49 pages • 1 hour read

Little Men

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1871

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-14

Chapters 15-17

Chapters 19-21

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Gardening

Alcott uses the motif of gardening to represent the students’ individuality and growth throughout the novel. Each student at Plumfield is given a garden plot and expected to choose crops to grow and tend through the summer, harvesting their crops in the fall. This seasonal growing period is a metaphor for the development of the students as they progress over the year. The plants that the students choose to grow represent their individuality, which is nurtured by the Bhaers. For example, Nan’s medicinal herbs signify her intentions to become a knowledgeable medical practitioner and career woman, while Daisy’s impractical but delicate and decorative flowers represent her femininity and focus on a beautiful home.

The farming of the garden plots also expands the theme of the Interconnectedness with Nature. Nat is healed by his time in the garden, which physically improves his health when he is too weak to spend long hours studying. In the tradition of transcendental thinkers like Thoreau, Mr. Bhaer’s sermon about gardening in the opening chapters of the novel emphasizes the link to nature as a connection to God and human goodness. When he tells the boys the allegory of the gardener, he reminds them that “we are all parts of the beautiful garden and may have rich harvests for our Master if we love Him enough” (39). The novel explores the effect of love on the growth of the young men through the relationships of the Bhaers and the students, who symbolize the crops they are working to cultivate well.

Flowers

Flower symbolism is used throughout the novel to represent the impact of love and female nurturing on a child’s development. For example, the danger of non-interference in the case of Demi’s whimsical nature is compared to the fragility of “hot-house flowers, because the young soul blooms too soon, and has not a hearty body to root it firmly in the wholesome soil of this world” (18). This simile emphasizes the duty of parents to provide a well-rounded education for their children to develop their utility in society as well as their minds.

Alcott also uses the meanings of flowers in Victorian floriography, or the language of flowers, to explore the female role in children’s education. Mrs. Jo believes in coeducation and the novel highlights the impact of the presence of Nan, Daisy, and ‘Goldilocks’ on the young men.

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The flower referent of the name “Daisy” represents innocence and purity, and Daisy’s gentleness and good manners inspire the boys to behave more in more gentlemanly ways: Demi is scolded for teasing Daisy, Nat and Tommy make amends to her after their poor behavior at her ball, and all the boys try to behave well to be invited to play parlor games with the girls and enjoy Daisy’s cooking.

Later, Goldilocks is compared to a rose, a traditional symbol of beauty and love. The boys treat her gently, hovering “like a swarm of bees about a very sweet flower, the affectionate lads surrounded their pretty playmate, and kissed her till she looked like a little rose” (197). With Goldilocks, they boys play out the kinds of courtships they will undertake as young men wooing desirable women.

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The result of Mrs. Jo’s coeducational experiment is that the young men of Plumfield are socialized, sweeter, and more refined in their manners than if taught in isolation. Mrs. Jo’s maternal love is also described as a flower that can bloom anywhere; its accomplishment is the transformation of neglected boys into dependable and useful young men.

Animals

The novel’s often deployed pastoral image of the boys as a “flock” signifies the importance of a good education to keep young people from becoming lost or straying from morality. The word choice is a biblical allusion—Christian imagery often describes God or religious authority as a shepherd and laypeople as a flock of sheep, so the metaphor reinforces the dynamic of the Bhaers as shepherds guarding and guiding their adoptive children. This imagery contributes to the utopian image of Plumfield as an Edenic sanctuary, highlighted at the end of the novel through Mrs. Jo’s vision that “she was looking at a new and charming state of society in which people lived as happily and innocently as her flock at Plumfield” (323).

Bird imagery, meanwhile, is used to illuminate the doting dynamic of the Bhaers and their students and solidify their togetherness and family dynamic. The image of the boys as a flock thus has a dual meaning, as the collective noun can also denote a group of birds. The children’s impoverished circumstances and neediness is depicted through the image of them as a “flock of hungry sparrows” being fed “crumbs” by the Bhaers (47). Likewise, their boisterous energy and youthful vibrancy is compared to that of guinea fowls as they shower love on Goldilocks. Finally, Nat’s close observation of robins in nature symbolizes his place in the Plumfield family dynamic, “The robins in the apple tree near by evidently considered him a friend, for the father bird hunted insects close beside him, and the little mother brooded as confidingly over her blue eggs as if the boy was only a new sort of blackbird who cheered her patient watch with his song” (116). In addition, Mrs. Jo is compared to a “maternal owl” when she nurses Dan after his foot injury, adding to her image as a wise and vigilant mother figure in the lives of the young men she takes in.