Hi, how are you? I started rereading Little Women, this is my third read of the book. I notice how while each sister feels like something is lacking, Beth is just grateful that they all have each other. Beth does not feel like anything is lacking. And her fear for people, where do you think that came from? Is it just social anxiety? Did something happen that made her be afraid of people?
I'm not sure where Beth's social anxiety comes from, because I'm not sure where Lizzie Alcott's came from. I'm not sure if anyone knows, because she left so little personal writing.
Some scholars blame Lizzie's family, especially her ultra-idealistic, moral perfectionist father. They blame the pressure she must have felt to be angelic all the time, especially because her quiet and gentle temperament made her family idealize her as "the angel in the house" whom her more fiery sisters "needed" to learn to be more like. Some argue that besides her illness, the great tragedy of Lizzie's life was that her family well-meaningly pigeonholed her into that role. If we choose to believe this, then we could assume that the same is also true for the fictional Beth. Even though Robert March is a more reasonable man than Bronson Alcott, the March parents still have high moral expectations of their daughters, and repeatedly we do see the family glorifying Beth as the household saint, even as she protests that she's not a saint, she's imperfect like the rest of them. Goodness knows, social anxiety can stem from feeling constantly scrutinized and pressured to be perfect!
We also see that Beth has low self-esteem. She calls herself "stupid," and in her final illness she worries that her life has been "useless," because she's never left her parents' house and because everything she loves is so simple and domestic. Self-doubt and feeling as if your interests are boring to others can also be sources of social anxiety. They certainly have been for me! Though for Beth, it's a bit of a chicken-or-egg situation: is she shy and self-doubting because she has no interests outside the home, or does she have no interests outside the home because she's shy and self-doubting?
She also might have just been born with Social Anxiety Disorder. Her fear when Mr. Laurence looks at her too intensely and speaks too loudly might imply that the problem is sensory overload. Her shyness isn't the only "oddity" about her either; in Part I at least, she seems childlike for her age, still playing with dolls and imaginary friends in her early teens. I've always been very open to the headcanon that Beth is on the autism spectrum, and by extension that Lizzie Alcott might have been too. Some scholars also think Lizzie may have had a mental illness: even before she got sick, she went through at least one period of deep, paralyzing depression that her mother called a "collapse of the brain." Since scholars sometimes argue that Bronson Alcott showed signs of either autism or mental illness, Lizzie may have inherited her father's disorder, whatever it was. But even if she was neither autistic nor mentally ill, SAD can have biological causes.
Now, as for the subject of Beth's contentment while her sisters long for things they don't have... This is definitely one of the ways that the book seems to hold her up as a role model. One of Little Women's main recurring themes is the March sisters' longing for wealth, success, material possessions, etc. only to be reminded that love, family, and moral values are the things that matter. Beth is the only one who never needs to be taught that lesson. Although in Part I she does have one worldly desire: a better piano, which she gets.
Unfortunately, readers who view Jo as a feminist role model because she's ambitious, sets out to earn money, etc. tend to say negative things about Beth as a result. Of course, most of the commentary I've read about Beth is terrible and ableist to begin with. But that's another subject for another time.
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