Within the large ensemble cast of Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s book, Little Women, it can be easy to forget about the characters with such small roles, even ones that have more of an impact on the main characters. Little Women follows the lives of the March sisters as they grow up, learn, find their passions, evolve, fall in love, and attempt to be successful and independent women in the misogynistic era of the 1860’s. The Dashwood Girls, as they are named on the Full Cast and Crew page for Little Women (2019) on IMDb, are technically three characters, portrayed by young actresses, Sophia Gialloreto, Lily Gavin, and Finola Weller Baldet. The three girls, though they do not appear in the film until there are only thirteen minutes remaining in the film and do not have individual names, they are wildly important to the conclusion of the story. They are, as Will Straw mentions, the type of character cameos that are simply “a segment, a piece of mosaic, sometimes just a single point.”(Straw) They fill an incredibly small role of no more than twenty seconds of screentime, but that role is vital to the professional success of Jo March.
The Dashwood Girls are the three daughters of American publisher Mr. Dashwood, whose role throughout the film is as Jo March’s direct opposition in her quest to publish her written work. The audience witnesses Jo sell a written piece to Mr. Dashwood in the very beginning of the film. Mr. Dashwood is shown to be critical and unwilling to publish work that is too morally opinionated, something that goes against the societal norms, or a story that contains too much heart, he will not publish the story without edits. Not to mention that he shows professional disrespect towards Jo by paying her less than the company would normally pay for a story like the one Jo was selling.
After the death of her sister Beth, Jo decides to write a new novel about her life and growing up in Massachusetts with her family. She sends her first few chapters to Mr. Dashwood in hopes that she will be able to publish a novel on the subject. Mr. Dashwood writes to respond, saying that the chapters “aren’t very promising”(Little Women, 2019, 1:56:24) and that he would prefer if Jo would send more scandalous stories. As the film begins to come to a close, it does not seem very likely that Jo’s story will get published at all, until a scene comes along that shows Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood at home. All of a sudden, The Dashwood Girls come rushing in, demanding to know how Jo’s novel ends. This reaction alone is enough to make Mr. Dashwood reconsider Jo’s novel, realizing that the story it contains would be something people care about. The Dashwood Girls act as a general audience, and their interest in Jo’s story is the very reason why this excellent film ends with Jo getting her book published.
Works Cited:
Little Women (2019) – IMDB. (n.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3281548/fullcredits
Straw, Will. The Small Parts, Small Players dossier Introduction, vol. 52, no. 1, 2011, p. 81. Thompson Rivers University Library, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq057.
Gerwig, G. (Director). (2019, December 25). Little Women (2019) [Netflix Edition]. Columbia Pictures.
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