American Augustinianism: Pilgrim Mercy in Luisa May Alcott's "Little Women"

• In Event: Duty and Care in Human Development

Abstract

This paper explores affinities between the ethical and political thought of Augustine of Hippo and the social and civic vision expressed in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. It does not argue for a direct influence of Augustine on Alcott. Rather, the paper proposes that critical dimensions of Alcott’s characters and concerns are illuminated by considering parallel themes in Augustine’s classic work The City of God. A key mediator in this dialogue spanning a millennium and a half is the English Puritan author John Bunyan, whose seventeenth-century spiritual and literary classic The Pilgrim’s Progress looms large in the preface and throughout the narrative of Little Women. Alcott adapts her preface from the opening of Bunyan’s second part of his Pilgrim’s Progress, “wherein is set forth the setting out of Christian’s wife and children, their dangerous journey, and safe arrival at the desired country.” Alcott’s preface revises Bunyan’s text for her purposes, reflecting the four (at first) adolescents, and then young women, the protagonists of her novel; and speaking to the book’s future readers who may share the March sisters’ youth and womanhood:

“Go, then, my little Book, and show to all
That entertain and bid thee welcome shall,
What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast;
And wish what thou dost show them may be blest
To them for good, may make them choose to be
Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me.
Tell them of Mercy; she is one
Who early hath her pilgrimage begun.
Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize
The world which is to come, and so be wise;
For little tripping maids may follow God
Along the ways which saintly feet have trod.”

This paper introduces its study with an interpretation of Alcott’s preface. It next explicates the meaning and importance of mercy (misericordia) and the traveler or pilgrim (peregrinus) in Augustine’s City of God, paying special attention to social and political aspects of the argument, and to key roles played in it by women exemplars. From there the paper’s focus returns to Alcott’s Little Women, giving a reading of the novel’s narrative that emphasizes the education in mercy that Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are offered on their own pilgrimages through time. Alcott’s vision reflects also her American context and that of her characters, with themes such as independence, liberty, and rights entering the narration and dialogue at critical junctures. The paper’s conclusion reflects on religion and politics from within the world of Little Women and that of The City of God, with special attention to the sources of mercy, and its contribution to a cultural milieu in which independence may be overrated to happiness’s detriment.

Author

• Mary M. Keys, University of Notre Dame