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Hello acting freaks! As I promised, we are going to analyse Jo March's character from Greta Gerwig's Little Women (2019). The film is the seventh adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women'.
The story follows the lives of four March sisters. The girls are supported by the family to be independent and free in a patriarchal society. It's about the transition of the sisters from their childhood to womanhood. The very strong character, Jo March is played by none other than Saoirse Ronan. I personally relate to this fierce straight forward feminist character of the 19th century. She seeks independence finding the way out to fulfill her ambitions, all the years she has always been contempt with her family, she believes in expressing her open thoughts in her writings and in-house dramas.
Here's my monologue adaptation to the conversation between Jo and her mother, with reference to the film. How did I characterize Jo? Watch and scroll down to read more.
"I care more to be loved. I want to be loved." - Jo March
Let's dive into the 5W's and 1H of this character. Who is the person we're talking about? What is she doing/thinking/saying/expressing? When and where she is? Why is she doing/saying so? How is she doing/expressing it?
It might sound easy but one has to analyse what the narrative has been and what are the possibilities that I can think of 'if' I were her. Well, it's a female character who considers herself a woman. She is an ambitious independent woman striving to make it as a writer in New York. She is a feminist who loves her freedom, she wants to be loved and admits that she is lonely. What she thinks is women only in books can be depicted as liberated. She is grieving her sister's loss.
What she wears is loose comfortable clothing and an over jacket, with not so well-kept hair with hands died in ink. How does her face looks? Should depict freedom, pride and a pint of straightforward mind, a sparkle in eyes and lips that express, to quite irony she finds it difficult to express her real emotions to her own mother. So as, not to let anyone that she is feeling lonely.
When does the conversation take place? After her younger sister's last deeds. It takes place where her sister passed away, she is tidying all her sister's things, it's winter and cold as always in a small remote town. How is she expressing herself? She is trying to answer her mother's concerns about her happiness, friendship and love life very diplomatically, justifying that she ruins everything with her temper. She has this false hope with Laurie's return that he would propose her again and this time she would certainly say a yes.
Giving herself a false hope out of loneliness, fulfilling her want to be loved.
She states that love isn't just all a woman is fit for. She breaks down saying, "...women... they've got minds and they've got souls as well as just hearts, they've got ambitions and they've got talent as well as just beauty...and I am so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for...".
What does she really want to convey? The idea of love makes her feel uncomfortable at the hands of patriarchal society. The world that knows woman to be as a thing of love that is to function her love into a societal standard of marriage and nothing near to her idea of liberation and freedom of opinions, free will and personal choices. Thinking that it would only tarnish her life, her ambitions and her talent but deep down all she cares is to be loved, she wants to be loved. She is just sick of the world where the set of standards wouldn't let her be happy, she wants to give up on the world and live happily just like a girl in a book, everything would be easy for her then.
It all takes you to think 'what if I was Jo March?'
Read this Sunday, another chapter of characterization. See you on Sunday people<3.