This post, and several others to appear in due course, are generously sponsored by a gentleman-scholar from County San Francisco, supportive of the production and assessment of nasty novels, dealing familiarly with gamblers, misandrists and flashy reprobates. Said gentleman-scholar has re-upped his donation, so keep pitching me, academics longing for freedom.
I am an unabashed reader of romances, watcher of romantic comedies, and lover of happy endings, so it’s unsurprising that I’ve always loved the romances in Louisa May Alcott’s Rose in Bloom. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of friendship lately. A friend once told me that she likes to examine her friendships and take time to realize what lesson or insight she has learned from each friend. I was reminded of this when I went to reread Rose in Bloom, and its predecessor, Eight Cousins, because it wasn’t Rose’s sweet romance with her bookish cousin Mac that struck me most on this reading. It was Rose’s friendship with Phebe Moore.
For anyone who hasn’t encountered this pair of Alcott books (or has not read and reread them and might need a refresher), Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom follow Rose Campbell from age thirteen through her early twenties. After her invalid father dies, she’s given into the care of her father’s brother, Uncle Alec. The two live in a big house with Rose’s great aunts and many of their other relatives live in the same neighborhood, affectionately called the Aunt Hill. These relatives include seven male cousins; with Rose they make up the eight cousins of the title. In Rose in Bloom, Rose and Uncle Alec return from a world tour to the Aunt Hill and twenty-year-old Rose must find her place once again, now a young woman of means.
Who is Phebe Moore in all of this? She’s first introduced to us as a fifteen-year-old kitchen maid in Rose’s great aunts’ house, then she becomes Rose’s own maid, and in Rose in Bloom she comes into her own as a concert singer. Phebe is an orphan from the poorhouse who enters Rose’s life on page three of Eight Cousins and is, by the end of Rose in Bloom, going to be Rose’s cousin-by-marriage. They start on unequal footing, at least by society’s standards, but end as equals – and Rose recognizes from the very beginning qualities in Phebe she wishes for in herself.
Over the course of the books, Rose and Phebe each want what the other has, but Alcott shows it to be almost entirely without any real jealousy or spitefulness. What the two women give to each other through their friendship is the support and knowledge each needs to secure her chosen future. Rose’s support is material as well as emotional, while Phebe leads Rose through her own example, but each contributes greatly to the other’s growth. At the beginning of Eight Cousins, when Rose is to see her Uncle Alec for the first time in years, she is scared, sickly, and lonely. Rose hears birdsong coming from the kitchen, where she meets the beautifully warbling Phebe. Rose is totally enchanted by this lovely, kind, strong girl who is making her own way in the world and seems to have nothing to trouble her. Phebe for her part feels bad for Rose, who is mourning her father, and is only envious of Rose’s access to the education Phebe wants for herself.
While Rose is at first oblivious to Phebe’s troubles, she does recognize her own advantages and seeks to share them with Phebe. Rose “adopts” Phebe, offers a portion of her gifts and clothing to her, brings her into the circle of the family, and eventually, with Uncle Alec, arranges for Phebe’s education. Phebe in turn supports Rose through her trials and tribulations as confidante and honorary sister, and is consistently grateful for the help and love she is shown.
As the women grow older, that gratitude takes on an edge. In Rose in Bloom, after Rose begins her career as a philanthropist, she learns that those she helps will not always be grateful, and while she knows she should do the good work for the sake of the work instead of for thanks or praise, it’s a tough lesson for her. I couldn’t help connecting it to her relationship with Phebe: Rose craves gratitude for her good deeds, something Phebe freely gives her, but this gratitude creates a sense of obligation between them that keeps them from being true equals.
Alcott devotes half a page in Eight Cousins to praising Phebe’s ability to feel and show gratitude. It’s overwhelming because it highlights and even supports the idea that Phebe should feel indebted to Rose and Uncle Alec. When I read it, I stopped and took a step back. Yes, of course Phebe should be thankful to Rose and Uncle Alec for giving her an education. They aren’t required to finance her studies or vocal training, but they decide to do so and spend time and money ensuring she is equipped to support herself with her voice. Phebe is to “earn” this training by being Rose’s maid – a token effort, I’m sure, against the great expense of her schooling.
So why shouldn’t Phebe be grateful? Well, she should be. But the great sense of obligation that this gift from Rose and Uncle Alec creates in Phebe feels like too much. If we’re supposed to see Phebe as Rose’s adopted sister – which, considering Rose refers to her as such and Uncle Alec seems to regard Phebe with a paternal air (he’s offended when one of the relatives he might have fallen in love with Phebe), I think we are – then why should Phebe have to repay her debt? In real life, we are grateful and thankful to our parents for all they do for us and to support us, and we repay them with our love and support, but neither side thinks of it as a debt – or at least, we try not to. Parents are meant to provide for their children. But Phebe hasn’t been raised from childhood as Rose’s sister; she is about sixteen when all these decisions about her future are made, and as aware of the class differences that separate her from Rose as some of Rose’s relatives are. I’m not sure whether Alcott saw these class differences as real, or important – but certainly some of her characters do.
Phebe sees herself as outside the family circle, and the closer she comes to being part of the family, the more she wishes to repay her perceived debt to them. When Rose’s cousin Archie proposes to her, he offers Phebe the thing she wants most: an official place in this family that has given her so much. But Phebe’s pride doesn’t allow her to accept it. She can’t do as Rose suggests and “[b]e happy, and never mind them” (Rose in Bloom 116) – and she makes Rose realize that if their positions were reversed, Rose wouldn’t be able to do it, either. Phebe feels she needs to earn her place, not only because of the family’s disapproval, but because of her own sense that she does not belong. Her pride won’t let her join the family until she has proved herself. And she does, first by making a name for herself as a singer and winning the family’s respect, and then, more importantly, by nursing Uncle Alec back to health after a deathly illness, and earning their gratitude.
Watching Phebe struggle with this is an education for Rose, because earning a place is something Rose never has to do. Her family loves her from the beginning, even when they don’t know what to do with her, or think she’s too strong-minded and independent. They love her because she is family, while Phebe is an outsider because of her birth. It’s classism paired with a clannish family dynamic, and even assurances from Rose and Uncle Alec that Phebe always has a place with them aren’t enough to convince Phebe that she belongs. Rose is actually envious of Phebe’s ability to earn a place, and learns from Phebe’s example as she begins to sense how unearned her own good fortune is. Rose is valued for herself by many members of the family, but her inherited wealth and beauty are what endear her to society at large. As suitors (including her dashing but unreliable cousin Charlie) come a-wooing, she is disheartened to learn that her position as a beautiful heiress is what has brought her so many admirers, and angered when she realizes that Rose-the-heiress has become a commodity to be acquired in the eyes of Charlie and others.
Once Rose realizes how she is viewed, she realizes she wants to be like Phebe, loved and valued for her merit rather than her fortune or station in life. In a moment of frustration, Rose goes so far as to look forward to the day when she might have lost her beauty and given away her worldly goods, because then she will know who her true friends are. When Mac falls in love with Rose through their letters to each other, after knowing and loving her as a cousin for years, we’re meant to see that he loves her, not her status. Their relationship is shown as an equal partnership between two good but imperfect people who see each other clearly.
As Rose watches both Phebe and Mac, a budding poet, achieve recognition for their artistic endeavors, she wishes that she too could go out into the world and prove herself somehow. Rose is proud of Phebe’s and Mac’s successes, but also, in a rare moment, jealous of them, and self-deprecating about her own gifts. Uncle Alec has to remind her of all the good she does for others. His argument is convincing, but it doesn’t stop Rose from later wishing she too could be by his side during his illness. Rose’s motivation in wanting to prove her love for Uncle Alec is different than Phebe’s: she longs to show him the love and support of a daughter, while Phebe, though she loves him as a father too, also wants to discharge her debt.
After Phebe saves Uncle Alec, her sense of obligation is finally lifted. When Phebe accepts Archie’s proposal, she tells Rose that she had to put aside her pride when all the family welcomed her, and when Archie’s parents called her daughter, she “would have promised anything to show [her] love for them.” (Rose in Bloom 299) Rose gently adds, “And him,” thinking that Archie might feel slighted, but Archie gets it. Phebe loves him, but she also wants desperately to be part of this family. Phebe knows where she stands with Archie, with Rose, and with Uncle Alec, and now she knows where she stands with everyone else. When Phebe gives up her singing career to be Archie’s wife, I get the sense that it’s not because Alcott (a single woman who earned her living as a writer) thought that was what women should do, but instead because it is right for Phebe, who wants a quiet family life more than she wants fame.
At the end of Rose in Bloom both women have gained a great deal from their relationship. Phebe sees Rose’s education, and her family support, and wants both for herself. Without Rose, Phebe would still be singing in the kitchen, without a family or hope for the future. Rose sees Phebe’s ability to rise above her past and make herself into someone worth knowing, and wants to be valued for herself, too. Without Phebe, Rose would be still be insulated and less thoughtful about class issues, less focused on the philanthropy that is her chosen career, and more likely to accept admiration as her due without questioning the impulse behind it.
Everyone remembers Louisa May Alcott for Little Women and the bonds of family she portrayed in that book, but the friendship she paints in Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom is much more compelling to me. It stretches across years, overcomes social barriers, and fulfills the needs of the two women in expected and unexpected ways. Phebe’s love story with Archie, and Rose’s with Mac, are both lovely, but it’s Rose and Phebe’s friendship that has formed their characters and turned them into the women that they are. Rose in Bloom may end with the happy couples, but I like to think of Rose and Phebe, too, walking forward into their futures step-in-step, and hand-in-hand.
Tags: books, cousins falling in love, friendship, history, louisa may alcott, love letters, sarah evans, the gentleman scholar sponsorship series
Uncle Alec is one of my favorite characters, He was quite liberal in his thinking for the time.
Download and read Eight Cousins for free here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38567
Dunno. I always found something off-putting about that family. IIRC, Rose and Uncle Alec’s first interaction is characterized as follows:
1. Alec asks Rose to run around the garden.
2. Rose does it well enough but ends out of breath.
3. Alec physically unclasps Rose’s belt without her permission.
4. Alec body-shames Rose, fastens the belt at its loosest notch, and tells Rose he won’t buy her new clothes until she gains enough weight to fill out her belt.
5. When Rose tries to defend herself, Alec picks her grammar apart.
I read these two books, but did not want to be a part of this family.
Interesting, I always read that scene completely differently. I saw it as part of Alec’s larger pattern of trying to keep Rose from obsessing over the beauty standards of the day, which he saw as unhealthy and physically damaging, as well as the (related) way girls were taught to see themselves as delicate objects who couldn’t bear physical exertion. It never seemed anything but kindly to me, if a little stern. Of course, I haven’t read it in years and might see it very differently now.
There’s probably a little bit of wish fulfillment involved in my interpretation too. As a little girl, I would have loved to have an authority figure order me to gain weight, instead of the opposite.
I never felt that he was body shaming HER so much as he (acting as a mouthpiece for LMA’s own beliefs/views) was criticizing a culture that pushed unrealistic physical expectations and sexual maturity (being slender/dieting, wearing corsets and “adult” clothing that restricted physical movement and the ability to breathe) on girls. Is he paternalistic/condescending about it? Probably (I don’t remember). But he (and Alcott) pushed hard for Rose to be as athletic and free-to-move as her male cousins… including allowing her to wear the very scandalous bloomers, if I remember correctly. As a girl who was expected to sit still and be quiet I relished stories about girls (including girly girls who loved fine fancy clothing and jewelry) who were encouraged to run and yell and be active and move.
I think you’re right, but he (and Alcott) pushed Rose to the Gibson Girl ideal of a healthy, curvy woman who was athletic and pink cheeked and unencumbered by corsets. And why was this important? Because middle class Victorian ladies were not having as many children as immigrant/black/working class women, and some believed dress and lack of exercise were part of the problem. On the surface, the Gibson Girl ideal was great (if you were white and middle class), but the point was to ensure the white race wasn’t “overrun” by “lesser” races. I loved Rose as a child but her character development is to make her into an ideal woman so she can be an ideal mother in a way that skeeved me out even as a 13 year old.
I am totally rereading this right now and that’s not quite how it plays.
1. It’s not their first interaction. Rose has previously expressed her affection for Alec and her willingness to accept him as father-figure.
2. He does unclasp her belt, but only after asking her to do it because it’s too tight. Rose insists it isn’t, and she can breathe perfectly well. He unclasps the belt to prove his point. At which point “the belt flew open several inches.”
3. He doesn’t body-shame her, but he does complain that growing girls shouldn’t be wearing tight belts. The way the belt is described, it sounds like not-a-modern-belt. It seems more like a waist-cincher. It is described as being made of leather and steel and clearly restricts Rose’s breathing to some extent.
4. When Rose says the belt is too loose, his reply is “Not if you keep taking long breaths to hold it on.” He’s not making this about her weight. He does say he wants to keep enlarging the belt, but again, it’s in terms of looking healthy and not “like a fashion-plate.”
5. He does not tell Rose she can’t have new clothes. Actually, he tells her he has “any number of Italian scarves and Turkish sashes” that she could wear instead of the belt (after she complains the belt is so loose it’ll fall off). He ends the conversation with “A happy soul in a healthy body is the best sort of beauty for any man or woman.” He also praises Phebe’s good health and strong arms. Damn, Uncle Alec is awesome.
The grammar correction isn’t part of that conversation at all. That does happen later IIRC, but in the context of her education I think.
Gosh! I never got that he was body shaming! He was setting her free from the unreasonable expectations that were put on women in those days – in some ways it was worse than it is now! When Uncle Alec first knew Rose she was sickly, fearful, self conscious and had no confidence in herself. After he set about to give her good values, she was healthy, giving and beautiful! But I agree with you about the rest of the family. They had their share of stuck up, gossipy members who needed a come-uppance!
I felt so emotionally manipulated by Rose In Bloom and the Charlie situation that I couldn’t form any rational thoughts about it except DO NOT WANT, which is hardly rational. But Phebe and Rose are lovely together and Uncle Alec is my favorite fictional uncle, so I guess I could try to read it again skipping every mention of Charlie and her awful mother and just focus on the rest. That might work…
On the other hand, the friendship of Polly and Fan in An Old Fashioned Girl is just as satisfactory and I don’t have to skip anything… Huh.
I was just coming to say that if we’re talking friendship and class in Alcott, than we MUST discuss An Old-Fashioned Girl, which I just love love love. It’s actually probably my favorite of her books.
@Nat, I HATE Charlie and yet I still tear up whenever I read the Alas for Charlie! chapter, so I know exactly what you mean.
@Nat/Kaitlyn, I totally reread An Old-Fashioned Girl right after I wrote this piece (it’s my second favorite after Rose in Bloom) and it’s such a flip of the Rose/Phebe situation. I think we’re supposed to see Fan as a little silly and stuck up until she comes under Polly’s influence, whereas Rose is a little thoughtless but well-intentioned. And then I feel like Polly benefited less from the Shaws’ wealth than Phebe did from Rose’s, too, so the sense of obligation is different. But in both the poor girl is musical, teaches the rich girl something about patience and courage, and then marries into the rich family. OFG came out first, I think — I wonder if LMA identified earlier in her life with Polly but later, once she was successful, a bit more with Rose. I just read a recent LMA biography by Harriet Reisen, and it was really good!
Alcott was a formative writer for me in somewhat confusing ways.
Good lessons I took from her iteration of first-wave feminism: Baking bread and sewing buttonholes are valuable life skills to be cultivated by both men and women, sometimes girls want to be doctors and not have babies and that is totally legit/sometimes girls want to be actresses and also have babies, and (Most Critically) an ideal life would be teaching music and living quietly with a cat and a canary in an apartment building full of women who sculpt, write poetry, and discuss the status of women over tea.
Problematic lessons: cousins getting married is romantic, men are attracted to moral paragons, fashion is sinful, self-interest will disappoint my family… I might be considered fast for painting my face?
Oh….was that last one about Polly? Who refused to have her name “French-ified” by becoming “Pollie” and who fell in love with Tom? Tom who asked her (about his former fiancee) if she, you know, paints?
I haven’t thought about these books in so long, but I read them over and over in middle school.
I don’t remember “fashion is sinful” – doesn’t Alec give her all sorts of scarves and sashes? I do remember “the current fashion – which hobbles you and leaves you unable to move freely and ALSO kills whales, FYI – that stuff seems dumb, also it inappropriately sexualizes you, a teenager. You can wear whatever the hell you want, but dad pressure dad pressure, isn’t it nice to wear comfortable clothing?”
Yes, there’s especially an evisceration of “hobble skirts,” which are hard to walk in. There’s a big push in the book to move Rose away from harmful fashion (tight corsets, tight skirts, high heels) that both sexualize the body and restrict movement and toward “healthful” loose fitting clothing that encourages physical activity. At one point, IIRC, a female relative gets Rose all trussed up in modern fashions (including heels, a hobble skirt, a fur muff, and a hat with a veil) and Rose comments that she can’t see (the veil) and mentions that if a dog were to chase her she wouldn’t be able to get away but if she were in her Uncle Alec-provided clothing she could jump over a fence to escape. Jump over a fence! A girl in Victorian literature enthusing about being able to jump over a fence!
I was thinking of the bronze boots in An Old Fashioned Girl, and also some vaguely remembered, emotionally charged scene with fancy gloves. But I was being too pat 🙂 I do remember that when Rose gets her ears pierced, Uncle Alec is mad about the deception but gives her some gold hoops to wear.
If you want to bring Little Women into things, there’s that whole chapter “Meg Goes to Vanity Fair” where she lets her friends give her a makeover and then people start gossiping about her, and she gets a scathing lecture from Laurie about being frivolous (which: RUDE, tbh, shut up Laurie, she can wear the damn fancy dress if she wants).
I loved this! I read these books so much as an awkward middle-schooler, and the Rose/Phebe friendship always seemed like something I’d want – a close friend to turn into family! How wonderful! But I never really thought of it in these terms, in looking at the ways we support each other and grow together.
So glad you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun thinking about how they shaped each other. I want to find more (especially recent) YA books and adult books about women’s friendships — I feel like too often they’re just a foil or competition for a love interest, when they’re so much more complex and fulfilling in real life!
Have you read Code Name Verity? I know a lot of people have, but for anyone who hasn’t: it is a recent YA book about women’s friendships. It is also about women’s contribution to WWII, and all around excellent.
I have! I really enjoyed it, but I have to admit, I skipped to the end. It was taking me a little while to get into it, and I also get a bit anxious with books with high stakes. So I skipped to the end and then when I went back I picked up on a lot more of what was going on, which was great. Such a great friendship, and such a heartrending story!
All this talk of Rose and Phebe and TOO LITTLE TALK OF ROSE/PHEBE
also me/aunt jessie
Think of all the things she’d prevent you from burning. Think of the hurried trysts while her sons are at school/running around outside.
Ok, but who else thought that Charlie was an appealingly sexy bad boy when they read the books as a kid, and then reread them as an adult and realized that he was a completely unappealing entitled douchebag?
oh heavens yes. Charlie is the Worst. Mac, on the other hand, is a total dreamboat and could woo me any day. Sensitive nerdy outdoorsy men forever!
I read these books as a kid, and assumed that Phebe was Black or otherwise a WOC. The Alcotts were abolitionists (part of her dad’s inability to find and keep a job was because he’d founded a school for girls that admitted Black students. The vast majority of white families withdrew their kids and his actions tainted his job prospects after.) and her politics are VERY evident in her work… CF the temperance league stuff in “Jack And Jill.”
Oh wow, that’s an interesting point! I’d have to go back and read Phebe’s description again — I remember lots of dark hair and… black eyes? But that would definitely add another layer to all of this. I was saying up thread, I just read Harriet Reisen’s LMA bio that was awesome — she talked about Bronson’s school and the black students he admitted, and about the family’s embracing abolition very early on and connecting with people like William Lloyd Garrison. I don’t think I’ve read Jack and Jill, I should put it on my reader!
I thought so too! Glad to know that wasn’t just me.
Every single mention of Alcott requires reference to “Transcendental Wild Oats”, a story meant to be gently remonstrative but given current social mores will boil every single milligram of blood in your body.
I think you're right, but he (and Alcott) pushed Rose to the Gibson Girl ideal of a healthy, curvy woman who was athletic and pink cheeked and unencumbered by corsets. And why was this important? Because middle class Victorian ladies were not having as many children as immigrant/black/working class women, and some believed dress and lack of exercise were part of the problem. On the surface, the Gibson Girl ideal was great (if you were white and middle class), but the point was to ensure the white race wasn't "overrun" by "lesser" races. I loved Rose as a child but her character development is to make her into an ideal woman so she can be an ideal mother in a way that skeeved me out even as a 13 year old.
I thought so too! Glad to know that wasn't just me.
Enjoyed the article. What do you think about the charity child, Dulce, Rose adopts? I’ve always been a bit worried about her future as she’s a bit of a waif and described as not attractive. Will Rose get tired of her?
So glad you enjoyed it! I worried about her too! I don’t think Rose will necessarily get tired of her, but I didn’t feel like she’d become quite part of the family in the same way as Phebe eventually does. I didn’t get the sense that Rose and Mac would necessarily take her with them when they set up house, either.
There’s a book I love called A Strange Enchantment by Mabel Esther Allan, about land girls during WWII, and at the end the 18-year-old main character gets engaged and she and her fiance ARE going to adopt this little girl who has attached herself to her after losing her family, and it’s an important thing they talk about when he proposes. I totally thought about that when I reread Rose in Bloom this time and wondered why Alcott didn’t talk more about Dulce’s future.
Yes, I was also concerned about what became of the little waif. Dulce was a strangely undeveloped character in ROSE IN BLOOM. She was almost as thin as a stage prop and seemed to fade away in the romance. My guess is that they took her into their marriage home, though. I can’t imagine either Rose or Mac being willing to abandon her like a toy they had outgrown. Mac made a commitment to Dulce even before Rose adopted her and I think they both felt a strong sense of duty. I was sorry that no palpable love was written into this story for the little orphan! If either of them had ever expressed love that goes beyond duty, I would have known that Dulce would be OK, but she seemed like more of an “experiment” than anything else.
It has always seemed to me that LITTLE WOMEN and the other March family novels are the only LMA works that are discussed in depth. However, the March series are my least favorite of her books! I discovered Rose and the Campbell clan when I was 11 years old and EIGHT COUSINS/ROSE IN BLOOM and AN OLD FASHIONED GIRL are my very favorites! I’m so glad to see an article exploring the finer details of Rose and Phoebe’s relationship.
I think your astute observations sum up what I’ve always thought. Although the reader feels bad that Phoebe needed to “earn” the love of the family, we are all glad that she finally succeeded. I guess it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you arrive in the end. It was hard on Phoebe and Archie, but don’t you think the rest of the family benefitted from a lesson well learned? She never had to prove herself to Rose, Uncle Alec, Archie, or Mac, but the rest of the Campbells needed to realize that true worth isn’t summed up in a pedigree.
These books were so well written and have many layers to enjoy.