Little Women

Flowers represent the girls in their many manifestations and are more than just decoration in their lives.

In the first part of the novel, the sisters have their own garden to plant whatever they desire: Meg’s garden is grounded in simplicity, Jo’s landscape is ever-changing, Beth’s portion is traditional, and Amy’s selections function to be aesthetically pleasing. In this manner, the sisters’ respective garden plots are symbols for each of them.

At Meg’s wedding, she is described as a rose and only adorns herself in John’s favorite flowers, lilies of the valley. This suggests that she is taking on new identity traits by adding the preferences of her husband to her choices. At the Christmas Ball, Amy improvises her appearance by giving her stale options a makeover with flowers that add luster to her beauty.

When Laurie and Amy go to Valrosa, a place that she calls “a regular honeymoon paradise” (433), Laurie plucks a red rose. One of the rose’s thorns stings him and reminds him of Jo, who often wore such flowers and broke Laurie’s heart. Amy suggests that he select the cream roses that have no thorns. Laurie thinks of the Italian custom in which pale flowers are only used for funerary purposes and wonders if this could an “omen” (434) for the love he has for Jo.