“She Loves Nothing but Her Art”: Vibrant Marble and the Agency of the Female Artist in Louisa May Alcott’s “A Marble Woman, or The Mysterious Model”

At first glance, “A Marble Woman” (1865) seems to offer but a trite marriage plot, assuaging Louisa May Alcott’s contemporary readers while containing the heroine’s scandalous abilities. On a second and read through a new materialist critical lens, it becomes apparent how cunningly the female sculptor Cecil negotiates her creativity with the societal demands on the true woman and the marriage doctrine of her time. The sensational story’s twist reveals the female protagonist’s masterful manipulation of her guardian-husband Yorke who was, just as the reader, under the assumption that he was the one molding her to his needs. The protagonist’s true artistry, we realize, is not static sculpture but vibrant performance which renders her simultaneously as woman and marble, artist and an artwork