How Little Women drew on Jane Eyre
A documented line of influence: Louisa May Alcott demonstrably engaged Charlotte Brontë’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1847
The Age of the NovelThe influenced
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott · 1868
The Age of the NovelRelevance
7/10
On Little Women’s page
- Jo March has a clear literary mother: Brontë's Jane, the heroine the young Alcott loved best
- Alcott called Jane Eyre a favorite and modeled her teenage first novel on it, even studying Charlotte Brontë's life for inspiration
- Read Brontë first to see where the headstrong, plain-spoken heroine begins — the type Alcott then made her own in Jo
On Jane Eyre’s page
- Alcott called Jane Eyre one of her favorite novels — its mark is all over her early work
- Her first novel, The Inheritance, written at seventeen, was heavily shaped by Brontë; she even read Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë for inspiration
- The plain, fierce, self-possessed heroine Brontë invented runs straight forward into Alcott's Jo March