“Love and Self-Love”: The Balance between Sympathy and Self-Respect in Louisa May Alcott’s Early Fiction

This paper explores one of the early short stories by Louisa May Alcott in order to offer an example a problem that plagued women 19th century America, wanting thrive both domestic and public spheres. By focusing on “Love Self-Love,” story, highlights major concerns at time emergence first proto-feminist movements: balance between women’s inclination sympathy for others their own self-esteem. The plot revolves around self-respect stages forms female empowerment using fiction as form education oriented towards creating awareness sphere.