If you have been reading this blog for some time you will know precisely why. Amy is pretty, fashionable, coquettish and an artist!
Though I was small when I read Good Wives (I read Little Women much later) I identified with Amy. Though I wasn't a pretty blonde (I was a pretty brunette ;-) I too was artistic and loved everything that had to do with art and girly stuff like clothes and class friendships.
I never liked Jo March, who never missed an opportunity to ridicule Amy and her artistic endeavors. Jo could simply not put up with the idea that a pretty little girl could have aspirations and dream of something better (generally, an overall theme of both books is that women must be happy with their lot in life). I really disliked Jo, and I think I managed to stomach her much later in the book, when she went to New York. I liked her journal-writing. But now I think my disapproval has returned. I don't have too much sympathy for Jo March. Amy is the best, with Beth second.
I think that in the overall scheme of the book, Amy is a much more reactionary character than Jo. Despite her big mouth and grandiose words about independence, Jo is only too happy to marry an older and quiet man, and have his sons.
Amy, on the other hand, remains fashionable and artistic to the end. The book quiets Jo's aspirations; for all we know, Amy kept her love for fashion and art even after marriage to Laurie. Amy has daughters only; I truly think she operates as the feminine principle in the novel.
Plus, she gets to keep the pretty, rich (half) Italian young man she has always been in love with. If this is not success in love, then I want to know what is???????
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