parties or social events like Meg and Amy do. She rather stays at home and writes. Jo doesn´t fit well to Concord or to the traditional female role. She is allowed to be herself in her home. In the first book, she does compare herself to Meg and the way she is treated differently for being traditionally feminine, same happens with Amy in the second book. Jealousy Jo sometimes feels is caused by the fact that sisters are better accepted than she because of her non-conformity, and this causes Jo feelings of isolation.
Louisa May Alcott´s love for older men
At times Louisa May Alcott´s novels have been criticised for her protagonists always fall for older men. Louisa´s teenage crush towards family friend Ralph Waldo Emerson is fairly well documented. Emerson was 29 years older than Louisa and as we have established earlier, the love of Louisa´s life, Henry Thoreau was 16 years older than her.
In the 19th century, marriages between younger women and older men were very common and in general, women married much younger than these days. Often there is uncertainty around the topic, same with older women dating younger men which are usually considered more shocking. Many read Little Women when they are children and they are horrified when Jo marries an older man. When they are adults and read the book again Fritz being almost forty suddenly doesn´t seem that odd anymore, and the reader finds out that Laurie was quite childish and Fritz was perfect for Jo. This phenomenon is known as the Little Women passage to adulthood ritual.
In Little Women, all marriages have age gaps. John Brooke is 9 years older than Meg. Laurie in the book is 4 years older than Amy.
In reality, Anna Alcott was 2 years older than John Pratt. Meg is 21 when she gets married, Anna was 28, which at the time was a very late age for a woman to get married. Anna, Louisa and May were all off-the-shelf so to speak. Most women of the time were much younger when they married. Louisa was very much against women marrying too young.
In Little Women, Mr and Mrs March are quite strict that girls need to be over 21 when they marry. May Alcott Nieriker was 38 when she married and her husband was 22-year old at the time. Amy in the book was 24 when she married Laurie. Jo was 28 when she married Fritz.
In Little Women, all the couples spent a fair amount of time getting to know each other before marrying. John and Meg were engaged for three years. Laurie and Amy spent about a year in Europe together (but they already knew each other). After their time in New York, Jo and Fritz spent 2–3 years writing letters to each other. Louisa seems to be encouraging young girls to marry someone who they know well.
Nowadays Louisa´s fascination towards relationships with age-gaps can seem creepy or weird but during the time there was a trend among female authors to write about relationships with age-gaps. This is a very common theme in Jane Austen´s works; Colonel Brandon and Marianne, age difference 19 years. Age difference between Emma and Mr Knightley is 15 years. Charlotte Bronte´s Jane Eyre is 18 years younger than Rochester.
Bettina Von Armin
In her youth, Louisa adored writings of Bettina Von Armin. She was a German romantic writer and social activist. Exactly the type of person Louisa admired. Bettina´s most popular novel “Goethe´s correspondence with a child” was very popular during Louisa´s time, especially among female writers. I have read this book and it is strange, to say the least. Bettina writes love letters to her idol Goethe, but Bettina is not in love with Goethe. She is in love with the idea of love. She doesn´t want an actual relationship with Goethe but a way to vent her emotions. Goethe only occasionally responded to these letters, with minimal brevity. In her letters Bettina does not ask any questions, letters are not about Goethe, they are all about Bettina. Bettina´s hero-worship affected whole generations of female writers and it was seen as something romantic. Our modern view is the opposite. Bettina´s actions would qualify as harassment.
Friedrich as Goethe
Louisa adored Goethe. She was born the same year Goethe passed away. Her father´s library included Goethe´s biography that was translated by Margaret Fuller and later in life Louisa collected all Goethe´s published works. Goethe was a highly respected writer in the transcendentalist circles. During his lifetime Goethe was a spoke-person of self-reliance which was something that Louisa practised in personal life.
Lot´s of research has been made between Louisa´s writings and Goethe´s works. Long Fatal Love Chase and Modern Mephistopheles have similarities with Goethe´s Faust. Less research has been made on Goethe´s influence on Little Women. There are some striking similarities between Goethe and Friedrich. Friedrich embodies a great deal of Goethe´s philosophical ideas. Goethe was not from Berlin, he was from Weimar. Berlin and Weimar are about 100 miles away from each other in the same region in Germany. Friedrich is from eastern Germany and growing up in the intellectual environment where Goethe set the cultural benchmark for educated Germans. If Friedrich is about forty years old at the close of the Civil War, then he would have been born around the time when Germans began to revere Goethe and his works.
Friedrich´s and Goethe´s personalities are very much alike. In a contemporary biography written by George Henry Calvert (who had met Goethe) records Goethe’s friend, Jung Stilling, as saying that it was a “pity that so few are acquainted with this nobleman in respect of his heart.”For example, when Goethe’s friend Moritz broke his arm on a trip to Rome, Goethe nursed him back to health. Similarly, Goethe was described by Herder as being a “great child” all of his life, eager to learn and willing to give “whatever he had” to make others happy. Friedrich is willing and able to comment on every subject, just as Goethe was highly sought after by members of his society. Calvert observes that there was so much life in Goethe that he “awakened and attracted life. He was a centre about which congenial men liked to move.
There has been speculation if Louisa wrote Friedrich to be her own ideal man. Teutonic heroes seem to be those who she favoured. Goethe and Friedrich look a lot alike. Both tall, solidly build men with brown hair. There were times when Goethe also had a beard. This is how Friedrich Schiller describes Goethe:
“The expression of his countenance is serious, at the same time that it is benevolent and kind. He has brown hair and appears older than I should say he really is. His voice is exceedingly pleasing, and his conversation flowing, lively, and amusing. It is a pleasure to listen to him” (Armknecht)
Wilhelm Meister´s Apprenticeship
Wilhelm Meister´s Apprenticeship is one of Goethe´s most well-known novels. Louisa received her own copy of the novel from Emerson and she filled it with scribbles and notes. In the novel, there is a female character called Marina, who likes to dress up as a boy. In Little, Women Jo likes to dress up as a boy. There is also an important character called Friedrich. Louisa transformed this infatuation with Goethe by incorporating Goethean themes in her own work. First thing Jo hears from Friedrich is his singing “Kennst du das land” (Do you know the land) himself, this is the opening line of Mignon´s love song in Wilhelm Meister´s Apprenticeship. When Friedrich comes to court Jo, they sing this song together.
By having Friedrich sing Mignon´s song to himself, Louisa not only draws a direct connection between Fritz and Goethe but also an emotional connection between herself and Goethe (Armknecht)
Another Goethe´s novel that effected on Louisa was “The Sorrows of Young Werther”. “Werther” is a semi-biographical novel, loosely based on Goethe´s life. Same way as Laurie, Werther grows up wealthy but he doesn´t know a lot from life. He falls in love with Charlotta who is marrying another worthy man, Albert. Werther makes Charlotta the only reason for his happiness. He dwells in his misery, enjoys it and is comforted by it. He embraces the part of the romantic hero so much that he eventually drowns himself. What kills Werther is toxic self-centeredness. Goethe meant “Werther” as criticism towards destructive self-absorption but the book was greatly misunderstood and it caused a wave of suicides in Germany, where young readers romanticized Werther´s character.
Laurie is not too different from Tom from 500 days of summer. He is so desperate for the love he doesn´t stop and think about what loving another person actually means.
He guilt trips Jo, again and again, and only gets fueled when Jo says no. Laurie sees it all as a game. On my last read, it was interesting to discover that Laurie always behaves better around Amy than he ever did with Meg or Jo, and more than once he offended their privacy.
When Laurie proposes to Jo, the proposal is all about him, not about Jo. Same way as Werther Laurie even threatens to take his own life. Unlike Goethe´s Werther, Laurie gets a chance to redeem himself. Laurie´s redemption arc through Amy is similar to Wilhelm Meister, who after the heartbreak, decided to turn his life upside down and as a result, grows to be a better person.
Once Amy and Laurie are married, Laurie is grateful to Jo for refusing and the two of them go on to have a close friendship even in the later books and Laurie becomes one of the most involved people in Jo’s school, constantly sending and sponsoring kids he thinks Jo would like, and actively pinning Jo and Fritz which he could have done if he had ever really been in love with Jo. It is also very telling when he tries to vent over his pain about Jo, his mind keeps wandering to write happy and fluffy things about Amy. He is quite shocked and bit ashamed that his supposed love for Jo has disappeared so fast.
Connections to German literature continue in Little Men with references to Brother´s Grimm fairytales. In Jo´s Boys, Wilhelm Meister is present once again, this time in Nat´s character arc. Nat travels to Germany to study music. He moves to Leipzig, which is the city where Goethe lived as a young man. Nat is almost a liminal character who often has his head in the clouds. Nat begins to see life in its great variety but becomes distracted by all the new temptations, and like Wilhelm of the story, he begins to see the emptiness of that world.
Wilhelm travels with a theatre company and spends most of his time in the group of actors, he also reveals that he originally became enamoured of acting when his mother arranged for some Christmas theatricals. Alcott’s own copy of Wilhelm Meister at the Houghton Library contains extensive textual markings on the pages wherein Wilhelm’s troupe prepares and presents a production of Hamlet. At one point, she even writes a comment in the margin about a bit of the staging referred to: “Was it a trap door?” (Doyle) It seems that the theatricals in Little Women, Little Men and Jo´s boys were inspired by Goethe´s novels and reaffirm Alcott’s connection to her idol. Adaptations often nod to this. For example, in 2018 film Jo and Fritz are watching a play and debate about Shakespeare.
“The cultural level suggested by Friedrich’s profession and more specifically by his knowledge of Goethe also helps to validate the connection between Friedrich and Jo. Louisa had scribbled a quote from her copy of Margaret Fuller´s Woman in the Nineteenth Century regarding Wilhelm Meister’s female connections.
As Meister grows in life & advances in wisdom, he becomes acquainted with women of more & more character, rising from Mariana to Natalia who expresses the Minerva side of things, Mignon, the electrical, inspired lyrical nature . . .
“Passage represents Jo´s transference of affection from Laurie to Friedrich through her own growth and advancement in terms of character. Laurie is the fascination of her youth who will always be regarded with affection, but Friedrich has more character. Laurie is always a “boy” to Jo, but Friedrich is a man. Laurie possesses charm and culture; Friedrich, as we see, is cultured but also steady and well-grounded. He speaks both to her down-to-earth practicality and to her imagination (Doyle)
Louisa was a teenager when “Meister” made Goethe her “chief-idol. In Goethe´s novels, there is a heavy emphasis on spiritual transformation. At the end of Little Women, Jo has not one but several castles in the air.
“The life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely, and cold to me now. I haven’t given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I’m sure it will be all the better for such experiences and illustrations as these [family and Plumfield]”.
One of the narrative patterns in Louisa´s work is that her romantic heroes tend to have a high interest in social justice. Friedrich has elements of romantic radicalism that Louisa connects to Europe and at the same, she is fascinated by Friedrich´s domestic side. She is attracted to the idea of transnational family. Foreign becomes something protective. All the main couples in Little Women are multi-cultural. Amy is American, Laurie American-Italian, Meg is American, John is from England, Jo is American and Friedrich is German.
If the German immigrants represented a generally stable, hardworking, religious addition to America, and the German writers suggested a glorious, independent, imaginative, if the somewhat dangerous element, the combination of the two strains in her work allows her to blend the practical and the romantic — to create characters who embody some of the best of both aspects of what “German” represented to her (Doyle)
“I gained the blessing of my life”
Louisa inserts positive reminders of the values of Friedrich’s German heritage throughout the March saga. In Little Men, Sunday breakfast does not begin until Rob, “standing next to his father at the head of the table, folded his hands, reverently bent his curly head, and softly repeated a short grace in the devout German fashion, which Mr Bhaer loved and taught his little son to honour”.
Friedrich´s love for Thanksgiving festivities is also explained with his German background “Being a German, he loved these simple domestic festivals, and encouraged them with all his heart, for they made home so pleasant that the boys did not care to go elsewhere for fun”
Alcott Scholar Elaine Showalter points out that Louisa inserted habits of European men to Friedrich´s character that she wished that American men would possess.
When Friedrich´s nephew Emil returns from his sea voyage he;
“kissed all the women and shook hands with all the men except his uncle; him he embraced in the good old German-style”
In the fourth book, Jo´s boys Jo´s and Friedrich´s sons Rob and Ted have an escapade with Dan´s dog (Ted had teased the dog until he attacked, and Rob, trying to protect Ted, had been bitten),
“The good Professor opened his arms and embraced his boys like a true German, not ashamed to express by a gesture or by word the fatherly emotions an American would have compressed into a slap on the shoulder and a brief ‘All right. Mrs Jo sat and enjoyed the prospect like a romantic soul as she was’”.
Friedrich´s nephews are the two least troublesome of Jo´s boy. Jo´s favourite, Franz is a lot like his uncle. Bit nerdy, a bookworm with a mild-temper. Emil, the exuberant though restless younger brother, eventually becomes a sailor. Neither the boys or Friedrich himself never denies his heritage even as he embraces his new country:
“If I had not come to America for the poor lads, I never should have found my Jo. The hard times are very sweet now, and I bless Gott for all I seemed to lose because I gained the blessing of my life”.
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Sources:
Jo marries Goethe, Dr Bhaer as Louisa May Alcott´s representation of the Goethean ideal in Little Women by Meghan Armknecht
The cosmopolitan project of Louisa May Alcott by Laura Dassow Walls
Wedding Marches, Louisa May Alcott, Marriage and the Newness of Little Women by Daniel Shealy
Singing Mignon´s song, German Literature and Culture in March Trilogy by Christine Doyle
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Originally published at https://www.fairychamber.com.
