" I think that Greta Gerwig really honored not only the text , but also the nuance. Louisa May Alcott, you have to remember, was writing to put food on the table, so the book can be very didactic — she needed to write what would sell to a 19th century audience. In terms of why it captures the zeitgeist, I think we go to books to look for ourselves. We go to books to figure ourselves out and we go to them for representation. And Little Women is a book that relatively young girls can read and feel encouraged by. And I think since its initial publication, readers have thought about femininity in terms of like: Are you a Jo? Are you an Amy? Which is a huge thing on the internet today with eneagrams and astrological signs or, like, Buzzfeed quizzes.