Amazing Alcott

Last week, at our office book club meeting, we discussed two sensationalist tales by Louisa May Alcott. Of course, Alcott is best known as the author of the beloved novel Little Women. Not many people, however, are aware that she also penned numerous "blood-and-thunder tales," stories of passion and intrigue rife with feminist subtexts, gender politics, psychoanalytical depth, and subversive social commentary. I first learned of Alcott's double literary life in college, when I took a Women Writers course one summer. That the author of Little Women, arguably the pinnacle of domestic fiction, also wrote gothic narratives involving violence, drugs, madness, stormy affairs, and battles of the sexes fascinated me. (Still does, in fact.) That same summer, I happened to come across a volume of the stories that Alcott wrote anonymously and pseudonymously. I purchased the tome and devoured the 780 pages of the fast-paced, highly readable potboilers. Because she handled vastly different genres and formats with such a masterful hand, Alcott remains one of my favorite writers. In fact, her seeming dual identity and psychologically-rich body of work were part of the reason why I pursued a graduate degree in literature.

So, it was with great pleasure and anticipation that I revisited "A Whisper in the Dark" and "Behind a Mask: A Woman's Power." The last time I read these narratives, I was in grad school, and I found that even after a decade's separation, these tales still had the power to captivate me. The stories truly illuminate each other well. The two heroines are polar opposites in many ways, but they both seek to exert power through artful means. Sybil, the youthful and headstrong heiress of "A Whisper in the Dark," is unaware of the precarious position she occupies in the male-dominated world she enters and, worse, overconfident in her feminine charms. She pays a heavy price for her deficient vision and failure as an artist: her uncle disinherits her by sending her to a madhouse. Through her ordeal, however, she comes in contact with a lifesaving maternal influence, the "madwoman in the attic" who sacrifices herself so that the daughter can escape and be reborn with a feminist consciousness.

In contrast, Jean Muir, the anti-heroine of "Behind a Mask," possesses a preternaturally keen vision and wields the feminine arts with such consummate skill that she entrances the beleaguered members of the aristocratic Coventry family. A divorced actress of at least 30, Jean is jaded, deceitful, manipulative, and avaricious. Yet, she manages to convince the family who has hired her as a governess that she is 19-year-old orphan of noble birth. By understanding the male gaze and projecting the appropriate illusions of Victorian femininity back at the viewer, she causes both sons and their patriarchal uncle to fall in love with her. Interestingly, this transgressor of social norms is not punished for her actions; after a series of suspenseful incidents, she succeeds in marrying the uncle, securing both title and wealth. I love that Alcott forces the reader to grapple with the uncomfortable ending by purposely leaving the narrative morally ambiguous. Jean's traumatic past is hinted at but unexplained, so she never really becomes a sympathetic figure. However, even though the Coventrys can be seen as victims, most of them are not exactly likable or blameless. As accomplices in the crimes of patriarchy, they are an expected target for Jean's revenge against the society that has reduced her to the impoverished and embittered person she has become. Regardless of where the reader's sympathies lie, the novella is a powerful one, and it has one of the best last lines I've ever read.

Like Jo in Little Women, Alcott wrote these sensationalist thrillers to support her family financially. However, she actually preferred this genre to "providing moral pap for the young." In her letters, she claimed, "I think my natural ambition is for the lurid style. I indulge in gorgeous fancies and wish that I dared inscribe them upon my pages and set them before the public." Like most women writers of her time, she struggled between her creative, feminist impulses and the constraints of Victorian propriety, which she described as "the proper grayness of old Concord." Thus, she pursued her "natural ambition" from "behind a mask."

With such rich material, it's not surprising that we had an invigorating discussion at our book club meeting. It was like being back in grad school, which I do miss sometimes in my more nostalgic moments. It is not likely that I would ever go back for a PhD, though I must admit (somewhat sheepishly) that the doctorate does appeal to my vanity. So, it is lovely to have a forum where I can dig up and air out my scholarly tendencies among like-minded peers. Three cheers for English majors! And three cheers for the amazingly versatile and talented Louisa May Alcott!