Final Paper 424r5f

Meyer 1 Nicole Meyer Dr. Goeke American Literature I 30 April 2015 Louisa May Alcott: A Woman Before Her Time One would not think that a woman born in Philadelphia in 1832 would be an early advocate for racial and gender equality. African Americans were hardly even thought of as people, and had little to no rights, and women were seen as inferior with no concrete thoughts or ideas on much of anything. Many believed that women belonged in the home, sewing or cooking, and that blacks belonged on the plantations doing slave work. Louisa May Alcott, however, had a few varying opinions. Alcott, having access to education, found ion within writing at an early age and was inspired by the works of Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. Alcott’s intense appreciation for education— hers and in general—easily set her apart from the majority of women within the mid 1800s. Her interest in education and in educating herself allowed her the opportunity to understand that she, as well as many women after being presented with enough information, was perfectly capable of forming her own ideas and opinions on a number of different topics, even those of gender and of race. Her ambitions powered her through any adversity she had faced and allowed her to become a novelist by the time she was 22. The real start-off of her

Meyer 2 career, however, was when she wrote Hospital Sketches when she was a nurse in Washington DC during the Civil War. These letters, including “My Contraband” set her literary career off and also set her apart from other writers of her time by discussing issues of race and of gender in a non-confrontational and interesting manner. Through research of various scholars, it has been noted and widely agreed upon that Alcott’s views on both race and gender, as shown within “My Contraband” were very much ahead of her time and were groundbreaking views within nineteenth-century America. Alcott’s ideas were progressive without being too aggressive and still gaining a wide audience. Although a lot of her opinions were masked by great writing and provoking story lines, the fact that she was still able to voice her opinions and have people look at them and be interested in them was an amazing feat, especially for a woman novelist. Although there were cases of both gender equality movements (Seneca Falls Convention) and racial equality movements (The Civil War), Alcott was very unique in the fact that she brought these issues into literature, and that she brought these issues into literature while being a woman and still finding success within her writing career. Alcott was writing during the first-wave feminist movement, but held a lot of ideals that were popular in the secondwave feminist movement as well. The ideals that she advocated for within “My Contraband” went beyond having equal rights and dove

Meyer 3 into the depths of people, in general, being equal entirely. She pushed for more than just equal rights and the legality of it all, but for the basic understanding that all humans were created as equal and that everyone should be able to see that. A lot of what she showed in her writing are still issues that Americans are dealing with today, and that is why she was so progressive within her work. Whether she was trying to or not, Alcott’s encouragement for racial and gender equality within literature helped pave the way for feminism and egalitarianism to arise within literature in many cases. “My Contraband,” written by Alcott in 1863, is a short story about a white female nurse for the Civil War, Miss Dane, who takes particular interest in her black contraband, Robert. Miss Dane is taking care of a dying man who has contracted typhoid fever while simultaneously taking the time to learn and talk to Robert. When Miss Dane discovers that the man she is taking care of is Robert’s brother, and that he took Robert’s wife away from him, she does not scold or hurt Robert for trying to take revenge on the dying man but instead tries to understand and help Robert. The interest and comion that Miss Dane shows towards Robert challenges the culture view of interracial sexuality at the time while also portraying Robert as a fully functioning human being (intellectually and emotionally), despite his color. The text also highlights upon slave brutality, especially towards women, on plantations during this time by discussing how Robert’s

Meyer 4 wife was taken from him and presumably sexually assaulted by his brother. Alcott also uses “My Contraband” to challenge gender roles within society by making Miss Dane a strong-willed and free-thinking individual with an important job that she works hard at and a realistic outlook on everything she faces. By creating this strong female protagonist, Alcott opens up the possibility to there being strong females everywhere in the world, and not just in her stories. Her conception of both women and African Americans within “My Contraband” allows the reader—especially the one during the time this text was published—to contemplate cultural and societal stereotypes of these groups and develop new thoughts and opinions about both women and African Americans, which they may have not considered prior to reading “My Contraband.” In “Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Subversion in Louisa May Alcott’s ‘The Brothers’,” Patricia Bleu-Schwenninger argues that Alcott’s writing combines real history with her own personal story by stating, “daily life, the routine and incidents that make up life in a hospital, but above all, she voices her opinion about the social and political issues of the time in the guise of Nurse Dane” (BleuSchwenninger 5). By allowing her own opinions to shine through on both race and gender, Alcott’s story empowers the woman and the African American by shining a light upon them that brings out their best qualities: intelligence, emotion, and ability to preform more than

Meyer 5 mundane tasks. By showing Miss Dane as a successful nurse, Alcott “allows her more freedom than if she were a mere housewife” (BleuSchwenninger 6). This allotment of tasks, responsibilities, and freedom gives Alcott an outlet in which she can prove that the woman is capable of tasks that, up until this point, have been left for men to handle. Allowing Miss Dane to be her own mistress paved way for women to be independent from men and take charge of their own lives. Schwenninger also argues, “Nurse Dane behaves as she should, i.e. as a dutiful nurse seeing to her task, but she also takes an instant dislike to her charge, the white captain, while taking a decidedly marked interest in Robert, the contraband” (Bleu-Schwenninger 7). This interest that Miss Dane takes in Robert can be attributed to Alcott’s infatuation with interracial sexuality and can be seen when Alcott writes, “Feeling decidedly more interest in the black man than in the white […] I glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of lime about the room to purify the air […] I had seen many contrabands, but never one so attractive as this” (Alcott 1250). By discussing Alcott’s use of Miss Dane in order to present her own opinions, BleuSchwenninger is able to argue that “My Contraband” highlights Alcott’s radical beliefs of racial and gender equality. In “Glimpse of the Real Louisa May Alcott,” written by Marion Talbot, Talbot states that Alcott “was eager to secure freedom for her sex” and that “if she believed in a cause, she was fearless in

Meyer 6 expressing her convictions” (Talbot 737). Alcott’s “My Contraband” can the argument that Talbot raises. Alcott’s radical beliefs in gender and racial equality set her apart from most, and show in her texts. “My Contraband” shows Alcott “securing freedom for her sex” when she writes such a strong female protagonist such as Miss Dane. Her beliefs in racial equality are also highlighted within “My Contraband” through Alcott’s use of interracial relations between Miss Dane and Robert. This deep relationship is shown when Alcott writes, “I saw the name, ‘Robert Dane.’ That both assured and touched me, for, ing he had no name, I knew that he had taken mine. I longed for him to speak to me” (Alcott 1261). Talbot’s description of Alcott could not have been more right, and it shows through immensely within Alcott’s work. Alcott’s radicalism is also noted upon in “An Inter-Racial Love Story in Fact and Fiction: William and Mary King Allen’s Marriage and Louisa May Alcott’s Tale, ‘M.L.’,” written by Sarah Elbert. Elbert reflects on how “My Contraband,” by, “connecting abolitionist fiction to racy melodramas might well reveal not only the cross-race but cross-gender identifications straining against the ‘disciplinary intimacy’ that Richard Brodhead identifies in the so-called cult of domesticity” (Elbert 22). By challenging the typical race and gender identifications, Alcott’s work was extraordinarily unique and exquisitely reflective of her own “radical abolitionist” views (Elbert 19). “My Contraband” reflects these

Meyer 7 views throughout by depicting interracial sexuality and by having an independent female protagonist. Alcott shows interracial sexuality within the first couple of pages in “My Contraband” when she writes, “I wanted to know and comfort him; and, following the impulse of the moment, I went in and touched him on the shoulder” (Alcott 1251). By including this moment of intimacy within her short story, Alcott challenges the nineteenth-century ideal of love and how intimacy can only be felt between two people of opposite gender and identical race. She also challenges gender roles of the woman when Miss Dane says to Robert, “I will write you letters, give you money, and send you to good old Massachusetts to begin your life as a freeman” (Alcott 1258). By permitting Miss Dane to do all of this for Robert, Alcott shows how powerful and influential woman can be, and how much they can do without the approval or help from other men. She also allows Miss Dane’s power to highlight upon the fact that women can make their own decisions and have their own opinions separate from men. Through examination of Alcott’s writing and personal life, Elbert is able to discuss how Alcott’s political views impacted her writing and how she used her protagonist in “My Contraband” to be reflective of herself and her opinions. In “A Wound of One’s Own: Louisa May Alcott’s Civil War Fiction,” Elizabeth Young argues, “Hospital Sketches aligns the masculinized nurse with the author herself, offering a commentary upon her own

Meyer 8 battles against gender propriety” (Young 440). When Alcott gives Miss Dane authority, judgment, power, within her job, Alcott is indirectly giving her masculine traits that would typically not be placed upon a nineteenth-century woman. By handing off these traits, Alcott challenges gender roles within society and allows her woman protagonist to be a completely independent figure in order to show her readers just how strong a woman could be. When Alcott writes, “every woman has her pet whim; one of mine was to teach the men selfrespect by treating them respectfully” (Alcott 1252), she is allowing Miss Dane to be read as a woman who can offer more than just her domestic services to men, but also her intellectual services. By giving Miss Dane something she could “teach” men, Alcott is proscribing her with masculine traits that a woman in literature would not typically have. While looking through Alcott’s Civil War fiction with a feminist lens, Young is able to identify Alcott’s usage of a masculine female protagonist as a reflection of Alcott’s views of gender roles within nineteenth-century American society. In “Let Me Play Desdemona: White Heroines and Interracial Desire in Louisa May Alcott’s ‘My Contraband’ and ‘M.L.’,” Diana R. Paulin discusses how: Alcott’s representations of white female/black male liaisons articulate desires that were considered taboo and dangerous. Her works portray the forbidden status of these

Meyer 9 relationships in a manner that challenges white supremacist claims that white women were in need of protection from uncivilized free black men. (Paulin 120) By arguing this point, Paulin is accentuating Alcott’s interest in abolition and radical politics and how her work was inspired by these concepts. Paulin also highlights on how Alcott was inspired by these notions and placed them in her work in a way that made her reader think, yet not in a way that was overly aggressive and turned her readers away. Paulin’s claims on Alcott’s writing can be ed by both the interest Miss Dane takes in Robert and by the independence and power Miss Dane secures on her own, without the help of the white male. We see Miss Dane’s interest in and infatuation with Robert when Alcott writes, “Silent, grave, and thoughtful, but most serviceable, was my contraband; glad of the books I brought him, faithful in the performance of the duties I assigned to him, grateful for the friendliness I could not but feel and show toward him” (Alcott 1253). And we also see Miss Dane’s independence that she’s secured on her own when Alcott writes of how Miss Dane’s leadership and hard work had allotted her the chance to acquire a contraband (Alcott 1250). Paulin’s argument that Alcott challenged both the roles of women and the social construct of a relationship in nineteenth-century America can be proved throughout Alcott’s “My Contraband.”

Meyer 10 Throughout works by Bleu-Schwenninger, Talbot, Elbert, Young, and Paulin, it is evident that Alcott’s opinions on gender and racial equality were not only radical for her time, but also influenced and even inspired her work. “My Contraband” is one of many stories written by Alcott that contemplates and questions the roles of both women and African Americans in nineteenth-century America, and that also helped pave the way towards feminism and egalitarianism within the United States, and her works can still be applicable to American society today. By allowing her opinions shine through her writing, Alcott encouraged women writers to do the same and to show that both gender and racial inequalities are unjust.

Meyer 11 Works Cited Alcott, Louisa May. “My Contraband.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nins Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2013: 1249-1263. Print. Bleu-Schwenninger, Patricia. "Sister's Choice: Tradition and Subversion in Louisa May Alcott's "The Brothers"." Revue Française D'études Américaines No. 72 (1997): 5-13. JSTOR. Web. 28 April 2015. Elbert, Sarah. "An Inter-Racial Love Story in Fact and Fiction: William and Mary King Allen's Marriage and Louisa May Alcott's Tale, 'M.L.'." History Workshop Journal No. 53 (2002): 17-42. JSTOR. Web. 28 April 2015. Paulin, Diana R. "White Women in Racialized Spaces." Google Books. State University of New York Press, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 28 April 2015. Talbot, Marion. "Glimpses of the Real Louisa May Alcott." The New England Quarterly 11.4 (1938): 731-38. JSTOR. Web. 28 April 2015. Young, Elizabeth. "A Wound of One's Own: Louisa May Alcott's Civil War Fiction." American Quarterly 48.3 (1996): 439-74. JSTOR. Web. 28 April 2015.