Kira Argounova and Jo March

The year doesn't matter, but what does is that times were hard and not only the small comforts of life were gone. Pure survival became the driving force of everyday life. Women weren't property, but they weren't on equal footing with men as tradition dictated; however with times as such a closing of the gap was found with unease. In these very real times two fictional characters stand out to me. Even though the year was 1860, New England, America in the midst of the Civil War and 1924 Petrograd, Soviet Russia in the middle of the rising red tide of communism, the two women characters in the two very different novels share many of the same qualities.

Meet Citizen Kira Argounova, daughter of the bourigouesis and Jo March, daughter of a union officer. Both of these women were not the average woman of their days. Kira and Jo had their own way of viewing life and driving passions that allowed them to accomplish whatever they put their minds' to. For Jo it was her writing and taking care of Beth, for Kira becoming an architect and taking care of Leo and her family. Both had individualistic tendencies, but showed caring hearts under their rough exteriors.

My point is that we can find common threads in the most unlikely of places and the old cliche of "you can't judge a book by its cover" is still very true to this day.