Summary — Chapter 21: Laurie Makes Mischief, and Jo
Makes Peace
Jo has trouble keeping secret the potential courtship
between Meg and Mr. Brooke. Laurie tries to get the secret out of
Jo and grows annoyed when he cannot. In the meantime, Meg receives
a letter allegedly from Mr. Brooke declaring his love. She answers
it before Jo gets a chance to tell her that Laurie probably wrote
it. The reply from Mr. Brooke says that he has never written a love
letter. Jo says that she thinks Laurie wrote this letter and the
earlier one with the glove. Sure enough, Laurie comes over,
confesses, and apologizes. Meg and Jo tell him never to reveal the
story to anyone. Laurie leaves, and Jo decides to let him know that
she is not angry with him. She goes over to the Laurence house,
where Laurie is in a terrible mood. His grandfather has demanded
to know what is bothering Laurie; Laurie has refused to tell him,
and they have quarreled. Upset, Laurie tells Jo he wants to run away.
In order to help, Jo explains Laurie’s actions to his grandfather, who
writes a note of apology to his grandson.
Summary — Chapter 22: Pleasant Meadows
Christmas arrives and everyone is very merry. Laurie and
Jo make a snowwoman for Beth, and everyone else gets lovely presents
too. The Laurences and Mr. Brooke surprise the family by bringing
Mr. March home for Christmas. They have a very joyful time, and
Mr. March tells the girls how much each of them has grown up. Jo
is upset, however, because she can feel Meg slipping away from the family
in her preoccupation with Mr. Brooke.
Summary — Chapter 23: Aunt March Settles the Question
Meg becomes nervous and blushes whenever Mr. Brooke is
mentioned. Her parents think that she is too young to be married,
and in order to follow their wishes, she prepares a speech of rejection
in case he makes advances. When Mr. Brooke comes over, she softens somewhat
in his presence. Nevertheless, when he professes his love for her,
she tells him she is too young. Aunt March arrives in the middle
of this encounter. Mr. Brooke steps out, and Aunt March lectures
Meg, telling her she should marry someone wealthy. Aunt March’s
tirade makes Meg defend her right to love and marry Mr. Brooke.
After Aunt March leaves, Mr. Brooke comes back into the room,
confessing that he has heard Meg’s conversation. Meg says that she
did not realize how much she admired Mr. Brooke until she had to defend
him. He is thrilled by her realization and asks her to marry him in
a few years. Meg agrees, and her parents consent. Jo is unhappy because
she feels that she is losing her sister. Laurie arrives with Mr. Laurence,
and they are both thrilled for the new couple. The first part of the
book ends with the family gathered in the living room.
Analysis — Chapters 21–23
Meg does a lot of growing up in these three chapters;
she falls in love and becomes engaged. Despite the outward happiness
the family expresses for Meg’s impending marriage, a negative current
runs beneath the surface of the affair. Jo abhors losing a sister,
and often likens Meg’s love for Mr. Brooke to a disease. In Chapter
21, Jo says of Meg, “She feels it in the air—love, I mean—and she’s
going very fast. She’s got most of the symptoms, is twittery and
cross, don’t eat, lies awake, and mopes in corners.” In the wake
of Beth’s recent recovery from grave illness, Jo’s metaphors about
love as a sickness seem more serious than comical. Alcott may want
her readers to draw a connection between Beth’s and Meg’s conditions;
both girls are stuck in unhealthy nineteenth-century female roles.
Beth is struck down by the selflessness that is encouraged in women,
and Meg is struck down—at least in Jo’s opinion—by agreeing to become
a typical wife.
On the other hand, when Meg agrees to marry Mr. Brooke,
she demonstrates that at last she has overcome her own weakness
for luxury and riches. John is not a rich man, and he will not provide Meg
with the glamorous lifestyle she once coveted, but she loves him
nonetheless. Alcott underlines Meg’s triumphant victory over materialism
by having Aunt March object to Mr. Brooke’s poverty, and then letting
us hear Meg’s passionate defense of him and her insistence that
his poverty does not matter because he is a good man and they love
each other.
Still, Alcott does not entirely gloss over the issue
of poverty. Little Women presents a less idealized
version of domesticity than many earlier novels. Her characters
have real financial problems, and she suggests that Meg is being
sweetly naïve to think that money will make no difference to her
happiness. She suggests that the best type of marriage—as in the
novels of the nineteenth-century English author Jane Austen—combines
both love and money, since the conventions of nineteenth-century
society make it difficult, if not impossible, for women to earn
their own livings.
