Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Girls and Little Women: How Hannah Horvath Is Like Jo March

If Jo March, the ambitious, writerly protagonist of Louisa May Alcott's beloved Little Women were alive today, she would definitely have a blog. Stressed out Meg would have begun to grapple with the boredom of her long-term relationship to the incredibly decent, incredibly stable Mr. Brooke. Beth would be loaded up on beta-blockers to help with the anxieties of meeting people outside of her immediate family. And Amy — let's call a spade a spade here — would have definitely dropped out of art school and entered rehab. At least once.

In other words, were the March sisters to trade hoopskirts for rompers, they would probably be able to pass for Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, and Jessa, the four protagonists of the HBO comedy Girls.
Though Sex and the City is often cited as being the precedent for the show, Alcott’s wholesome 1868 novel is the O.G. when it comes to quartets of girls figuring it all out. Little Women and Girls share the same plot, give or take a sex scene or two; they both tell the story of four girls trying (to varying degrees of success) to grow up. The SATC protagonists are grown-ass women from the get-go, whereas the March sisters and Horvath & friends are still little women, on their way to adulthood, but not quite there yet.
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