Women of the Month: Amy March

Amy March from Little Women (2019)

I'll be honest: I was one of the readers who counted Amy has my least favourite Little Woman, and my reasons for doing so were probably the same as everyone else's: she's the youngest, prettiest sister, coddled by the rest of her family, ends up marrying the man most readers wanted to wed Jo, seems to avoid all the hardships and heartaches of her sisters, and - worst of all - burns Jo's manuscript in an insanely disproportionate act of revenge.

I could get over all the rest, but every writer feels the destruction of that manuscript as the ultimate sisterly betrayal.

So with several Mary Sue qualities (and I don't use that term lightly), a romance that feels like it's been stolen from another character, and a rather lopsided character arc, in which we spend more time with the bratty, spoiled Amy than the emotionally mature one (who is more talked about than demonstrated in Alcott's writing), it's no wonder she's never been the favourite.

Greta Gerwig and Florence Pugh are here to change all that. Granted, it is a stretch to accept twenty-four year old Pugh as a twelve year old, but once you embrace the suspension of disbelief, it's clear the writer/actress deliberately lean into Amy's immaturity. While burning Jo's book she's wearing fairy wings, and afterwards is totally unable to comprehend why everyone is so upset.

Most film adaptations of Little Women unsurprisingly cast Jo as the story's protagonist, forgetting that Meg, Beth and Amy each have chapters devoted to them and their personal growth, and in Amy's case it robs us of the biggest transformation the novel has to offer.

So Gerwig does something that's never been done before: she positions Jo and Amy as co-protagonists, as deliberate foils to each other, each with their own parallel arc. Gerwig also adds original content to Amy's character, such as Amy declaring that she's been second to Jo her whole life (that would come as a surprise to Jo, but it's true from Amy's perspective and could even be meta-commentary on how they're treated in adaptations), admitting that she's loved Laurie in secret for years (which we see in the flashbacks, where she's clearly nursing a crush on him from day one), and giving Laurie a succinct break-down regarding her options in marriage and why it's an economic proposal for her (and all women).

When Jo complains that Amy has always been able to avoid life's miseries, we see that her glamourous trip across Europe is anything but. She's a companion to the imperious Aunt March, learning depressing truths about the quality of her art, and well-aware that it's her choice in marriage that will determine her family's fortune. As she puts it: “One of us must marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't, yet, — so I shall, and make everything cozy all around.”

That's a heavy burden.

We love Jo for fighting against the gender roles imposed upon her, but the more practical and shrewd Amy takes a different path: using her femininity to negotiate the world around her, despite clear-eyed awareness of the double-standards she and her sisters face. This is precisely the reason she gets to go to Europe (stealing another of Jo's dreams), while her sisters are left behind: because she can work the system and live up to Aunt March's expectations of ladylike behaviour. Sometimes you have to go along to get along.

And Gerwig's choice to play around with the story's chronology means that we first see Laurie and Amy together in Europe, placing greater narrative emphasis on their relationship, in stark contrast to other films in which their coming together is a bizarre last-minute, off-screen coda.

But my favourite moment would have to be the scene that's present in every adaptation: when Jo cuts her hair and Amy cries: "your one beauty!" This is always followed by a scene in which Jo is weeping, a sister assuming that her tears are for their father, and her wailing in response: "no my hair!" It's a great sequence, which is why it's always included, but what's really fascinating is that in the 1933 version it's Meg that comforts her, in 1994 it's Beth, and in 2019 it's Amy who creeps out of her bed to be with Jo.

And in this adaptation she is eventually the one to give Jo the encouragement she needs to write Little Women, by telling her that their everyday lives will become important by the act of her writing about them. We have this story because of Amy as much as Jo, and that's a beautiful way for her to atone for the destruction of Jo's first manuscript.

In short: justice for Amy!