Morality and Character Growth in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women
This essay examines the moral development of Josephine March in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, arguing that Jo's journey from a passionate, vice-prone adolescent to a morally grounded adult is shaped by family influence, personal failure, and the guidance of those she loves. The paper analyzes three key episodes: Jo's failure to warn Amy about thin ice after a quarrel, her sacrifice of cutting her hair to fund her father's care, and her abandonment of "sensational" writing under the influence of Mr. Bhaer. Together, these episodes trace Jo's progression from seeking moral counsel from her mother to finding an equal in her future husband, illustrating her growth into humility, charity, and temperance.
- Introduction: Jo March and the Struggle with Vice: Jo's vices and moral potential introduced
- Anger and Its Consequences: The Ice-Skating Incident: Jo's anger endangers Amy; mother's guidance follows
- Charity Over Pride: Jo's Sacrifice of Her Hair: Jo cuts her hair as act of charitable humility
- Moral Temptation and the Influence of Mr. Bhaer: Sensational writing tempts Jo; Mr. Bhaer inspires reform
- Conclusion: A Life Grown Moral: Jo's full arc from angry child to moral adult
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay builds a clear developmental arc, moving chronologically through three distinct episodes that each illustrate a different vice — anger, pride, and moral complacency — allowing the argument to accumulate rather than repeat.
- Direct quotations from the novel are well integrated and used to anchor analytical claims rather than simply decorate them.
- The conclusion synthesizes the essay's evidence efficiently, restating the thesis in terms of Jo's full journey without introducing new material.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the use of textual evidence to support a character-development argument. Each body paragraph follows a consistent pattern: introduce an episode, cite the relevant passage, and explain what it reveals about Jo's moral trajectory. This mirrors standard literary analysis structure and shows how close reading can support a thematic claim across an entire novel.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thesis identifying Jo's central vices and the family-based sources of her moral guidance. Three body paragraphs each analyze one episode in chronological order — the ice-skating quarrel, the hair-cutting sacrifice, and the sensational-writing period — before a conclusion that ties the three episodes into a unified account of Jo's growth from child to moral adult.
Introduction: Jo March and the Struggle with Vice
In Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Josephine March is able to be moral despite the great pressures and responsibilities imposed on her by her gender, the economic and political circumstances of the time, her role as elder sister, and her immense creative talent. Jo is also notoriously stubborn, proud, and easily provoked to anger — vices that consistently challenge her moral resolve throughout her adolescence and early adulthood. Ultimately, however, Jo is able to overcome these vices with the help of moral guidance drawn from her family and upbringing, maturing into a humble, charitable, and temperate character far removed from the fiery girl of her youth.
Anger and Its Consequences: The Ice-Skating Incident
The first instance of Jo's vices getting the best of her occurs when she remains angry at Amy for burning her manuscript even after Amy apologizes. The next day, when they go ice skating, Jo does not warn Amy about the thin ice, telling herself, "no matter whether she heard or not, let her take care of herself" (Alcott 145). Amy falls through the ice into the freezing water, and Jo finally realizes that her "bitter temper" had gotten the best of her to a dangerous degree.
Fortunately, Jo still strives to lead a moral life even when her vices take hold. Afterward, she acknowledges "her hardness of heart" and seeks advice from her mother. At this point the novel reveals the primary source of moral inspiration for its main characters: Jo finds guidance by looking to her family, and specifically to her parents. Her mother encourages her that "we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them," and uses herself as an example of someone who has led a moral life through hard work and prayer (Alcott 147–148). This allows Jo to recognize that, although she struggles, she is not immoral at her core, and thus retains hope of living the kind of life she strives for.
Charity Over Pride: Jo's Sacrifice of Her Hair
A clear example of Jo overcoming her vices out of charity and generosity comes when her mother must travel to visit their injured father. Seeking a way to contribute, Jo cuts off all her hair and sells it, remarking that "it will be good for my vanity, I getting too proud of my wig" (Alcott 306). Although Jo does eventually mourn the loss of her hair, she demonstrates a humility and dedication to charity made possible only by her desire to lead a moral life even in the face of her own vanity.
The act is rendered all the more dramatic by the fact that, as one of her sisters exclaims, Jo's hair is apparently her "one beauty." Her decision to sacrifice it for her family is therefore a visible and striking triumph of her moral aspirations over her own pride and selfishness. This episode illustrates virtue ethics in a tangible, everyday form: the choice to act charitably at genuine personal cost.
Conclusion: A Life Grown Moral
In Little Women, Jo first struggles with anger, then with pride, and finally with the allure of easy money and "sensational" stories. At first she overcomes these vices with virtues inspired by her family or enacted in their service — as when her charitable desire to help her father leads her to cut her hair. In the final case, however, she finds her moral strength in the character of Mr. Bhaer, demonstrating that she has grown into a moral life fully enough that her greatest source of inspiration is no longer a parent but a peer and future husband.
In short, Louisa May Alcott traces Jo's journey from an anger-ridden child who must seek counsel from her mother to a woman who is herself prepared to become a mother and wife — one who leads a successfully moral life thanks to the family and upbringing that shaped her.
Works Cited
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. Google ebook. Boston, MA: Roberts Brothers, 1868. eBook. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=Fzqjs08fIJ4C
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.