Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

Life is a serious of events. Each person comes and goes from one activity to another, a run to the Starbucks on the corner for a morning brew or the boarding of the evening commute back home. In the genre of realism, these every-day monstrosities are explored. This concept, combined with the “scientific principles of objectivity and detachment” (Campbell), creates the style of naturalism in literature. Through his detailed usage of realism, the author Stephen Crane is often portrayed as one of the leading founders of naturalism in American literature. Having been raised in a religious family during the rise of Darwinist ideals, Crane uses the trends of the times and the world around him to create works that are celebrated by critics as some

of the most significant examples of naturalism in literature.
All great writers have a humble beginning. Born on November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey, Stephen Townley Crane would be the last of the fourteen children of Mary Helen Peck Crane and Reverend Jonathan Townley Crane. Crane’s mother, Mary, was “a devout woman dedicated to social concerns” while his father, Reverend Jonathan, was a Methodist Episcopal minister (“Stephen Crane Biography”). Crane grew up amidst a flock of writers as both of his parents wrote religious articles and two of his brothers were journalists (“Stephen Crane”). Due to his father’s profession as a pastor, the family relocated often. This, combined with poor health the eventual death of his father in 1880, held Crane back from attending school until the age of eight (Cavanaugh).
Crane’s education took root in Pennington Seminary, where his mother sent him as she grew weary of his spiritual welfare, “in the hope that he would receive a solid academic background and would simultaneously grow closer to the Church” (Stephen Crane”). After his father’s death, Crane had begun to stray from the Methodist religion. This greatly concerned his mother, who was so enamored with it. After giving it a go, however, Crane decided the religious side of education was not for him. He enrolled and attended the Hudson River Institute and Claverack College in 1888. Here, at the military school, “he nurtured his interest in Civil War studies and military training” (Stephen Crane”). While attending to this interest, Crane also took to his passion for writing, working as a freelance writer under his brother at a news service. In terms of college, Crane attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and then Syracuse University, New York. While he did not graduate from either institution, it is said that he began the rough outline of his first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, while still at Syracuse University.
In 1891, upon determining that “humanity was a more interesting study than the college curriculum”, Crane quit school (“Stephen crane”). He transferred into full time work under his brother as a reporter as well as working part time for the New York Tribune. Here, he lived with “a group of medical students and frequently dressed in tattered clothes to better facilitate his explorations of tenement life in the Bowery” (Cavanaugh). Two years after this change, while virtually unable to support himself, Crane privately published his first novella, Maggie, under a penname, Johnston Smith (“Stephen Crane Biography”). Because the novella depicted the harsh conditions of the slums, Maggie was initially rejected by several publishers who thought the explicit content might offend and shock readers.
Though the book failed to sell well, the story was a critical success in Crane’s life. (“Stephen Crane Is Born”). This accomplishment preceded some of the most creative and fruitful years of his writing career even though the work “was almost universally ignored by critics upon release” (Cavanaugh). Through the influence of Darwinist ideas, “critics suggest that the novel was a major development in American literary Naturalism” as it proposes Crane’s view that likens life to warfare (“Stephen Crane”). As Darwinism had begun its uprise during his lifetime, many Darwinist thoughts are reflected in Crane’s writing such as this.
In both his novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, and his second novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Crane portrays humans as helpless under the control of senseless forces.

Unlike so much literature preceding Crane’s work, his writings insist “that we live in a universe of vast and indifferent natural forces, not in a world of divine providence or a certain moral order” (Vanouse). His second novella, Red Badge of Courage, did immensely better in the public reception. This story of a young war soldier became “renowned for its perceived authenticity and realistic depictions of violent conflict”, even though Crane had never been in military combat upon its publication (Stephen Crane Biography”). He simply created the vivid images expressed in his novella through extensive research. This work, published abridged in newspapers in 1894, is often likened to an Impressionistic painting due to “his episodic narrative structure and his consistent use of color imagery” while others argue that it is solely symbolic imagery (“Stephen Crane”). With either view, however, the work is a great tribute to the genre of naturalism as it studies “human beings governed by their instincts and passions” while applying the scientific principles of objectivity and detachment (Campbell). Crane, a founding father of naturalism, discovers “the extraordinary and excessiveness in human nature” through the tragedy of war

(Campbell).
After this breakthrough in his writing career, Crane decided to pursue a new endeavor, poetry. He had a collection of poems published in 1895 entitled The Black Riders, and Other Lines. This little-known volume displayed the more realist side of Crane’s writing style with many examples of vivid imagery. As he focused on poetry, Crane continued “to work as a journalist, traveling throughout the American West and Mexico for a news syndicate” (“Stephen Crane”). Through these travels, he gathered inspiration that he would later use for his fictional works. Upon his return to New York, Crane wrote The Third Violet. This story of “bohemian life among the poor artists of New York” is considered the start of the downward slope in Crane’s published career because it was so poorly received by the masses (“Stephen Crane”).
Crane met Cora Taylor, the owner of a combined hotel, nightclub, and brothel, in 1897. Upon becoming a common-law married couple, the two moved to England where Crane began to make literary connections, such as Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Henry James. Soon after, however, Crane moved back to Cuba at the start of the Spanish-American war. Though he attempted to join the Navy, Crane failed the physical requirements and instead “traveled with the Marines and reported on his experiences with them” (Cavanaugh). During this time, his health began to quickly deteriorate and therefore, because money was so tight to begin with, the couple had to move to “a dilapidated Sussex home that lacked basic conveniences, such as plumbing” (Cavanaugh). Under these miserable circumstances, Crane died of tuberculosis on June 5, 1900.
Throughout all of his writing, Stephen Crane uses the influences of his family, the times, and the world around him to create works that critics reference as the first examples of naturalism. With his beginnings in the Methodist church, Crane moved from one school to another with graduating. However, he excelled in his writing career with the publication of his novella, The Red Badge of Courage. In this work, Crane exhibits the laws behind the forces that govern human lives through the literary style of naturalism.