Recognizing Heroic Domesticity

An article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic draws attention to the varied ways in which Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is read. The main suggestion is that knowledge of Alcott’s biography can drastically change a reader’s interpretation of the text. This knowledge about the author’s biography, one of many types of topic mastery I discussed in my post last week, illuminates greater meaning for the novel. One can read it either as a reproduction of sentimental feminine domesticity or as a criticism of that mode of understanding the place of women in society.

In much the same way that the protagonist, Tribulation Periwinkle (a fictionalized version of Alcott herself), is forced to reckon with her understanding of wartime heroism and gender roles, the reader is forced to come to terms with the same notions.

This theme of simultaneous reproduction of and resistance to conventional frameworks of knowledge is prevalent in much of Alcott’s work. It is undoubtedly the subject of the lesser-known Hospital Sketches, a semi-autobiographical account of an experience in a Civil War hospital. It is possible to read this text in the same vein of most Civil War memoirs: as a sort of valorization of patriotism and male courage. However, attention to the formal details of the text, particularly the military language and metaphors that pervade it, reveals that it is better considered as a reflection on these commonsense values. The text is, at its core, about the disappointment of expectations. In much the same way that the protagonist, Tribulation Periwinkle (a fictionalized version of Alcott herself), is forced to reckon with her understanding of wartime heroism and gender roles, the reader is forced to come to terms with the same notions.

The opening chapters of the text describe Tribulation’s decision to travel from Concord to Washington, DC to serve as a Civil War nurse. From the very start we get a sense of her grossly romanticized notion of what the experience will entail. These chapters largely focus on the mundane processes of obtaining train tickets and traveling from one city to the next. Despite the mundanity, we see Tribulation with her head full of “heroic purposes ‘to do or die,’ — perhaps both,” speaking with “martial brevity,” and viewing her actions in decidedly militaristic terms.

While it is worth noting that much of her “heroic” outlook is structured with reference to her reading — newspaper articles about “our brave boys” and romantic poetry like Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” — I will not linger on that point. What I wish to emphasize is that the text introduces militaristic language and metaphors to emphasize a stark contrast between the domestic (typically synonymous with femininity) and the heroic (associated with masculinity). Tribulation constantly tries to leave her domestic behaviors behind in order to inhabit an entirely different sphere: heroic nurses absolutely do not cry on the train after leaving their mothers. This dynamic being established, the text proceeds to emphasize the ways in which Tribulation’s perspective on these categories shifts throughout her service. The deployment of military language and metaphor soon ceases to signal the sharp distinction between what constitutes domesticity or heroism. Instead, it signals a reflection on what such rigid ways of understanding the world occludes.

The third chapter begins with a frantic exclamation that “they’ve come!”, causing Tribulation to spring to action. Convinced that the Confederate soldiers have arrived to take the hospital by storm, she prepares to do battle. In doing so, she evokes a romantic poetic reference describing her willingness “‘To gird my woman’s form, / And on the ramparts die,’ if necessary.” Her heroic expectations are immediately undercut by the reality of the situation: it is not the rebels, but a group of wounded soldiers coming from the Battle of Fredericksburg. Her task is not to stand and fight, but rather to wash their bodies. While Tribulation is “staggered” and bewildered by the seeming mundanity, and there is a humorous element to the scenario, the point here is not to laugh at her naivety. Rather, this scene raises a more pointed question that the reader is asked to consider: what are the aspects of warfare that typically aren’t considered? What is ignored when all of the discursive emphasis is placed upon heroic deeds of manly valor?

The sequence that follows, then, is an effort to acknowledge these crucial yet oft-neglected features of war. What results is a breakdown of conventional cultural frameworks, a space in which the heroic and the domestic, the masculine and the feminine, are able to blend together. This blending is emphasized through the continued usage of militaristic language: a bar of soap can be “manfully” taken up and the washing of soldiers is accomplished “vi et armis” (that is, “by force of arms”); rough soldiers can blush “like bashful girls” while being scrubbed; the serving of a meal can be described as a “skirmishing” of utensils and a “marching and counter-marching” of rushing plates back and forth. Whereas in the first section Tribulation attempts to abandon the domestic, we see here the domesticating of the heroic military world.

Her illness manifests itself as a more acute sense of what was always present to her, but what she did not always pay attention to.

The text ends with Tribulation’s removal from the hospital, brought on by a bout of typhoid fever. Significantly, her illness produces in her “a painful consciousness of my pleura, and a realizing sense of bones in the human frame.” In other words, her illness manifests itself as a more acute sense of what was always present to her, but what she did not always pay attention to. In this way, Tribulation’s bodily illness mirrors her mental processes. While she hasn’t “learned” anything in the strictest sense, she undergoes a re-orientation of consciousness.

A similar re-orientation is possible for attentive readers, but it is by no means guaranteed. A reader lacking mastery of literary conventions may miss the close reading outlined above with its attention to specific language usage. Even readers aware of the importance of such details are likely to miss out. I expect students to pick up on Alcott’s word choice, but I know that they will likely need guidance while considering the overall effect. Guiding students through this reading is, in a way, an exercise in mastery. It serves as a sort of model for moving from minor details to the overall meaning that I discussed last week. However, my hope is that it serves another purpose. Even if students don’t get to this reading on their own, very few feel like they don’t understand the text. With that in mind, in offering this explanation I am implicitly posing a question; one that hopefully leads to a moment of “recognition.” What is actually happening in this text that seems so straightforward?

Wil Marple is a PhD student in the English Department at Syracuse University. He studies American literature of the long nineteenth century with a particular interest in the Transcendentalists and other authors of the mid-century “American Renaissance.” He hopes that his current fascination with the notion that expectations shape perception will lead him to produce a project titled Great Expectations that has absolutely nothing to do with Charles Dickens.