Little Women has been called autobiographical because Louisa May Alcott used so many episodes from her own childhood and that of her family to create the story. But where does fact end and fiction begin? Or does it even work like that?
Stern says, “Fact was embedded in fiction, and a domestic novel begun in which the local and the universal were married, in which adolescents were clothed in flesh and blood.”
True or False?
Let’s have a little quiz, True or False – is the following a real episode or fiction? Warning: the answer isn’t always black and white so pick True if it’s more black than white and False if the opposite.
Copy the entire list and then put TRUE or FALSE after the statement and we’ll compare notes.
- Hannah the servant
- The Christmas play (“The Witches’ Curse, an Operatic Tragedy)
- Amy burns Jo’s manuscript
- Marmee’s temper
- Amy falling through the ice
- Jo pinching Meg’s papered locks before the ball
- Meg being dressed up as a doll at Annie Moffat’s
- Amy bewailing her pickled limes
- Beth receiving the piano from Mr. Lawrence
- Mr. March’s illness
- Jo sells her hair.
- Beth wasted away and died peacefully.
- Jo published her first story, “The Rival Painters.”
- Amy writes her own will.
- Jo rejects Laurie’s love.
Answers in the next post. Good luck!
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I’ll play along.
Hannah the servant FALSE
The Christmas play (“The Witches’ Curse, an Operatic Tragedy) TRUE
Amy burns Jo’s manuscript FALSE
Marmee’s temper TRUE
Amy falling through the ice FALSE
Jo pinching Meg’s papered locks before the ball FALSE
Meg being dressed up as a doll at Annie Moffat’s FALSE
Amy bewailing her pickled limes TRUE
Beth receiving the piano from Mr. Lawrence FALSE
Mr. March’s illness FALSE
Jo sells her hair. FALSE
Beth wasted away and died peacefully. TRUE
Jo published her first story, “The Rival Painters.” TRUE
Amy writes her own will. TRUE
Jo rejects Laurie’s love. FALSE
1. They wish! (false)
2. true
3. … hopefully false!
4. true!
5. false
6. um…. true
7. false
8. true
9. false
10. I didn’t know Mr. March was ill? Um. False.
11. false
12. false
13. true
14. false?
15. false
I haven’t looked at the answers yet, so I”m going to try the quiz.:
1. False! Although I’m sure Abba would have loved a servant or two to help.
2. I can’t remember, but I”ll say true.
3. False
4. True
5. False
6. True
7. True? There was no one named Annie Moffett, but I think something like this happened.
8. True
9. True-ish. Beth did get a piano-like instrument at one point, though I forget what it is called.
10. True
11. True. LMA actually had her head shaved because of her sickness.
12. False, sadly.
13. True. LMA’s first book was Flower Fables, but she published stories in papers before that.
14. False
15. True-ish. Laurie was based on Alf Whitman and Laddie, the Polish boy LMA met in Europe. There was something going on with the Polish Laddie, according to her letters, but nothing like what happened between Jo and Laurie.
That was harder than I thought!
Good job! I would quibble with a couple of the answers (see my take in the post following up on the quiz) but what made it hard is that there was partial truth in some of them (such as with the hair incident – Louisa’s head was shaved but it was against her will and she didn’t sell it.) This quiz is a perfect example of how she meshes fact with fiction and how it’s hard to tell the two apart!
She’s just brilliant that way, isn’t she? 🙂
Oh yes!