In case you are unfamiliar with the plot, Jo is best friends with "Laurie" Lawrence. His character is developed as charming, handsome, fun, and basically the peas to Jo's carrots. Laurie loves Jo, and Alcott seems to be setting them up as the perfect match through most of the book. But in the second half, it becomes more and more clear that Jo does not feel the same about Laurie, until she finally rejects his marriage proposal and breaks his heart. She goes off to New York, hoping that it will give him time to get over her, and it's there that she meets the wretched Professor Bhaer.
Guess what. She ends up marrying old Bhaer. Oh, Louisa. We don't care about the Professor! He's middle-aged and always poorly cast in movies. He and Jo have a teacher-student relationship, and it's incredibly boring. She's fascinated by his thoughts on philosophy. She ends up darning his socks. In the movie, she sews a button on his coat for him. What happened to the unconventional young woman who rejected traditional domestic roles? Alcott herself ended up never marrying. Why not the same for her heroine who was so adamant in her rejection of Laurie that she probably would never marry?
Look, even if she had to marry old Square Bhaer, could we at least have gotten a more interesting, better developed sense of character? In a book that is 47 chapters long, Bhaersy only enters in number 34. Compare that to Laurie, who appears from chapter three onward, and you've got a lot to compensate for.
A Complaint
There is a change—and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart's door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I? shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless and hidden well.
A well of love—it may be deep—
I trust it is,—and never dry:
What matter? if the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.
—Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
