Maggie a Girl of the Streets - 970 Words

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a novella written in 1893 by Stephen Crane, focuses on a poverty stricken family living in the Bowery district of New York City. This novella is regarded as one of the first works of naturalism in American literature and it helped shape the naturalistic principle that a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one’s biological heredity and the circumstances that the characters find themselves in will dominate their behavior and deprive them of individual responsibility. Throughout the story, the primary goal of the main characters is to escape the lives they lead and to find more comfortable lives away from their current problems, which differs from the romantic ideal that the main characters usually turn inwards to solve their problems. In the opening stages of the novella, Maggie tries to escape her troubling life through her relationship with Pete. As Maggie grows up, she becomes a beautiful girl who hates her life in Rum Alley. She sees Pete as a savior who could lead her away from her poverty stricken life and bring her into the world of leisure because he introduces her to popular music, dances, and dramas, all of which seem extravagant to her. Maggie â€Å"begins to note the well-dressed women she meets. She [envies the women’s] elegance (11).† Most of the melodramas that Maggie watches with Pete show the American dream of a person going from rags to riches, which is a goal that she thinks Pete will help her in achieve.Show MoreRelatedMaggie: a Girl of the Streets947 Words   |  4 PagesStephen Crane wrote many short stories, one of which was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. His stories contained various aspects of Naturalism, a literary movement that sought to replicate a believable everyday rea lity, as opposed to Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Poverty, abuse and a survival of the fittest way of life created an environment which Maggie was negatively influenced by. Her environment is made up ofRead MoreMaggie : A Girl Of The Streets1421 Words   |  6 PagesIn the Novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets was a very dramatic story that contain lots of anger, abuse, emotional, and naà ¯ve scenes. This story took place in New York in the bad side of town where most of the kids spent their days in the streets or known to them as the rum ally. This story showed a lot of reality of everyday life of people living in poverty. It shows a great example of people’s decisions affecting their life’s. As seen in the story Maggie the main character her decisions impactedRead MoreThe s Maggie : A Girl Of The Streets1857 Words   |  8 PagesStephan Crane’s Maggie:A Girl of the Streets is fundamentally a work of naturalism with a few elements of realism. Donna M Campbell explains in Naturalism in American Literature, much of the naturalistic literary movement focuses on taboo topics such as violence, poverty, prostitution, and alcoholism. Naturalism has other characteristics such as static characters and Social Darwinism, characters who are controlled by their environment and have very little â€Å"free will†, and animal imagery. FurthermoreRead MoreMaggie: A Girl Of The Streets Essay551 Words   |  3 Pages Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane is a short novel about a young girl and the people in her life. Despite its brevity, this book displays many significant themes that its author intertwines in the story plot. Such themes are determinism, hypocrisy, false morality, self-deception, and appearance verses reality.Maggie’s mother, Mrs. Johnson, is a symbol of hypocrisy in the story. She lost her husband, and had to raise her children b y herself in poverty. She drinks to heal her pain soRead MoreEssay about Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets1108 Words   |  5 Pages The novel, Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets, by Stephen Crane, takes place in the slums of New York City during the 1890amp;#8217;s. It is about a girl, Maggie Johnson, who is forced to grow up in a tenement house. She had a brother, Jimmie, an abusive mother, Mary, and a father who died when Maggie was young. When Maggie grew up, she met her boyfriend, Pete. In Maggieamp;#8217;s eyes, Pete was a sophisticated young man who impressed Maggie because he treated her better than she had been treatedRead MoreEssay Stephen Crane’s â€Å"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets†1289 Words   |  6 Pagesderivative form of realism. In Stephen Crane’s â€Å"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,† the characters may have little chance to escape the world they inhabit, like Maggie, Jimmie, and Pete, but choices are there, even if these choices aren’t very good. Maggie, herself, is a prime example. In the end of Crane’s tale, Maggie is turned into a prostitute and dies (995-999). Yet, her life didn’t have to end in that fashion. One of the big decisions Maggie makes is whether to be with Peter or not. ThisRead MoreEssay on Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Huck Finn922 Words   |  4 PagesMaggie Girl of the Streets Huck Finn Life in the 1800s has taken on an almost idealistic quality in the minds of many Americans. The images linked to this era of our history are, on the surface, pleasurable to recall: one room school houses; severe self-reliance; steam-powered railroads and individual freedom. All in all, we seem to recall a well-scrubbed past. Maybe, as we cross into the next century, its time to take another look at the so-called good old days. Two very well writtenRead MoreNaturalism In Maggie : A Girl Of The Streets, And To Build A Fire718 Words   |  3 Pagesworks found parallels through their character’s treacherous journeys in life, as depicted in â€Å"To Build a Fire† by Jack London, with his freezing trip, and â€Å"Maggie: A girl of the Streets† by Stephen Crane, over her, and her family’s rough, and unfortunate life. In â€Å"Maggie: A girl of the Streets† Maggie was the timid, shy, conventional, girl that ended up being treated as a possession (like a fancy wristwatch a man may wear to showoff) rather than the individual she was, by her boyfriend Pete, andRead MorePower And Control In Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets Essay1333 Words   |  6 Pages The world of Stephen Craneamp;#8217;s novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, is a dark, violent place. People curse one another openly and instigate fights over petty issues. The intense poverty of the populace leads to a feeling of general despair and creates a lack of self-confidence in each individual. People want to feel that they mean something. They want to know that their life does not go unnoticed. They desire power over others lives. The poor, who are constantly controlled by the richRead MoreNaturalism in Stephen Cranes Maggie: a Girl of the Streets1630 Words   |  7 PagesNaturalism in Stephen Crane’s â€Å"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets† â€Å"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,† is a novella written by Stephen Crane and published in the year 1893. This work was published during the time of the Industrial Revolution, when factories were appearing everywhere. Their workers were often not paid enough to lead a decent life, and suffered from their situation. They were not very civilized and sometimes aggressive in their behavior. Perhaps because of this radical change from a more agricultural