Louisa May Alcott's Little Women has always been one of my favorite books.
There are, however, two chapters that annoy me. I'll cover the first one in this post.
Remember the chapter called "Jo Meets Apollyon," where
Amy burned the book Jo had worked on for several years
because Jo wouldn't let her come to the theater with her
and Meg and Laurie?
Jo was, of course, furious with Amy... just as I would have been,
just as almost anybody would have been.
But how did Mrs. March, Marmee, handle the situation?
"Mrs. March came home, and, having heard the story,
soon brought Amy to a sense of the wrong she had done her sister."
That's it. We never find out just how she "brought Amy to a
sense of the wrong she had done her sister." We never learn
what Marmee said to Amy.
Mrs. March, in fact, seemed much more concerned about Jo's very
understandable anger than about Amy's deliberate, vindictive
destruction of Jo's property.
Once again, I quote this sentence:
"Mrs. March came home, and, having heard the story, soon
brought Amy to a sense of the wrong she had done her sister."
I wonder how many readers found themselves wishing that
Mrs. March had brought Amy to a sense of not wanting to
sit down for several days!
