The most recent adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s popular novel Little Women has been an incredible success under the direction of Greta Gerwig. Even after just sitting through the previews, I needed a tissue while hearing Meg March exclaim how her dreams are important to her. This film constantly touches on the importance of each woman’s individual path, and how we must make our own way in life. While watching, there were three major quotes that stood out to me — I’m sure they would impact some of you, too.
- “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!”
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This may be the most notable quote from the film, and one that Jo March wildly needed the world to hear. I feel like even today, people tend to lose sight of the intricacies of each person around them. We have to remember that everyone is on their own path. While most of the world no longer believes that love is all a woman is good for, society often has a difficult time allowing women to rise up out of the boxes that have been built around them. Jo and her sisters experience this often throughout the film — even Jo’s book editor requires her to have the main character married off by the end of her novel. Sometimes, we all need a reminder that everyone around us is leading an incredibly real and unique journey.
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“Just because my dreams are different than yours, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.”
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I believe that this is an incredibly important quote, especially today. There are so many different paths we can set upon, but society still wishes to tell us which path is right and which is wrong. This quote reminded me of when my classmates and I were deciding where to attend college, or if we even wanted to attend at all. The world is determined to give us a right and a wrong idea of what our dreams should be. Even though Meg March says this because she truly wishes to be married, she needs her sister to understand that although their dreams and hearts are in utterly different places, they are equally important. Everyone’s dreams deserve to be respected and uplifted, not shot down just because they are different.
- “The world is hard on ambitious girls.”
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This last line resonated with me because we see this all the time within popular culture and our daily lives. Growing up, I was very ambitious and always tried hard, yet I would be ridiculed for it by my classmates. We all know the term “goody two-shoes.” You’ll see a girl boss online doing amazing work, but there will always be a negative nancy trying to bring her down. When Amy says this, it‘s a reminder that while the world is going to be hard on us, we just have to push forward and the world will be ours.
There are so many more incredible lines in Little Women, so I definitely recommend catching a showing of it. From Jo March reminding us that it‘s okay to find our own way, to Meg telling us that it’s okay to have different dreams, and Amy allowing us to see that we will all succeed in our own way, the number of extraordinary themes in this film are endless.