Background Information/Vocabulary:
- Jo actually did pretty well for herself, despite having the wrong color hair. $25 went pretty far back then; a dollar bought a pair of gloves, a pair of sturdy slippers, a bunch of handkerchiefs, or a large bottle of perfume (or, I suppose, a hundred limes) so $25 is real money.
- I've read in dozens of other stories about keepsakes made of hair, so I guess it's not that weird that Marmee tucks Jo's bit of hair away next to one from her husband. But it feels weird now, huh? (I guess if photos were rare and expensive, people had to have some way of remembering those they held dear.)
- "Interrogation point" (or, as Amy spells it, "interrigation", p. 172)--question mark
- Scarlet fever is one of those things that used to be pretty dangerous, but with antibiotics it's not a big deal anymore.
My Noticings:
- I forget if I've said this before, but I have no idea what type of accent or dialect Alcott is shooting for when Hannah speaks. I guess it's just to generally indicate that she's of the serving class while the Marches, poor as they are, belong to a different sort of people. (What are they doing with a servant, anyway?)
Final Thoughts:
When I think about this book, this section is what I think of as the real meat of it--Mr. March's illness, Marmee's absence, and now Beth's illness and Amy's exile to Aunt March's. It's not even that it's tremendously long, but compared to the episodic, one-chapter-one-story nature of the first section of the book, it feels a lot more substantial.
Question for readers:
What do you believe are the ethics of the Marches' relationship with the Hummels? Was Beth truly obligated to go over there every day, despite the fact that one of them had a contagious disease? Should she have just stayed home? Was it brave or ill-considered for her to go?
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