Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

In the early 1890s, a young Stephen Crane determinedly studied human behavior in the Bowery of New York correlated with the naturalist beliefs on which he wrote his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. This American literary movement called naturalism subsisted on the philosophy that heredity and environment pre-determine human fate. Elements of this ideology exist in Crane’s writing, perhaps due to the “survival of the fittest” atmosphere of the Gilded Age, which took place during the author’s lifetime. Also, Crane supplemented his realistic beliefs with the evolutionary principle of natural selection, which states that the fittest of a species adapts to changing conditions and survives. Crane made naturalism and the evolutionary principle of natural selection evident in Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by portraying the characters as subhuman, illustrating the strong overcoming the weak, and emphasizing Maggie’s inability to survive in the Bowery.

In a subtle undertone throughout the book, Crane aligned the

In the beginning of the tale, the author implies that Mary Johnson establishes dominance by murdering her husband after they engage in a physical brawl. Bland language describes the death of the youngest Johnson son, Tommie. Simply too young to survive until adulthood in a neglectful environment, “He went away…” These two situations early in the book juxtapose the consequences of physical strength with a lack thereof. Later, another physical fight between Mrs. Johnson and her son results in Jimmie as the victor, symbolically solidifying his place as head of household and most physically capable in the family. Finally, Crane unveils the mental strength of Nellie when she manipulates, robs, and abandons Pete in a bar. Within the theory of social Darwinism, or survival of the fittest, only the capable creatures will