An Analysis of Characterization of Jo March in LouisaMay Alcott’s Little Women

Abstract

Louisa May Alcott manifested her ideas through Jo March‟s role in the 19^th century as the main character of the popular classical novel Little Women so that readers emotionally connected and sympathized with the story, plots, values mentioned in her work. This research aims to investigate the characteristics of Jo March as the main character by identifying the dialogue and stories in the novel using the descriptive-qualitative method. This research aims to find Jo March's dominant characteristics and describe her personality using the data. The findings related to the research questions showed that eight characteristics represent Jo March as the main character in the novel Little Women, such as: boyish, outspoken, creative, daring, real, cranky, ambitious, careless, and principled. This study of characterization will help readers to understand a literary work deeply. In addition, characterization is an essential element in writing a literary work or narrative text, which is often used as authentic materials in the ELT classroom so that it also helps students and teachers in understanding literary works in the classroom.