Abstract

Little Women is a novel which has widespread influence, and it is very popular to the readers. The novel has never stopped being printed and published in the next more than 140 years since it was published in 1868. Its author Louisa May Alcott was educated and grew up among Transcendentalists in New England. This book mainly talks about the four daughters in Muggee family, who try to find their own well-being through their own hard work and self-reliance. Previous studies of this novel have mostly about the side of femininity, psychological and the perspective of biblical studies and so on.
This thesis intends to re-interpret it from the perspective of transcendentalism and tries to explore the transcendentalist concepts reflected in the novel, especially the thoughts that have important influence on the four sisters. The article is made up of four chapters. Something about the author is set on the first chapter, then the second especially to introduce the basic Transcendentalist thoughts. The third chapter stresses that Transcendentalism has important meaning March sisters. The fourth is the conclusion.

Keywords:  Little Women   Transcendentalism  Individualism  Self-reliance

摘要

《小妇人》是一个有广泛的影响力和受欢迎的小说。自1864年出版以来，一百四十多年间，这部小说从未停止印刷出版，并被翻译成多种文字。作者路易莎·梅·奥尔科成长于新英格兰地区长大，受到超验主义很大的影响。这本书的主要人物是马奇家四姐妹。虽然她们的性格各不相同，但都通过自己的努力和勇敢找到了自己想要的归属。学者们都用自己的方式去研究它。到现在为止研究方向主要有清教主义、成长主义和女性主义等等。
本论文拟从超验主义的视角对小说进行解读，竭力探讨小说中所体现出来的超验主义思想，尤其是对四姐妹的影响。论文第一部分主要介绍一下作者和小妇人，第二部分介绍超验主义的基本思想。第三部分重点写超验主义思想对马奇四姐妹的重大影响。第四部分为总结。

关键词: 《小妇人》；超验主义；个人主义；自立

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 An Introduction to Louisa May Alcott
    Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown on November 29, 1832. She is the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail. When she was very young, Louisa and her family moved to another city, Boston. Then her father set up a Temple School in Massachusetts, and he wanted to continue the teaching career. Bronson Alcott had many new teaching ways, such as his controversial teaching methods and so on. What’s more, he hoped that all the children would like learning.
However, teaching career could not give him enough money for all his families. Bronson had to let Alcott come to Boston again in 1849. At this time, Louisa began to realize that she should do more and more for her family’s financial needs and started taking on as many jobs as she could find within her limitation (Chang Yaoxin, 1990:96). She began learning to look after her elderly father and invalid sisters. Louisa’s first poem was Sunlight. It was published in Peterson’s magazine in 1852. It did not give her much money. However, it brought her into another world. In this world, she would never meet the situation of the shortage of money, and she would be well-known for all the people around the world.