Great points. To add to your points about Tony and Janice. Not to diminish Tony's trauma, but Tony channels his anger and lack of morality from his childhood home into being a successful mobster and Tony is the King of his world. Tony had to get therapy because his childhood traumas fostered panic attacks and depression which harms his business abilities. However, at root, Tony was shaped to be a success in his world based on his childhood and he does revel in it. Meanwhile, Janice is barred from being the King, ace mobster because she's a woman. So all of Janice's complexes from her childhood from her anger to her depression to her lack of motivation are just giant roadblocks to any success in any field whatsoever. Tony's anger is the source of his he-man power; Janice's anger is a big problem because once she snagged Bobby as a husband, she was supposed to be a good Italian mother who won't embarrass the family. Janice had to get anger management and succeed at it in order to keep the limited life she had as Bobby's wife. Tony can spend years in therapy and learn nothing other than how he was victimized as a child but little of how he victimizes others every damn day.
Louisa May Alcott grew up in a transcendentalist household where her parents were striving towards greater self-knowledge and intellectual fulfillment. Although, I understand that Louisa and her sisters had to live in harsh conditions from their poverty and their parents constant academic pressure and "suffering is good for the soul". So, rooms and water were unheated, lessons began early, etc. IMO, Louisa owned some of her "suffering is good for the soul"/heavy burdens of transcendentalism but had a follow up that, "It's not the best way to be and people being kind to another should stave needless suffering off". Thus, the best of both worlds is that the March girls give up their Christmas breakfast for the poor family next door *and* Mr. Laurence notes that and gives them a fantastic dinner/desert party. It sucks that Amy's teacher struck her but the next step is for Amy and Jo to learn how to work together by homeschooling Amy.
The Little House books had no such structure. Louisa May Alcott was coming from her New England intellectual place and yes, I think that she was confused on "Money: Good or Evil?" or "Old Europe v. New US: Which is better?" or "What's the true value in hyper-femininity? Is it how girls should be?" but she was trying to answer the big ole questions through the March girls. And everyone is still trying to answer those questions. However, the Little House books, per their location, is just a constant struggle to survive on the fringes of society. The book is even ambivalent on how much civilization they want. On one hand, the family is part of the trend to settle the Wild West. On the other hand, they cling to their backwoodsness and certainly, Pa gets to be an outsize godlike figure in his family because he's the big strong guy in the surrounded by his wife and little girls. And the whole family believes in the Cult of Pa. Although if I remember right, Laura does get to be a teacher and Mary, even though blind, is educated at an established school for the blind. So there's that happy ending/move to civilization.
Janice is barred from being the King, ace mobster because she's a woman. So all of Janice's complexes from her childhood from her anger to her depression to her lack of motivation are just giant roadblocks to any success in any field whatsoever.
Yes, exactly. She can't even break into the mob wife circle until quite late in life, and then with lesser status as a second wife and stepmother, because the only role for women in her world is for thin bottle-blond less-Italian-looking Italian ladies.
The Cult of Pa, heh. That's a great way to put it.
Louisa May Alcott grew up in a transcendentalist household where her parents were striving towards greater self-knowledge and intellectual fulfillment. Although, I understand that Louisa and her sisters had to live in harsh conditions from their poverty and their parents constant academic pressure and "suffering is good for the soul". So, rooms and water were unheated, lessons began early, etc. IMO, Louisa owned some of her "suffering is good for the soul"/heavy burdens of transcendentalism but had a follow up that, "It's not the best way to be and people being kind to another should stave needless suffering off". Thus, the best of both worlds is that the March girls give up their Christmas breakfast for the poor family next door *and* Mr. Laurence notes that and gives them a fantastic dinner/desert party. It sucks that Amy's teacher struck her but the next step is for Amy and Jo to learn how to work together by homeschooling Amy.
The Little House books had no such structure. Louisa May Alcott was coming from her New England intellectual place and yes, I think that she was confused on "Money: Good or Evil?" or "Old Europe v. New US: Which is better?" or "What's the true value in hyper-femininity? Is it how girls should be?" but she was trying to answer the big ole questions through the March girls. And everyone is still trying to answer those questions. However, the Little House books, per their location, is just a constant struggle to survive on the fringes of society. The book is even ambivalent on how much civilization they want. On one hand, the family is part of the trend to settle the Wild West. On the other hand, they cling to their backwoodsness and certainly, Pa gets to be an outsize godlike figure in his family because he's the big strong guy in the surrounded by his wife and little girls. And the whole family believes in the Cult of Pa. Although if I remember right, Laura does get to be a teacher and Mary, even though blind, is educated at an established school for the blind. So there's that happy ending/move to civilization.
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Yes, exactly. She can't even break into the mob wife circle until quite late in life, and then with lesser status as a second wife and stepmother, because the only role for women in her world is for thin bottle-blond less-Italian-looking Italian ladies.
The Cult of Pa, heh. That's a great way to put it.
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