potentialities

hmmmmmm.
interesting take.
personally, I love Friedrich (although the '94 movie has a great deal to do with that, I admit) and I never had a problem with him. I think he could understand Jo in a way that Laurie never could -- he never 'got' her writing, and Fritz did, and was able to converse with her on it, while Laurie would just wibble about literature endlessly and complain about his lessons.
As I reject LM and JB, I will ignore the remainder of your argument. 0=)

When I've gone back and reread LW, I'm more struck by the maturation than by the whole marriage-bit. Jo doesn't want to grow up, and everything that happens to her is affected by that desire. She ends up fleeing, even, because Laurie's proposal means having to grow up and she can't deal. But Beth dying demonstrates the only real way to *not* grow up, and I think that's when she finally takes stock of everything around her. Writing 'Little Women' is like her last farewell to her childhood.

I have to go back now, and check on the sister's wives -- the whole book is autobiographical, after all -- do you happen to remember how closely John and Laurie resemble May's and Whazername's actual husbands? ::curious:: I think you've certainly called it on the mating father figures bit, but on the other hand, I think *everyone* mated father figures in that period. Either that or they ran away to New York to become Women of Ill Repute.

Jo would make a kickass Woman of Ill Repute.