Discussion Report, Group __________________ Reporter:__________________________

Others participating:
 
 
 

(Circle the number(s) of the question(s) your group chose)

1. In this novel, what would child readers and adult readers observe about the relationships between children and adults, between childhood and adulthood, and between a person's childhood and the adult that child became? Are similar points made about these three questions in the other novels we have read so far?

2. How does the author use different methods of story-telling, compared to the other writers so far? The possibilities are summary, descriptions of setting and actions, direct "quotation" of speeches and thoughts, with and without comments to the reader from the story-teller.

3. What would child readers of this book observe about class differences-what they are based on, whether they are significant, whether they can be changed, what effects they might have on the reader's behavior? How would these observations differ from and resemble those of readers of the other books we have read so far?

4. Part I of this book is intended as a portrayal of a "slice of life," that is, of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. Each chapter is like a separate description of a "day in the life of" the Shaw family, as encountered by the outsider Polly. The book was "finished" when Polly had seen all Alcott wanted her to; Alcott could then send her home without any remarkable events to round off the story. She covers problems, education, amusements, and some relationships. Thinking of this book as a primary source, how would you describe, or encourage young readers to describe, differences between middle-class children's (and teens) lives in mid-nineteenth-century Boston and those today?

5. Part II of this book is quite differently structured from part I (it has a typical romance plot, with complications before the right couples are joined), but like part I, its plot is secondary to its purpose of illustrating various life choices. What possible roles for women does Alcott illustrate? What problems and perils for young women, besides not having the man you love fall in love with you, does she introduce her readers to?

6. While Alcott's book is openly didactic in some ways that might receive approval from the adults that bought this book for their children, e.g., it approves of politeness, kindness, and sexual modesty, it is also quite subversive. What does it criticize and/or make fun of that Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, for example, would approve of?

Additional questions to discuss if your group has time:

A. What is realistic about Old Fashioned Girl? What is romantic?

B. How do the career possibilities for the men portrayed in this story differ from and resemble those in  Ragged Dick? What careers that, technologically, were available are not apparently considered?