Didactic Fiction in Alcott’s Little Women

On the surface, children’s literature appears to be very straightforward and light-hearted, failing to carry within a particular story any deeper inherent meaning—the language is simplistic, there’s a limited viewpoint, and characters oftentimes are portrayed as caricatures. As would be expected, little respect is given to this genre of writing, having been brushed aside as simplistic and trivial. George Orwell, a profound literary figure in his own right, said: “the worst books are often the most important because they are usually the ones that are read earliest in life” (Hunt, 1). Because of this lack of acknowledgment by the literary establishment, the critic P. Hunt maintains that children’s books should be displaced from the literary canon altogether (7). But when viewed from both a critical and emotional standpoint, children’s literature occupies a very dense subgroup of the Literary Canon. It appeals to a broad dual readership of children and adults. With this, a children’s author carries the burden of having to satisfy two different needs (that of the child, who primarily seeks to be entertained and awed; and that of the adult, w

Some topics in this essay:
Isabelle Jan, Little Women, Peter Pan, Literary Canon, George Orwell, Gardiner Alcott’s, Louisa Alcott, Amy Jo, Professor Bhaer, Lukens Alcott’s, little women, children’s literature, peter pan, literary canon, didactic fiction, meigs 213, amy jo, escape reality, human nature, teaching readers,