'Little Women' 2019: Book and Film Differences Quiz

Answer: A publisher's office

Greta Gerwig's 'Little Women' does not have a linear narrative; instead, it starts when the March sisters are adults and Jo is in New York, where she is working as a teacher, and goes back and forth between the past and the present. At the beginning of the film, Jo is visiting Mr Dashwood, her editor, and sells a story to him.

He criticises her prose and says she will be paid less than a man, but accepts the story. Jo offers to send in more of her work She later goes back to the family home in Massachusetts when she receives a letter saying her sister Beth is seriously ill.

Answer: True

In the book, Jo has dark hair, but in the film, she is played by Saoirse Ronan, who is blonde. This is not the first time Jo's been shown onscreen looking different to the description of her in the book - in the 1980 and 1981 anime versions of 'Little Women', she has blonde hair and freckles, and in the 2005 Broadway musical she was played by Sutton Foster, who had red hair.

Beth, who is also a brunette in the book, is played by Eliza Scanlen, who has strawberry blonde hair. Meg and Amy remain brunette and blonde respectively.

Answer: Paris

Amy (Florence Pugh) is in Paris and passes Laurie (Timothée Chalamet) in her carriage, and stops to talk to him. She invites him to a party later that night. At the party, Laurie gets drunk and behaves obnoxiously, and Amy is angry with him, calling him lazy and vain (they have a similar conversation in the book, but in different circumstances). Laurie mocks Amy, sarcastically calling her a 'great artiste' and accusing her of spending Fred Vaughn's money (Fred Vaughn being a wealthy Englishman who asks Amy to marry him).

Answer: The film version is younger.

While Professor Bhaer is quite a bit older than Jo in the book, and is overweight and going bald to boot, in the 2019 film, he is considerably younger and better-looking, played by French actor Louis Garrel (who uses his natural accent). He criticises Jo's writing and disapproves of her stories, but believes she is talented. Jo is angry and lashes out, calling him a 'pompous blowhard' and telling him she 'can't starve on praise'.

Answer: She drew a caricature of the teacher.

Laurie runs into Amy, who is crying, and she shows him her lacerated hands and says that she has been caned at school. Instead of hiding pickled limes (the current trend at her school in the book) in her desk, she gets into trouble for drawing a caricature of her teacher, instead of Abraham Lincoln as she had been requested to do.

She also got into an argument with another girl about slavery, a nod to the Alcott family's progressive views at the time.

Answer: No

The scene where Jo writes to Laurie only occurs in the film, and the way Jo finds out about Amy's marriage to Laurie is different too. In the film, Jo gets a shock when Laurie accidentally refers to Amy as 'my wife' in front of her, as Laurie and Amy had not written to the Marches to tell them about their engagement (which they did in the book), so she had no idea that Amy and Laurie were in love at all.

Answer: The role of women in society, and how marrying will give her value

Amy says this to Laurie: "I'm just a woman. And as a woman, there's no way for me to make my own money. Not enough to earn a living, or to support my family. And if I had my own money, which I don't, that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married. And if we had children, they would be his, not mine.

They would be his property. So don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me." The speech was not going to be in the original script but Meryl Streep, who played Aunt March, came up with the idea before the scene was filmed, as she thought the film needed a moment where the audience could understand just how little power women had in those days.

Answer: Aunt Josephine

Aunt Josephine March is a far more prominent character in the film than she is in the book (possibly because Meryl Streep wanted a large part) and is ultimately the one who takes Amy to Europe. She also gives Amy advice about marrying well, as Beth is ill, Jo is a 'lost cause' and Meg is married to John Brooke, a poor tutor, and Amy's parents will need financial support in their old age.

Answer: Give her a husband

Mr Dashwood's daughters have been reading the book and enjoyed it so far, but he asks Jo what she intends to do with her heroine, and whether she is going to marry Laurie or the German professor. Jo says that it would be inconsistent if the heroine got married, as she has previously said that she didn't want to marry, but Mr Dashwood argues that the book won't sell unless the heroine marries.

This is also a possible nod to Alcott's original plan not to marry Jo off, but her publishers insisted that all the March sisters had to end the book either married (Amy, Jo and Meg) or dead (Beth).

Instead of marrying Jo to Laurie as many fans had hoped, she paired Jo with Bhaer and Laurie with Amy. Jo's line about paddling her own canoe is also an actual quote from Alcott.

Answer: Little Women

Jo decides to call the book 'Little Women' and the novel is shown being printed and bound. She also inherits Aunt March's house after her death and turns it into a school which, unlike Plumfield in the book, takes girls as well as boys. Meg and Amy also teach there. The ending brings into question just how much of the film is real (so to speak) and how much is fiction, as it is implied that the scene with Jo and Bhaer, as Jo catches up with him and tells him she loves him as he is about to leave for California, is the scene Jo put into her book to pacify Mr Dashwood.

The decision to end the film with Jo publishing her first book has been suggested as an interpretation of the ending Louisa May Alcott really wanted for her, but was unable to write due to her publisher's demands. It may also be a reference to the fact that Alcott based some parts of 'Little Women' on her own life (Beth is based on her sister Lizzie, who also died young).