Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic Little Women and I shared a very turbulent relationship. When I first read it as a child, I fell in love with the world the March sisters inhabited. Alcott somehow managed to infuse a sense of magic and adventure into the ordinary struggles and triumphs of the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. I returned to it a few years later, and suddenly, I could no longer ignore the misogynistic world they lived in, nor how that world had effectively crushed their dreams. Jo’s fate felt like a betrayal of not only the very spirit of the character, but of the novel itself.

The heroine of the novel, Jo March, modeled after Alcott herself, married Professor Bhaer and simultaneously gave up her lifelong dream of being a writer. Jo’s character arc, defined by her ambition and drive, and by her impulsive nature and astounding talent were summarily dismissed. Instead of an author, Jo March was to be a wife and in due time, a mother. Greta Gerwig’s film adaptation of the novel offers a different ending. To truly understand her adaptation, we must realise a conceit built into the movie where the writing of the novel itself is built into the story. Essentially, the movie is a story about its own creation. This becomes apparent only towards the end, when the final sequence shows Jo as the author of a book whose title is revealed to be Little Women. The sequence of Jo negotiating with the publisher and finally agreeing to “sell her heroine into marriage” is interspersed with scenes that are decidedly romantic. A sudden visit by Bhaer to the March home forces Jo to confront her feelings, and encouraged by her sisters, she rushes to the train station in hopes of being able to confess her love for Bhaer. The scene has an almost fairytale-like quality, with its unannounced visits, frantic carriage dashes and the declarations of love. The audience is unable to decide for certain if this is merely the romantic ending Jo was forced to write in order to publish her book, or if she actually married Bhaer. Gerwig’s deliberate decision to leave the ending of Jo’s personal life ambiguous is a stroke of genius for it allows the spirit of the novel to be preserved.

Alcott originally intended Jo to end up as a “literary spinster,” and the oft-bemoaned fate of Jo was, in fact, a product of the societal expectations of her time. After the first volume was published, many fans wrote to Alcott, demanding that Jo marry Laurie. Alcott refused, yet she couldn’t leave her heroine unmarried. Jo had to marry, and “out of perversity” I understood the choice she had to make. Yet, it was always difficult to reconcile the idea of a fiery, independent and talented Jo putting aside her pen and diminishing herself to take upon the responsibilities of a dutiful wife and loving mother. Thus, Gerwig’s adaptation was able to complete the story Alcott wasn’t allowed to. The importance of this cannot be understated. The ending Alcott was pressured to write perpetuated the narrative that marriage and children were the ultimate end goal of a woman’s life, and that a woman can only achieve happiness and satisfaction through her private life. The adaptation emphasized a different point. The ambiguity present in the last scene, where the audience is uncertain of whether Jo got married or not, is contrasted by the indisputable fact that she becomes a published author. The filming of the process of Jo’s scribbles turning into an embossed, red-leather bound book clearly conveys to the audience that this is where the focus of the novel is. And the moment where Jo clutches her book to herself is the culmination of everything Jo (and Alcott) had struggled against and triumphed.

While the tone of the entire movie is generally optimistic, it is important to note that it never loses sight of the reality of its times. Amy’s eloquent and angry defense of her choice to marry rich was perhaps one of the most moving scenes for it depicted a young woman who is brutally aware of the restrictions society had placed on her body and what it can lay claim to. It showed both the rage and acceptance of a woman who understands that to navigate the complexities surrounding her life she must bid farewell to certain dreams. By allowing us to understand the dynamics of the society to which she belongs, we can better respect her motives and understand the nuanced interaction between love and money, especially for a woman. By using the novel’s spirit as its guiding force rather than the plot, Gerwig’s adaptation pays homage to the brilliant vision of Alcott, because it places her beloved characters out of the cultural constraints of the period Alcott was writing in. Their choices were not forced upon them by society; rather, they were finally their own.