What is it about?
In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the oldest sister, Meg, feels "queer" when she dresses up and drinks champagne. She repents almost immediately and returns to more sedate, conventional nineteenth-century behavior. But Meg's momentary resistance is powerful. This paper examines the pleasure of queer resistance through the author's childhood memory of a beloved Meg doll.
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Why is it important?
The paper shows that Alcott's nineteenth-century novel can speak powerfully to a twenty-first century queer family.
Perspectives
I read Little Women while growing up in a conservative household where unconventional sex and gender expression was frowned upon. I appreciated the chance this paper gave me to think about my childhood experience of Little Women and my relationship with my twin sister, who came out in our twenties. I hope readers are reminded of the joy, escape, and new possibilities that reading fiction can bring into our lives.
Jean Lutes
Villanova University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: My Meg's Queer Turn, Legacy A Journal of American Women Writers, January 2019, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.5250/legacy.36.1.0101.
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