A Freudian Psychoanalytic Approach To Little Women

Little Women is a family novel written by the American novelist Louisa MayAlcott in the19thcentury. This novel is based on the author’s childhood experiencewith her three sisters. The novel receives great popularity among all the readers afterits publication, and it is still one of the most widely-read novels today. Some peoplehave made analysis of this novel from Puritanism, Transcendentalism, and Feminismand so on, while this paper intends to explore the meaning of this novel from theperspective of Freudian Psychoanalysis.Based on Freud’s theory of Personality Structure, this paper is intended to makean analysis of the psychology of the heroines in little women, focusing on those youngladies’ experiences from little girls to mature women and interpreting their drasticchanges of minds. Freud assumes that a person’s psyche consists of three layers,which presents themselves as Id, Ego and Super-Ego. Accordingly this paper falls intofour parts. Chapter One is concerned with the four heroines’ Ids at the first periodwhen they are young, and have showed many shortcomings in nature. Chapter Twodeals with the heroines’ Super-Ego and explores the social and family causes for theirimprovements. Chapter Three concentrates on the heroines’ realization of their ownvalues after a series of struggles and their perfection of personality in the process ofgrowing up. The last chapter analyzes the heroines’ tremendous spiritual changes ontheir ways to seek for comfort and self-fulfillment. They finally change fromimmature young girls to perfect women. Having analyzed the heroines’ Id, Ego,Super-Ego and their great changes, the paper concludes that after a series ofexperiences in the process of their life and struggle in their heart, the heroinesovercome the evils in their nature and receive tranquility in their inner beings, andfree themselves from fretted emotions. Amy converses from a selfish princess to amature woman; Meg changes from a frivolous girl to a charming lady, and Joedevelops from a hot-tempered girl to a young lady capable of self-sacrificing and tolerating. Beth is no longer a timid girl who can not speak fluently with others, andshe sacrifices herself in order to help others. Having been taught by weal and woe,their lives eventually take on meanings which are symbolized by their achievementsof inner independence. Confronting difficult choices, they have kept balances betweensocial requirements and their values and realized perfection in their souls withoutrestricts of social rules.