A Sketch, A Fascination

I was amazed at the passion with which Louisa May Alcott could exhibit within her writing, with out this passion tainting the sketching of her main character, Robert, in The Brothers. Her views on slavery did not originate from a philosophical basis but on conviction that men should not be slaves over another man. It was not only that she wrote with clarity while having conviction, but that she was able to discern her own motives and portray them so well; this all made an intricate and enjoyable short story. In a unique way Alcott let you see not only out of her eyes but see her sympathy out of her self admitted tainted eyes. Secondly, in the little I have dappled in current short stories the male female relationships within them have either been the most brutally hateful awful things involving domestic abuse or uninteresting descriptions of disgusting lustiness. Alcott, besides the former being unfit to print in the period, takes the type of interaction common with every day life where mild interests occur and are for some reason put behind, passed without effect. Her interest and fondness for Robert were interesting because it lead the reader to find out about Roberts character and secret at the pace that she was discovering him.

I suppose the truth that Alcott was finding about women was also engaging. The way she put herself forward to the test (in the hospital), but still found that she was feminine. This femininity, was cute and made her pliable; qualities that make men glad. It was not however that she thought herself the weaker vessel, it was that she tested herself and found herself to be weaker, thus she was not mindless but mindful, knowledgeable. However in a more striking way she portrayed revenge not simply between brothers but in a man so human that we cannot help but understand our humanistic connection with him.