Content Warning: The section of the guide includes discussion of racism, illness, and death.

Alcott acknowledges that each individual experiences something in his or her own way. How does Alcott explore the links between her own subjective experience and the wider issues she seeks to document in the Sketches?

Like Alcott herself, her parents, Amos and Abigail Alcott, were Transcendentalists and Abolitionists (See: Background). Research the two movements. How are they related to each other, and how does Alcott’s Hospital Sketches reflect the influence of both?

During the first few days at the hospital, Alcott is looking forward to the arrival of the wounded patients, but when confronted with them, she feels overwhelmed to the point of speechlessness. Discuss her growth arc across the collection. What remains the same about her, and how does she change?