The Role Of Realism In Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

Realism can be defined as one's attitude towards life in which one takes life for what it is and does not add any glamour to the subject but instead, finds the reality of things, those being good and bad. A realistic person tends to accept life and all of its gruesome facts for what they are and find some way to maneuver around them. Stephen Crane’s novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, is a story depicting scenarios that help best portrait the ideas of realism with great proficiency. These scenarios include scenes of hypocrisy, violence, and ultimate plan of life which is survival of the strongest. Stephen Crane is often depicted as a realist due to his truthful and gruesome outlook on the world which can be seen with great detail through the pages of this novel.

One of the realistically based themes found present in the novel is violence. This theme is shown to be abundant throughout the story starting from the opening scene. In the opening scene of the story, Jimmie is described as beaten and ragged due to the constant fighting between the two rival gangs of the neighborhoods Rum Alley and Devil’s Row. The next

episode of violence is when Jimmie’s father walks up on a fight between Jimmie and another boy and then kicks both of the boys to end the fighting. He then tells Jimmie that fighting in the streets will earn him a beating at home. Another example of violence present in the story is the often occurrence of the parents beating the children.
The next heavily apparent theme of the story is human hypocrisy.

This characteristic is shown throughout the novel. One character who embodies this characteristic is the mother, Mary, who shows this through her reactions and responses dealing with Maggie. In this, hypocrisy is present because Mary expects Maggie to be this good, well respectable lady when she, herself, has done nothing to set an example of this. Another example is when Jimmie shows hypocrisy by reacting with anger to the situation between Maggie and Pete even though he has often put several different girls in the same or similar situation as Pete has put Maggie in. Another occurrence of this theme being present is when the father tells Jimmy how he should not be fighting on the streets or with his sister while at the same time, the father is almost always fighting with

Mary.
Survival of the strongest is another significant theme present in this novel. This theme is important in the story because it is the basis of nature in which only those who are readily adept are able to move on and survive. When dealing with this topic, a character can be categorized as either a survivor or one who has fallen to their death. All of the characters featured in this novel are able to be placed in one of these two categories. Jimmy would be placed in the category of survivors because throughout the story, he manages to adapt and move forward with his life. The mother, Mary, would also be categorized as a survivor because she has been able to survive the longest. The main character Maggie however is unfortunate to not be listed as a survivor due to our inability to handle the full gravity of her situation to the point of which she commits suicide.
Seen throughout the novel, the realistic views of Stephen Crane are made noticed. Crane accomplishes this by portraying certain themes throughout the story such as violence, hypocrisy, and the theme of survival of the strongest. All of these themes are similar in their miserably honest portrayal of reality. By using these themes, Stephen Crane gives readers a different take on literature. He provides readers with a fictional world that is not based on the glamour of life, but instead, the cold reality of it. Stephen Crane is often described a realist for these reasons.
Themes such as violence, hypocrisy, and survival of the strongest, from the novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, serves as a great portrayal of Stephen Crane's realistic view of the world.