Thursday, April 30, 2020

Week Three Questions

Week Three (4/29/20) 

Welcome to our third week! Feel free to answer however many questions you wish throughout this coming week. Next week, please read chapters 14 through 21.

Chapter Eight: Meg and Jo are going to a play with Laurie and Amy wants to go too. Jo harshly tells Amy she cannot go, leaving an angry Amy behind. While Jo is at the play, Amy seeks vengeance by burning Jo’s manuscript. Jo swears never to forgive her. The following day, Jo and Laurie go ice skating and Amy follows them. In anger, Jo does not tell Amy that the ice is thinner in the center of the lake. Amy falls in and Laurie saves her as Jo freezes. Later, horrified by her own temper, Jo talks with Marmee and learns that her mother once also struggled with controlling her anger.   

Chapter Nine: Meg plans on visiting the wealthy Moffats for a few weeks. Meg’s family lend her their nicest attire and accessories for the occasion. While attending a party with Annie, Meg hears rumors that her mother must be intending for her or one of her sisters to marry Laurie for his money. Meg continues to worry about the rumors and her “drab” attire. She decides to let her friends dress her in fashionable attire and puts on a show. Meg encounters Laurie who disapproves of the way she is dressed and behaving. Meg hears another man at the party say the girls are making a fool of her. When she returns home, Meg tells Marmee about what happened. Marmee wants the girls to realize that true love is built on more than money and she only wishes for their happiness.   

Chapter Ten: The girls are fans of Charles Dickens, and they establish a club they call the Pickwick Club, or P.C., after Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (info on it here: https://www.worldbookonline.com/student-new/#/article/home/ar748747). The sisters produce a newsletter each week, with advertisements, poems, and stories. Jo suggests they invite Laurie to join the club. Meg and Amy vote against this because they do not want to be made fun of. Beth, votes for this and even suggests inviting Laurie’s Grandpa. This surprises Meg and Amy so much that they change their votes. Jo reveals Laurie had been hiding in the closet the whole time and Laurie pledges his faithfulness to the club. He then presents the girls with a makeshift mailbox for them to exchange notes and objects.   

Chapter Eleven: It’s summertime and Aunt March and the King family have gone on vacations, allowing Meg and Jo some time to relax. Beth and Amy want time away from schoolwork and Marmee gives all the girls permission to take a break for a week. The girls set about their activities while Marmee and Hannah do their chores for them. On Saturday, Marmee and Hannah take the day off. The girls are left to fend for themselves and try to run the house. They fail but can laugh at some of the disasters. At the end of the day, Marmee teaches the girls a lesson about the importance of everyone contributing to the chores. Each of the sisters decide to take on a productive project for the summer.   

Chapter Twelve: The chapter begins with the girls receiving a single glove, an enormous hat, and several letters in the mail. One letter causes quite a bit of excitement, Laurie invited all the sisters to a picnic to meet the Vaughns who are visiting from England. During the picnic, Fred Vaughn cheats at a game of cricket and Jo notices. Jo manages to control her temper and wins the game fairly for her team. Kate Vaughn, the oldest of the Vaughn siblings, is wealthy and fashionable. She is shocked to find out that Meg works as a governess. Mr. Brooke defends Meg and explains the importance of work in the American culture. Meanwhile, the rest of the sisters are connecting and chatting with other members of the Vaughn family.   

Chapter Thirteen: Laurie sees the girls working on different projects and wants to join them. The girls call themselves the Busy Bee Society and are working on projects in keeping with their Pilgrim’s Progress goals. Laurie is told he can only join them if he keeps busy. Laurie decides to contribute by reading a book to the sisters. The conversation soon turns to dreams or “castles in the sky.” Each of the sisters and Laurie discuss their dreams and Laurie receives advice about his future. 

14 comments:

  1. Question One: In previous chapters the girls are warned about their “bosom enemies.” In chapter 8, we learn about Jo’s struggle with controlling her temper. Were you surprised when you discovered Marmee also struggled with overcoming anger?

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    1. Yes, I could not imagine Marmee having a bad temper because of how Alcott has depicted her in previous chapters.

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    2. Erika, I agree! I think this revelation helps with what I thought last week--I thought Marmee was a perfect character, maybe even "overboard" perfect to be point of having an unattainable character. But here we see she is just more mature with handling her faults. That makes her more believable to me.

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    3. I actually wasn't very surprised, because I figured she's probably been through a lot to have become wise enough to pass down as much sage advice to her daughters as she always does. She's depicted as so calm and together, but we know hardly anything about her life before having four little girls to raise. Never think someone's present defines their past or vice versa.

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  2. Question Two: How was Meg’s experience with the Moffats a turning point for her growing up?

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  3. Question Three: How does Laurie support the girls as they fight their “bosom enemies?”

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  4. Question Four: We may no longer be children, but we still have imagination! If you were to write a poem or short story now, what would you write about?

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    1. I would write a poem about nature or a short story about an outdoor adventure.

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    2. I used to write but haven't in a long time. I'd like to maybe write a story about a fairy in our world.

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  5. Question Five: Could it be argued that the girls’ dressing as literary gentlemen in their club instead of choosing to be female literary characters depicts the reality of the inequalities between the sexes in the 19th Century? Where else so far in the book have we seen the girls wrestle with the strong gender divides between males and females in the 1860s?

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    1. I feel like it's significant that the girls are dressed as men in their club. Jo often says she wishes she were a boy, because then her economic opportunities would be expanded. She's struggling to become an author, and most authors were men at the time. I think Jo is a pointed example of women who were struggling with the limitations and judgements put upon them in the 1860s. The people in power that she was having to please to get her writings published were men.

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  6. Question Six: How does Alcott depict the English in her writing? What is your first impression of the Vaughns?

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  7. Question Seven: Laurie reveals his dreams and concerns to the sisters. Do you agree with Jo’s opinion on leaving his grandfather for adventures or Meg’s suggestion for Laurie to be dutiful and go to college?

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    1. I think Laurie should definitely go on adventures, if that's what he wants to do, but I believe that Meg is right in suggesting he go to college before he does anything else. Honoring that wish of his grandfather who has largely raised him feels the moral thing to do, and he could always have some adventures while in college, too.

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