Why Jo Rejected Laurie (Little Women Explained)

In the novel, Little Women Laurie has an actual character arc and he grows to like the March sisters, but Laurie´s growth process is slow and sometimes even painful. He has a very complicated relationship with his grandfather and as he grows his relationship with Jo becomes more abusive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANfG0myZTR4&ab_channel=LittleWomenChannel

Almost like he sees her as a safety net where he can fall back on so that he does not need to grow or become an adult and Jo in the novel, struggles with that because she feels that he is holding her back (which is why she falls in love with Friedrich, who helps her to become the person she wants to be.

Laurie doesn´t fall for Amy just because she is next to Jo. He falls for Amy because she is not afraid to give him advice like Jo does, for fear of trying to spare his feelings. Amy tells him that he needs to grow or he is wasting his life and this inspires Laurie to become an adult, work for Amy but also for himself so he can finally find out what kind of a person he wants to be.

Laurie´s character arc is missing from Little Women 2019, Little Women 1933, Little Women 1949 and Little Women 2017 series. There are only bits of it in the 1994 film. It portrays Laurie as lazy but only after Jo has rejected him, in the book, he was drifting way before that.

No wonder people are confused about the whole Jo/Laurie/Amy thing.

Erasing the growth of the male characters is not feminist. It is the opposite.

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