Moods of Men: Homosociality and Trafficking in Women in Louisa May Alcott's First Novel

Abstract

The academic scholarship on Louisa May Alcott's first novel, Moods, has been both scarce and hesitant. Alcott first published the book in 1864, after Hospital Sketches, and in its original form the novel combines both Gothic and sentimental tropes, making it problematic for scholars of either of those genres of fiction. Feminists, as well, have reason to struggle with the novel, for in the original the protagonist Sylvia Yule dies, either as punishment for her confused and unconventional love of two different men or because of her inability to cope with marriage, depending on the argument (MacDonald 77). In Alcott's revised version of 1882, Sylvia returns to the man she feels no passion for and calls herself happy. There is not, then, much in a surface reading of this novel to make either critics or readers optimistic about the legal or social status of women in the nineteenth-century United States, but a closer reading reveals feminist undercurrents that critique both patriarchy and marriage as social institutions, questioning a woman's ability to reach her full potential within nineteenth-century social structures. Sylvia is constrained by the expectations of her two suitors, Geoffrey Moor and Adam Warwick, and most critics address Sylvia through these two men that she must choose between, seeing them as the two sides of her split psyche. However, critics do not address the complex relationship that Warwick and Moor have with each other,1 and I see their friendship as the primary relationship of the novel, overshadowing either man's relationship with Sylvia. At the same time, Sylvia's relationship with both men is what allows their friendship to be coded as normal, and not stray into the forbidden territory of homosexuality. She is the lynchpin that holds their relationship together, rendering all of their relationships queer and inextricably connected.The basic plot of Moods is as follows: Sylvia Yule is the younger female child of a family that is respectable and genteel but not very wealthy; the fortune her father originally made has declined. Her brother Mark has nevertheless been to university, and he is longtime friends with their neighbor Geoffrey Moor. Moor, in turn, is best friends with Adam Warwick, a man who is his complete opposite in temperament. While Moor is domestic, gentle, educated, and mild, schooled in all social graces, with a quick appreciation for poetry and beauty, Warwick is a loner, gruff, adventuresome, sensitive, self-sacrificing, and morally exacting. He leaves college after a year and learns after his own fashion, forming a reckless engagement to a Cuban beauty named Ottila. Warwick repents of their engagement after a month, believing that Ottila has deceived him in the nature of her character and that she decided to win his heart simply for the joy of conquering him rather than actually loving him. Warwick asks Ottila to release him, but she pleads that she does love him and is willing to change. In the end the two strike a deal: They will spend a year apart, during which Warwick will remain true to their engagement and Ottila will work to reform her character, into the kind of true and steady woman W arwick wants .2Warwick then leaves Cuba for the United States and takes refuge in the home of his old friend Moor. It is through Moor that he meets Mark and Sylvia, and over the course of the novel both Moor and Warwick fall in love with Sylvia. Sylvia realizes as well that she is in love with Warwick, but neither of them speak to the other about their feelings. Warwick eventually leaves, believing that as he is still promised to Ottila, he ought to let Moor have his own chance to court Sylvia. Sylvia marries Moor before Warwick returns, only to learn that Warwick has broken his engagement and is free. She tells Warwick of her marriage but is eventually forced to confess her true feelings to her husband, and the two men sail away to Europe, hoping for reconciliation and peace. Warwick dies before the end of the journey, saving Moor's life in a shipwreck. …