The adventures of Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy March in the beloved classic Little Women have engaged readers for over 150 years, weaving together family, friendship, personal growth, and the pursuit of independence. Last month, Indiana Wesleyan University’s (IWU) Theatre Guild invited audiences to step into the pages of Louisa May Alcott’s novel with the production of Little Women: The Broadway Musical.
Alongside the production, IWU welcomed Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Matteson to campus. Author of Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, Matteson spoke about the formative influences that shaped Louisa May Alcott’s writing as part of IWU’s Common Learning Theme, which explores the Christian imagination during the 2025–2026 and 2026–2027 academic years.
From the earliest moments of her childhood, Louisa was surrounded by remarkable intellectual and spiritual stimulation that shaped her imagination, the same imagination that led her to transform the plays she performed with her three sisters into the world of Little Women.
“Louisa loved writing stories and creating characters in her mind. She spent a lot of time doing housework with her mother, and she refers in her journals to this time as ‘simmering stories,’” shared Matteson. “While her family had great material poverty, Louisa was certainly not poor in spirit or heart, and that richness is felt in her writing.”
Material poverty in Louisa’s life stemmed largely from her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, a key leader in the 19th-century American philosophical movement of transcendentalism. As a leading figure of this movement, Bronson believed society and its material distractions corrupted the purity of the individual, leading him to distance Louisa and her three sisters from many aspects of the public world into an idyllic commune in Massachusetts.
While strict, this experience shifted Louisa’s thoughts to the spiritually imaginative, which was also strengthened by her close proximity to leading transcendentalist thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, quite literally following in their footsteps throughout her childhood.
“Emerson was coming over to the Alcott home for dinner regularly, and Thoreau was taking Louisa for walks in the woods. And, for a while, her family lived next door to the Hawthornes. She really grew up inside the Norton Anthology of American Literature,” Matteson said with a chuckle.
Much like her fictional counterpart Jo March, Louisa was naturally spirited and unconventional. Matteson described her as running foot races with boys, falling out of trees, and even trying chewing tobacco. Her lively nature often clashed with her father’s more tranquil disposition, and her desire for authorial fame challenged Bronson’s desire for simplicity, creating strain in their relationship.
Yet beneath these tensions was a shared longing for approval and love. Though their differing personalities often set them at odds, Louisa and her father remained deeply connected. As father and daughter navigated and eventually reconciled their relationship, Matteson noted that Louisa’s novels mirror a broader pattern of reconciliation found in the Christian life. That reconciliation unfolds within the soul, within families, and ultimately in one’s relationship with God.
“The story of Louisa and her father really is a wonderful story of alienation followed by redemption and reconciliation,” reflected Matteson. “Similarly, Little Women is a book that is saturated in all of the virtues we associate with Christianity, like the overcoming of one’s inner flaws and harnessing one’s passions.”
Another important virtue Little Women explores is the universal search for meaning and significance. As noted by IWU professor of music Tammie Huntington, D.A., Jo March’s journey to make a difference in the world is marked by both hope and disappointment, success and struggle. Just as mentors in Jo’s life reminded her of her value in her lowest moments, Huntington sought a similar role as director of IWU’s Little Women: The Broadway Musical, reminding the cast that when we remember our God-given worth, we shine the brightest.
“At the very first cast meeting, I quoted my former pastor: ‘You are not the main character of your story,’” shared Huntington. “This means that no matter the unexpected twists and turns that happen in our lives, we have a loving, good Master Director who is not surprised and who is always at work.”
Through theatre, literature, and faith, IWU’s exploration of the Christian imagination is a reminder that the Christian life is not random or unnoticed. Instead, we are part of a story being shaped by a loving God who created us to be astonishing and whose dreams for us are so far beyond our own.
From productions like Little Women to hands-on creative opportunities, discover how you can get involved in the arts at IWU.
