【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 Women has shown to us female images in the 19th century American society in which women’s status was slowly increasing and let us know what kind of images women should have. Based on the analysis of the characters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, the thesis will explore the way they build up their images.Being the main character of Little Women, Jo is an outspoken tomboy with a passion for writing. Her character is based in large part on Louisa May Alcott herself. Jo refuses Laurie’s offer of marriage, despite the fact that everyone assumes they will end up together. In the end, Jo gives up her writing and marries Professor Bhaer, which can be seen either as a domestic triumph or as a professional loss, since Jo loses her headstrong independence. As she displays good and bad traits in equal measure, Jo is a very unusual character for nineteenthcentury didactic fiction. Jo’s bad traits—her rebelliousness, anger, and outspoken ways—do not make her unappealing。 rather make her unique. Jo is a likely precursor to a whole slew of lovably flawed heroes and heroines of children’s books, among them Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer.Being the third March sister, Beth is very shy and quiet. Like Meg, she always tries to please other people, and like Jo, she is concerned with keeping the family together. Beth struggles with minor faults, such as her resentment for the housework she must do. Beth resembles an oldfashioned heroine like those in the novels of the nineteenthcentury English author Charles Dickens. Beth is a good person, but she is also a shade too angelic to survive in Alcott’s more realistic fictional world. With Beth’s death, Alcott lets an old type of heroine die off. The three surviving March sisters are strong enough to live in the changing real world.Beth is close to Jo。 outgoing Jo and quiet Beth both have antisocial tendencies. Neither of them wants to live in the world the way it is, with women forced to conform to social conventions of female behaviors. Similarly, it is not surprising that Meg and Amy are particularly close to each other, since generous Meg and selfish Amy both find their places within a gendered world.Being the youngest March sister, Amy is an artistic beauty who is good at manipulating other people. Unlike Jo, Amy acts as a perfect lady because being a perfect lady pleases her. She gets what she wants in the end: popularity, the trip to Europe, and Laurie. Amy serves as a foil—a character whose attitudes or emotions contrast with, and thereby accentuate, those of another character—for Jo, who refuses to submit to the conventions of lady hood. Both artists struggle to balance society’s expectations with their own natural inclinations. The more genuine of the two and the more generous, Jo pares favorably to Amy. Both characters, however, are more lovable and real for their flaws.Being the oldest March sister, Meg battles her girlish weakness for luxury and money, and ends up marrying a poor man she loves. Meg represents the conventional and good。 she is similar to her mother, for whom she was named. Meg sometimes tries to alter who she is in order to please other people, a trait that es forth when she allows other girls to dress her up like a rich girl at her friend Annie Moffat’s house. She bees an agreeable housewife, pretending to like politics because her husband does, and forgoing luxury because her husband is poor.The four March sisters have totally different character, but they have something in mon: warmhearted, selfrestrained, independent, optimistic, and adoring family. Even though in that era when women were considered that their responsibilities were to serve their children and husbands in their entire lives, and women’s status was much lower than men, the March sisters worked hard and use these action to prove their selfvalues. They longed for work that they must do, as they wanted to keep their social obligation.There are both advantages and disadvantages in the four girls. However, they have been selfrestrained successfully.Being daughter, being sister, being wife, and being mother all these identities are the roles they play in lives. As a daughterSince the civil war broke out and Mr. March joins the army, the circumstance of the March family has gone downhill more and more. They have to adapt themselves to a new life, which is a hard one for them.Due to the family39。s poverty Meg works as a governess for wealthy friends, the King family, and Jo goes to take care of aunt March for get some bee independent and responsible through working, and never look down upon themselves. Through working they find their selfvalue and the meaning of paying and gaining. They want to make some efforts to share the responsibility of the family and they do so.The March girls love their parents very much. Even when the four ladies get the money as the Christmas gift given by aunt March, they give up the chance to have their loved things that are wanted very much before. Event