Abstract
The line of duty which dictated Louisa's life was rigid and unswerving, a rod of iron which she inherited from her stern father. In Amos Bronson Alcott's philosophy, the body must be subjected to the spirit, emotion to thought. The line of duty represents this subjection. The line of beauty, on the other hand, as Ticknor's vocabulary suggests, represents the body and its desires. It is soft, sinuous, and phallo-eccentric. If, according to Bronson Alcott, the spirit is transcendent and the body immanent, and thus the line of duty is perpendicular to the line of beauty, for Louisa and May this relation was reversed. In the pursuit of her chosen line, May figuratively rode on the back of her dutiful older sister. Louisa supported the entire family, and May in particular, through writing, sewing, and housework. The repression of her own desire for beauty and pleasure turned her into a beast of burden.
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