The significance of the absence of the writing in Work: A Story of Experience

Abstract

Although Louisa May Alcott is known as a writer of the juvenile and domestic fiction, she also wrote for adults and posed some social problems. One of those social novels Work: A Story of Experience (1873) describes the worthiness of work through the various working experiences of Alcott’s herself. However, writing as profession is not taken up as one of the jobs in Work even though it was the primary means of earning a living for Alcott. This paper attempts to analyze the significant absence of the writing in Work by focusing on the complex nature of the profession as a work for Alcott. I will discuss that although the images of work as ideal human activity are presented in the novel, the complexity of profession prevents it from being positioned as ideal work.