Chapter XLII. All Alone

By Karyn Valerius

Despite its autobiographical roots, Jo’s story diverges from Alcott’s by the end of Little Women. Alcott embraced her literary vocation as a welcome alternative to marriage for herself, but she conceded to pressure from her publisher and readers to “marry off” the surviving March sisters in Book 2 “as if that were the only end and aim of a woman’s life” (Letters 122, Journal 167). Alcott registered her discontent with this turn of events by denying readers the match they desired between Laurie and Jo, and more subtly, by sowing doubt about Jo’s motives for reconsidering marriage as an acceptable option in Chapter 42, “All Alone.”

The chapter opens with a description of Jo’s distress after Beth’s death. Overwhelmed by grief and loneliness, Jo cannot imagine a tolerable future for herself: “for something like despair came over her when she thought of spending all her life in that quiet house, devoted to humdrum cares, a few small pleasures, and the duty that never seemed to grow any easier.” Jo finds solace in her parents’ sympathy and wise advice, in Meg’s good company, and in cheerfully performing Beth’s household chores. She reimagines her promise to devote herself to her parents in Beth’s absence as a “splendid” and difficult achievement worthy of her effort. At Marmee’s suggestion, Jo also immerses herself in her writing, achieving literary success precisely when she wasn’t seeking fame and fortune. The renewed sense of purpose Jo discovers in her family and professional ambitions suggests one satisfying resolution to her crisis.

And yet, the chapter closes with Jo crying in the garret and wistfully thinking about Professor Bhaer. The example of Meg’s contentment with her husband and children makes Jo susceptible to the idea that “[m]arriage is an excellent thing, after all,” and news of Amy and Laurie’s engagement stirs Jo’s “natural craving for affection.” In a frank conversation with Marmee, Jo generously refuses to be jealous of Amy’s happiness, and she affirms that it would be wrong to marry Laurie herself both because she does not love him and because they are temperamentally incompatible. However, Jo admits that if Laurie had proposed to her a second time, she might have consented out of loneliness. This conversation reveals Jo’s vulnerability. Given the “hungry look” Marmee observes in Jo’s eyes, her wish to see Professor Bhaer again seems suspect since, like Laurie, Bhaer is more friend than lover. The chapter ends ambiguously with a series of questions about Jo’s feelings for Bhaer: “Was it all self-pity, loneliness, or low spirits? or was it the waking up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its inspirer? Who shall say?”

Karyn Valerius is associate professor of English and director of the Disability Studies Program at Hofstra University. Her chapter “’Is the young lady mad?’: Psychiatric Disability in Louisa May Alcott’s Fiction” appears in the volume Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health (Palgrave Macmillan 2018) edited by Elizabeth J. Donaldson.