In the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, the protagonist, Maggie Johnson, is the only character seemingly unaffected by the torment of her hostile upbringing; however, as the story progresses, she becomes more aware of her indigent environment and becomes a proxy for the negative effect the Bowery has on its victims. Maggie's increasing desire to abandon her home diminishes her individualism and self-reliance. Additionally, Crane highlights the different ways in which characters are affected by and deal with their hostile environments. Anticipating an escape from this environment and a revision of her fate, Maggie turns to Pete; however, Maggie’s refusal to acknowledge that her problems are unalterable unfortunately results …show more content…
in her demise. Through Maggie’s development, Crane is able to further contradict the optimistic ideas of romanticism by highlighting Maggie's inability to remain unaffected by her environment. Crane utilizes the children of the Bowery to emphasize the effects of an abusive upbringing; moreover, he illustrates the degree to which the characters are affected by the violence and hostility in their environment. In the novella, physical and verbal abuse is prominent in the life of all inhabitants of the bowery, especially the children. Specifically, Crane illustrates the horrific home environment in which Maggie and Jimmie live. He writes, “Maggie’s red mother, stretched on the floor, blasphemed and gave her daughter a bad name” (25). Mary’s belittlement of Maggie confirms the debilitating harshness of the Bowery people towards their children; additionally, her sadistic characteristics further show why Maggie only seems to be affected. Although this malevolent behavior is obvious, Crane reveals that not all victims of the extremities of the bowery appear to be affected. He utilizes Maggie to later contradict the idealistic beliefs of romanticism. Initially, Maggie arises as a poor, ragged girl; however, through her development, readers discover that although she’s amid all of this suffering, it does not affect the way in which she perceives herself and the world around her. Crane writes, “She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district… None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins” (180). Crane displays Maggie’s ability to remain unaffected by her environment; moreover, Maggie is a symbol of hope and perseverance in a time of struggle and need. Crane also develops a contrast between Maggie and the violent characters she is surrounded by. Similarly, Maggie’s brother, Jimmie Johnson, is constantly exposed to this cruel behavior; however, unlike Maggie, Jimmie is affected by these experiences differently. His violent behavior highlights the harmful ways Rum Alley influences its people; however, his cruelty allows him to survive in the dangerous world of Rum Alley. Crane reveals that “The inexperienced fibres of the boy’s eyes were hardened at a young age… He never conceived a respect for the world, because he had begun with no idols that it had smashed” (15). Jimmie’s lack of a capable role model growing up forced him to adapt to the cruel aspects of Rum Alley faster than what should be necessary. Both Maggie and Jimmie are trapped by the inability to control their fate; however, they both differ in the ways in which they develop. Due to Maggie’s powerlessness to remain unaffected by her treacherous childhood, she begins to realize the necessity of removing herself from the negative influence of the Bowery. Maggie is desperate for love and care, which allows her to understand how intensely she yearns for an improved life. In the novella, the audience clearly recognizes the change in Maggie from being naïve, when it comes to her plight, to realizing how treacherous her life truly is. Crane indicates that “Maggie contemplated the dark, dust-stained walls, and the scant and crude furniture of her home. A clock, in a splintered and battered oblong box of varnished wood, she suddenly regarded as an abomination” (23). Crane illustrates the darkness in Maggie’s home, symbolizing the lack of goodness and hope in Rum Alley. Although Maggie is not able to escape the destiny she was born into, her desire to escape Rum Alley and change her fate intensifies when encounters Pete. Pete highlights the desolate actuality of Maggie's home and causes Maggie to appear more inferior. Crane writes that Maggie “vaguely tried to calculate the altitude of the pinnacle from which he must have looked down upon her" (22). Maggie’s realization of her unfortunate home life allows her to remain young and naïve; moreover, she remains strong in her untainted views of a better life. Maggie’s desire to escape increases when she goes out with Pete. Crane writes that "She rejoiced at the way in which the poor and virtuous eventually surmounted the wealthy and wicked… She wondered if the culture and refinement she had seen imitated… could be acquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house" (32). Crane emphasizes Maggie’s awareness of the social rift between her and Pete. His seemingly cultured life casts a large shadow over Maggie’s dull life in and she begins to long for a more fulfilling life. However, this close-mindedness allows Pete to stealthy acquire her independence. Maggie's realization of her home escalates when she meets Pete; however, her newfound awareness ultimately allows Pete to negatively influence her. Crane confirms the strength of love Maggie has for Pete; so much so, that her choice to follow him highlights her lack of independence.
Moreover, when Maggie meets Pete, she is captivated by his confidence and sophistication as he seems to guarantee a cultured life; as a result, she surrounds him with love and makes him her focus. Early in the novella, her feelings for Pete are visible. Crane writes, "Swaggering Pete loomed like a golden sun to Maggie" (30). As her love for Pete grows, Maggie's absence of a loving friend forces her to depend on and idolize him; as a result, Maggie's individualism and self-reliance diminishes. Crane shows the infatuation Maggie has for Pete when he says, "The air of spaniel-like dependence had been magnified" (51). Maggie's reliance escalates as she begins to fall more in love with Pete; however, although Maggie starts to devote herself to Pete more and more, she is unfortunately blinded by his seemingly refined life. Maggie's refusal to recognize Pete’s facade results in her demise. Crane shows Pete’s true nature when Maggie goes to him after Mary abandons her. Crane writes, "The question exasperated Pete beyond the powers of endurance. It was a direct attempt to give him some responsibility in a matter that did not concern him" (61). Maggie's refusal to see Pete's true nature and her inability to keep her independence and self-reliance ultimately results in her demise. Though her love for Pete grows, Maggie's freedom diminishes; consequently, Maggie's lack of self-reliance allows Pete to leave her and escalate her inevitable
downfall. Through Maggie's demise, Crane is able to show the powerlessness one has to control their fate. Additionally, Crane utilizes Jimmie to develop a contrast between the ways in which the children of the Bowery survive in their environments. Maggie's realization of her environment develops as she begins to perceive Pete as her savior from Rum Alley; unfortunately, her realization allows her to become more susceptible to Pete's facade. By putting her trust in Pete, Maggie, unfortunately, loses her individualism and self-reliance and her lack of independence allows Maggie to surrender to Rum Alley’s forces. By highlighting Maggie's inevitable doom, and through his use of situational irony, Crane dismisses the romantic beliefs that people are strong enough to positively change their own fate solely by being a moral person. He argues that one’s fate is decided from the situation they are born into, which is impossible to change.
... Maggie ultimately garners respect for herself and her husband- “You're a backward lad, but you know your trade and it's an honest one,”- with her will. The challenge to overcome her father’s oppression garnered her ‘good life’ alongside the respect her father and his family business (Hobson). The search for our definition of the good life is wrought with trials and tribulation, working to overcome deep seeded trends of oppression within society and family.
Her attendance at the picnic with Tea Cake was an act of faith, taking the relationship into the public arena. Social condemnation was fast in coming, especially because she discarded her mourning colors. She was free of Jody, so she also took steps to defy the restrictions that social convention placed on her behavior. Gaining personal freedom was a two-fold process. First, she had to be free in her private life, but she also had to free herself from restricting social attitudes. Only then could she begin to heal the rift between her outside self and her inside self.
When we meet our narrator, the mother of Maggie and Dee, she is waiting in the yard with Maggie for Dee to visit. The mother takes simple pleasure in such a pleasant place where, "anyone can come back and look up at the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house." (Walker 383) This is her basic attitude, the simple everyday pleasures that have nothing to do with great ideas, cultural heritage or family or racial histories. She later reveals to us that she is even more the rough rural woman since she, "can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." (Walker 383) Hardly a woman one would expect to have much patience with hanging historical quilts on a wall. Daughter Maggie is very much the opposite of her older sister, Dee. Maggie is portrayed as knowing "she is not bright." (Walker 384)
At the beginning of her first real encounter with calamity, Astrid is inundated with a deluge of emotions, leaving her dazed. It is during this time of bewilderment that the young girl is placed in her first foster home in the custody of a Sunday Christian named Starr. With the absence of a father figure in her life, Astrid’s feelings for Ray metamorphose into those of desire and what began as a timid liking, turns into something much more. The Oedipal feelings she harbors towards “Uncle” Ray, Starr’s boyfriend, lead ultimately her expulsion from the home.
Maggie Fitzgerald was raised knowing one thing; she was trash. She had no true family that cared for her. No one even really knew she existed. The only person who gave her hope was her father. That was true up until she found the sport boxing and met Frankie. She earned everything through blood, sweat, and tears. Even when people were telling her she couldn’t do it, she still tried. Through all of this Maggie gained freedom, personhood, and experience.
The use of color in Stephan Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is crucial when looking at the setting of the story; the repeated use of red is significant when describing Maggie’s mother Mary and the importance of color in describing the social system through the story. It is seen prominently when Maggie and Pete go to the theater, parts of the play paralleled the lives of the common people: "The latter spent most of his time out at soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, re...
Maggie lives with a poor and dysfunctional family and a hopeless future with only the small possibility of change. The environment and setting she grows up in do not support anything more than a dull, dreary and pathetic future for her. An old woman asks Maggie's brother Jimmy: "Eh, Gawd, child, what is it this time? Is yer fader beatin yer mudder, or yer mudder beatin yer fader? (Maggie, 10)" while he runs to Maggie's apartment one night. The lack of love and support of her family hinders Maggie's ability to live a happy and fulfilling life. Without knowing that someone loves her no matter what she does or how she acts Maggie may feel desperate enough to change her situation by any means she can, and without any useful guidance. Even without any positive influences Maggie grows up different from the low-life's living with and around her. Crane explains Maggie's uniqueness in the passage "None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it" (Maggie 16). Maggie's uniqueness gives her the chance to improve her life, but only a slim chance. Even though Maggie differs from the people around her they remain sleazy, making it harder for her to change her life because she must go outside of her community for help.
The battle of a mental disorder is a tough fight that people tend to deal with on a daily basis with a tendency of being alone while trying to find a way out of that battle. Keeping a distance from those who will help, and rejecting help due to age, heritage, and even gender. Maggie Nelson illustrates the battle she faces with depression using the color blue as a tool to have control over her depression bringing the color blue to life as an ally to have a control over depression as well as targeting the gender differences for mental health is taken upon by society depending on the gender.
Once upon a time there was a Princess named Maggie. She lives in a castle in Genovia with her parents King Henry, Queen Elizabeth and her four siblings. Maggie has three sisters and their names are Laura, Dahlia and Daisy. Her brothers’ name is Lancelot. Maggie was the youngest of all five children. The princess also has seven pets. She has three dogs named Panda the Border Collie, Tara the Sheltie and Sheena the Golden Retriever. Princess Maggie also had three birds named Sarah, Herbie and Tweety Bird. Maggie’s seventh pet was a rabbit named Snow White. The princess loves to play with her pets in the Royal Garden.
Torey Hayden’s novel One Child is a heartwarming personal account of how even the smallest amounts of love can change someone. One Child revolves around a Special Education teacher, Tory Hayden, as well as her class and helpers. The main child that Hayden speaks of is Sheila, who was placed with Hayden after she had lured a young boy into the forest, tied him to a tree, and burned him almost to death. Hayden describes Sheila as having “matted hair, hostile eyes and a very bad smell” upon their first meeting (Hayden 16). Sheila lives in a dilapidated house with her father who abuses, belittles, and isolates her. Her past is maimed by a mother who abandoned her when she was four, leaving her in the care of a neglectful father. These circumstances cause her to lash out at any one she comes into contact with. Hayden provides a seemingly innocuous environment that Sheila flourishes in with the help of the love that her teacher provides. The main idea of Hayden’s novel, presented through her use of rhetorical strategies, is that even by offering comfort to an individual for a short amount...
Being stuck in the same routine of her day-to-day living can be a prison. By sharing that day with someone, even if it is just hearing or being seen, it gives Winnie a reason to go on and “to be”. Winnie articulates the feeling of disappearing in a blink of an eye by stating “Strange feeling that someone is looking at me.
Laura, our fragile daughter-figure, finds herself escaping life at every turn. She induces sickness in her typing class and even as the Gentleman Caller awaits her in the livingroom. Unable to deal with those difficulties, Laura goes to the zoo and walks aimlessly around the city to waste time. Frightened of interacting with people, she looks to her collection of glass animals as a place of secure acceptance. Laura clings to the fear that she is strange and crippled though she herself exacerbates the reality of that. Magnifying ...
Each girl has been struggling with their own issues and looks to put their anger towards Maggie, even though they don't ever join, something inside of them wanted to. Maggie needed help and wasn't able to help herself because she was silent. Their mothers couldn't help themselves either, for different reasons. Both of the girls were lonely, scared, and abandoned and wanted to punish their mothers for not being there for them and this reflects the Maggie incident. Twyla relates Maggie to her mother when she says, "Maggie was my dancing mother." "Deaf, I thought, and dumb." (Morrison 212) Roberta relates Maggie to her mother by saying, "I thought she was crazy." "She'd been brought up in an institution like my mother was and like I thought I would be." (Morrison 213) Both are agitated and the fact they are in a similar situation and reminiscing about their mothers when they see Maggie, making them want to join and never speaking up to protect her because they weren't ever protected
... plausible that Maggie was not a disappointment. Having suffered a terrible maternal rejection, Maggie, like by an unsatisfied desire for attachment. Maggie transfers to Tom much of the need to feel acceptance. Later she returns to this relationship,
Perhaps the first glance of independence adolescents receive is when they obtain a driver’s license, get a job, or head off to college. Like the daughter in the poem, this is an exciting and transformative time in the individual’s life. For the parents, however, regardless of how much preparation they’ve done or how many times they’ve guided their daughter on her bike through the curves on the path, there’s always this fear of the unexpected turns.This fear comes with letting go and allowing the daughter to fall on her own if the path becomes tricky. Pastan tries to incorporate the elements of the hardship and difficulties that arise from finding independence. The diction that the poet utilizes allows the reader to interpret the poem in distinct ways. The word choice is simple, yet, the meaning digs deeper than a girl riding her bicycle on an afternoon with her parents watching. The style also allows the reader to focus on how the girl is evolving and transitioning into a stage where she is being introduced to independence. Finally, Pastan’s use of imagery is a key component in the poem that enables the reader to visualize that events transcending. These three elements effectively work in unison to reveal a pertinent theme and is a glimpse at the reality of independence and the difficulties of leaving and letting