Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a well-written novel by Stephen Crane, includes the tale of a young girl’s struggle throughout life in the dark tenements of New York and the ultimate fall to her death. Maggie Johnson spent her days with her original family of two brothers, a mother, and a father. As social Darwinism and natural selection would indicate, the family diminished after some of its weaker members passed on. Many different things had impact on the survival and success of these lives at this time, but literary critic Donald Pizer explained that in this society the environment of the setting had an overpowering effect on those living within it. Pizer labeled the slum dwelling where the story took place, otherwise known as the Bowery, as both a battlefield and a prison. The cave-like atmosphere of the apartment was dark, enclosed, and cold, which suggests that this place be enveloped in fear, fury, and anguish. Pizer believes that the most important feeling of these inhabitants was their respectability, and how they presented themselves in public. This was depicted repeatedly throughout the novel. One instance was when Jimmie, the older brother, was beating Maggie on the street. The only thing that their father had

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Pete proved to live his life in the same way that his working environment was depicted, righteous on the outside, but far from that underneath. Maggie held strong throughout most of the novel, and Pizer even stated how she was strangely untouched by her physical environment. Pizer includes how Mary was able to falsely judge and then quickly cast out Maggie without reason was a perfect example of a person would act in the Bowery world. After leaving Maggie, Pete soon realized how he had treated her and felt guilty about it.

Mary Johnson, Maggie’s mother, was an evil and dirty old woman, who only cared for two things. Pete was Maggie’s knight in shining armor, which was proven false to any other person that heard Pete speak. Pizer stated that this woman believed that she had an audience watching her parenting at all times, and that she had to make herself look virtuous. These ways by which Mary lived her life each day made up a large majority of the reasons that Maggie decided she could not live her life anymore. Although, behind the polished glass was unattractive, stained wood and metal. The combination of her mother casting her out of the house for disrespecting the family and Pete rejecting her for also threatening his respectability once others looked down on her, caused Maggie to collapse. Pete’s character was very similar to his working environment, the bar, where he spent most of his time. Pete’s personality was similar in a way that he seemed wonderful and charming, but when the relationship became inconvenient and troublesome for him, he backed out and hurt anyone in his way. Mary was only concerned with getting her pails of beer every month and with what her neighbors thought about her and her family. This was not only ironic,

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but also proved the point that Pete was captured and defeated by his environment, just as the other characters of the novel had been. Maggie was extremely innocent, and Pizer stated that her weakness only grew once she began

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realizing that her environment was overtaking her.

Approximate Word count = 1405
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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