Little Women

Little Women (Mujercitas) trata sobre la vida de las hermanas March durante la Guerra Civil en los Estados Unidos. Alguna vez disfrutaron de un buen pasar pero ahora deben realizar tareas humildes para ganarse unas monedas. Leemos algunos párrafos en inglés donde las hermanas discuten sobre sus maneras y formas de ser.

Más abajo aprendemos nuevo vocabulario: prim, plump, colt, bundled, flyaway.

Y para saber: buscamos material sobre China aster.

 

Little Women es una novela de la escritora norteamericana Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888).

Originalmente se publicó en dos volúmenes en 1868 y 1869. Alcott escribió el libro a lo largo de varios meses a pedido de su editor. La historia sigue las vidas de cuatro hermanas y detalla el pasaje de las hermanas de niñas a mujeres. Ligeramente basada en la vida de la autora y de sus tres hermanas se clasifica como una novela autobiográfica.

Little Women fue un éxito comercial inmediato con lectores dispuestos a saber más acerca de los personajes. Alcott rápidamente completó un segundo volumen (Good Wives in the United Kingdom). Los dos volúmenes fueron luego impresos en 1880 como una sola novela bajo el título Little Women. Alcott después escribió dos secuelas de su popular trabajo, ambas mostrando a las hermanas March: Little Men y Jo´s Boys.

 

The March sisters

Paragraphs

"… though we do have to work, we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."

"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug.

Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.

"Don't, Jo. It's so boyish!"

"That's why I do it."

"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"

"I hate affected, affected girls!"

"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the fighting ended for that time.

"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."

"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a little old woman!"

And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.

"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.

"As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose, if you don't take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's slang."

"If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready to share the lecture.

"You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted her, for the 'Mouse' was the pet of the family.

As young readers like to know 'how people look', we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it.

Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.

Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it… (Adaptada de Little Women, Louisa May Alcott)

 

Vocabulario

Prim: stiffly correct.

Plump: having a full rounded shape.

Colt: a young male horse under the age of four.

Bundled: to push or put something somewhere quickly and roughly:

He bundled his clothes into the washing machine.

Flyaway: frivolous.

 

Para saber

El calistefus es una variedad de la familia de las aster. Sus nombres comunes incluyen China aster y anual aster. Es nativa de China y Corea y es cultivada en todas partes como una planta ornamental.

Se ha cultivado en Europa desde 1728. En China ha sido cultivada por 2.000 años.

Nombres comunes:

Estrellas, extrañas, flor extraña, reina Margarita.​

 

Callistephus

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