Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
As others have mentioned, it is why Jo March is always going to be my be-all, end-all fictional character from childhood. I can even happily ignore the professor at the end as I know Alcott didn't want him.
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Have you read the recent graphic novel retelling of
Little Women, wherein Jo is explicitly gay? The Marches are now a blended family with different races as well.
I haven’t read it myself, although I gave it to my niece for Christmas as I thought it might speak to her interests; she had recommended the wonderful
Fun Home to me. I wasn’t wowed by making Jo gay, as I thought one of the other sisters would be a more interesting choice, especially Beth, where a life of repression and unspeakable longings could well have led to her being a homebody and even been a factor in her early death. However, I acknowledge that for the gay child reader, Jo would be the most satisfying.
I’m going way off on a tangent here and I don’t want to sound too facile, but I think it can be interesting to try to reimagine classics with the marginal in mind, as with the graphic novel I mentioned above. I agree that there’s not a lot of scope for that in AoGG. Matthew’s an obvious candidate for being a closeted gay man, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. Still, I think a lot of readers, especially child readers, probably get skillful at taking from stories what they need, as we’ve discussed, and revamping them when necessary. No Professor Bhaer!