An Ode to Amy March
Amy March has always been great: Little Women (2019) shows us why
When I first read Little Women two years ago, Amy March was the character I loved to hate. She seemed to be Jo’s antithesis: wanting to marry and marry well, as well as a menace to Jo’s aspirations and love interest. Jo was the main character, the one I rooted for: the sister all girls want to be.
And to my surprise, according to my friends, family, (and a BuzzFeed quiz), I am Jo — and I see it a little, now that I think about it more, maybe a lot. I do agree I share her passion for writing, her confidence, independence, ambition, maybe a little bit of her temper. Maybe that’s why Amy vexed me — burning Jo’s stories, travelling to Europe, falling for Laurie — she began to impede on the person Jo wanted to become.
Alcott’s depiction of Amy is cheeky, Gerwig’s is claustrophobic
In watching Little Women (2019), Amy’s representation prompted the epiphany that Amy is Jo’s antithesis, but not in the way I had interpreted from the book. Alcott’s depiction of Amy is cheeky, Gerwig’s is claustrophobic. Book Amy gave me the portrayal of a younger sibling: a little bit devious — am I brazen to say slightly immature? Gerwig gave me the portrayal of a woman suffocating under the patriarchy, and…
