Beth Is Dead
Beth Is Dead
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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and child death.
The Family Cabin at Walden Pond
Compared to their home in Concord, the March family’s cabin at Walden Pond is in a more isolated setting and lacks infrastructure like plumbing and electricity. As such, it represents a separation from modern society and a return to nature. Jo’s allusion to Henry David Thoreau when talking about the cabin draws a connection to the values he champions in Walden (1854), the chronicle of his two-year experience leading a simple, solitary life, also in a cabin at Walden Pond. These values include individualism, a rejection of materialism, and balance between solitude and social connection.
The cabin’s physical qualities symbolically separate the March family from the sources of their external conflict, which revolves around the fallout from Little Women’s publication. Its role in this conflict contributes to a thematic look at The Ethics of Turning Private Lives into Narrative Content. The cabin represents privacy as a means for the family to disconnect from public scrutiny and judgment. It represents a connection to nature, something purer and less complicated than the relationships between an author and his fans and critics. Those parasocial relationships also intensify the pressure that the March sisters face to conform, which the cabin allows them to escape. Jo faces pressure to conform to Nan’s expectation for sensationalist writing, Meg faces pressure to conform to her friends’ affluent lifestyles, and Beth faces pressure to conform to society’s expectations about ambition. In contrast, the cabin represents individualism—a focus on inner fulfillment rather than conformity.
The cabin develops the theme of exploitation in another sense. As Rob’s favorite escape, the cabin symbolizes an aspect of his character that complicates assumptions (particularly Meg’s) about his motives for writing Little Women. It represents the part of him that isn’t driven by a desire for career success, money, and public approval, but by a desire for meaningful connection, deep thought, and a nuanced exploration of ideas.
Finally, as the site chosen to scatter Beth and Rob’s ashes, the cabin relates to the novel’s exploration of The Tension Between Personal Grief and Public Performance. It is where the family can grieve their loss privately, apart from artifice and safe from those who would exploit or hurt them. On a deeper level, the cabin thus symbolizes the family itself, a unit that, through love and support, offers protection from worldly hardships and threats.
The Candlelight Vigil
The candlelight vigil symbolizes the performative nature of public acts of grief. When the March sisters receive invitations to the vigil via text, Jo compares it to a “vulgar party.” Her use of the word “party” evokes a sense that the family’s tragedy is being turned into a form of public entertainment or spectacle. The vigil’s mood is much more somber than a party, however. Jo describes people with “arms draped over shoulders, heads bowed in prayer” as “distant acquaintances claiming grief” (116). In her view, they have latched onto the family’s tragedy and grief in order to share in the spotlight.
The performances of grief that Jo observes at the candlelight vigil also echo those on social media (in fact, she makes the comparison explicitly); on such platforms, users post about their grief for the world to see, prompting questions about whom such posts are for. The narrative takes a balanced tone toward social media as a whole but is more critical of this aspect of it, as well as the broader tendency of social media to erode boundaries, giving people a false sense of connection to celebrities and encouraging strangers to insert themselves into others’ lives.
Family Rituals
Several March family rituals appear in the narrative, including tea, Christmas Eve dinner, and making wishes while stargazing at the park. They evoke images of the family in a state of cohesion and familiarity, creating a motif that explores the role of family dynamics in sparking and resolving conflict.
More specifically, these rituals promote a sense of belonging through a shared experience, aligning with the novel’s portrayal of family as a source of protection from the rest of the world. In the wake of tragedy, for instance, rituals offer comfort: “Tea is one of our rituals as a family, boiling the water, steeping the leaves, stirring in honey. It’s something we do together, and it means that even if we’re not on the same page, we’re okay” (62). Maintaining their tea ritual helps the Marches feel that they haven’t entirely lost the world they knew before Beth died. It reminds them that they’re a team and encourages them to process their grief together rather than fighting each other.
The Marches’ Christmas Eve dinner has similarly ritualistic elements, including the sisters’ childhood performances and Rob “baking his signature chocolate tart” (306). When Henry attends, he senses the family unity and challenges it, urging Beth to hate her father and write him off. Beth rejects his attempt, yet she doesn’t tell her family about their fight—a decision that leaves her more vulnerable—because she fears that they will judge her as naive and weak. Her fear of judgment and the sibling comparisons that inspire it connect to the novel’s portrayal of Ambition and Jealousy Under the Pressure of Familial Roles. The family ritual of making wishes at the park further develops this concept as Beth observes her sisters’ ambitious wishes. Never knowing what to wish for herself, Beth perceives her lack of ambition as a major character flaw, creating an inferiority complex that draws her away from her family and toward Henry and Plumfield.
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