Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott is an episodic novel, which means it does not have a consistent protagonist running through the entire book. However, any reader asked to nominate a main character in the novel would probably select Dan, simply because his character is the most broadly dramatic in terms of incident and action. Dan has a complicated and dark character which changes over the course of the novel, which allows him in various episodes to demonstrate traits both good and bad: he is loyal and loving, but also troubled and ultimately violent. I will examine the dramatic arc of Dan's character, and examine the specific traits that mark each stage of his journey over the course of Alcott's novel.

Before discussing Dan's role at the start of Jo's Boys, it is worth noting that Jo's Boys is, in fact, a sequel to Alcott's Little Men, which depicted Jo March (the protagonist of Alcott's previous bestseller Little Women) in marriage to Professor Bhaer, running a boys' school. Dan is one of a number of classmates depicted as children in Little Men, and Alcott seems to expect us to remember the glimpses of his childhood self, where he is depicted as largely undisciplined, given to obstreperous outbursts. In other words, from her earlier childhood depiction of Dan, Alcott seems to have known that self-control and temper would be problems for him. But when we...

Chapter One begins by emphasizing Dan's peripatetic nature as his chief trait: we are told that "Dan was a wanderer still; for after the geological researches in South America he tried sheep-farming in Australia, and was now in California looking up mines." (p3). Later in the chapter, the now-aged Meg speculates about Dan's peripatetic nature, saying "I want to see Dan settled somewhere. 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' and at twenty-five he is still roaming the world without a tie to hold him" but Jo ("always ready to defend the black sheep of her flock" as Alcott states) claims that "Dan will find his place at last, and experience is his best teacher. He is rough still but each time he comes home I see a change for the better, and never lose my faith in him. He may never do anything great, or get rich, but if the wild boy makes an honest man, I'm satisfied." (p.11) I think this establishes Dan's basic traits before the…