Tin Kitchen

In Lousia Alcott's book " Little Women" Jo finds the space to realize her literary ambitions in the form of the tin kitchen. This instrument, essentially a symbol of domesticity is transformed into a literary tool in the attic where Jo reigns supreme in her imaginary world.


The attic is a space where Jo escapes from her household cares and finds freedom in creating new worlds where mundane things like dishcloths and brooms have no place. Yet it is ironical because despite all her attempts to struggle against the domestic sphere she is forced to use an old "tin kitchen" as the means to which she can persue her literary end.

By comparing this space - the attic dominated by the tin kitchen and Jo in a black pinafor with a red bow on her head to the space she occupies at Mrs. Kirks in New York, Alcott enables us to appreciate the growth that Jo undergoes from writing juvenille literature in her tiny secret space in the attic to spreading her wings and finding a greater physical freedom in New York where she delves into an altogether different form of writing - namely sensational literature.

- Dione Joseph