評論
打印
A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps!"...Jo sighed, as if the prospect was not inviting.
一個文學處女，以筆為配偶，以諸多故事為孩子，二十年后會有一點點名聲，也許！”喬嘆氣地說，似乎前景并不誘人。
This worried young reader concurred—not inviting at all!
對于這一點我這個焦慮的小讀者也非常贊同——那根本就不誘人！
And so I was happy to read of Jo's nice suitor. Mr. Bhaer, not handsome or rich or young or important or witty, but possessed of kindness and dignity and enough intelligence to understand that even a girl who wasn't especially pretty, who had no dazzling charms and who wanted to write might make a wonderful wife. And a wonderful mother. And live happily ever after.
因此當讀到喬的追求者巴爾先生時，我很開心。他既不英俊也不富有，既不年輕也不聰明，更無權無勢，但是他卻和藹可親、高尚尊貴。他非常理解，即使一個女孩不特別漂亮，也不是很迷人，同時還想成為一名作家，她也可能會成為一個偉大的妻子，成為一個慈愛的母親，從而過上幸福美滿的生活。
What a relief?
這可真讓我松了一口氣！
What Jo and Nancy shared was active participation in life—they went out and did; they weren't simply done to—and they taught and promised me (at a time when mommies stayed home and there was no Women's Movement) that a girl could go out and do and still get a man. Jo added the notion that brusque, ungainly kids could go out and do and still get a man. And Jane of Jane Eyre, whose author once said, "I will show you a heroine as small and as plain as myself," added the further idea that such women were able to "feel just as men feel" and were capable of being just as passionate.
積極參與生活是喬和南希的共性——她們走出去親身實踐，而不是被動承受著一切——她們給我啟發，并告訴我（在那個媽媽們待在家里，也沒有婦女運動的年代），一個女孩可以出去工作，可以去追求男人。喬強化了直率、笨拙的孩子們可以出去工作、可以去追求男人的觀念。《簡·愛》的作者曾說我向你展示的女主人公和我一樣卑微而平凡”，簡進一步強化這個想法，這樣的女人也能“與男人一樣去感受”，也能夠像他們一樣擁有激情。
Orphaned Jane, a governess at stately Thornfield Hall, was a no-nonsense lady, cool and self-contained, whose lonely, painful childhood had ingrained in her an impressive firmness of character, an unwillingness to charm or curry favor and a sense of herself as the equal of any man.
孤兒簡是富麗堂皇的桑菲爾德府的一個家庭女教師，她嚴肅認真、沉默寡言。孤獨、痛苦的童年時代令她養成了一種堅毅的性格，她不愿去巴結討好別人、視自己與其他任何男人一樣平等。
