The abolishment of slavery, victory in two world wars, and over 500 cures for once fatal diseases-America credits itself with a massive amount of change and progression in the past century, yet our society remains, in at least one aspect, obstinately stunted. The image of premarital sex-a societal evil-remains the root cause of a gender gap that feeds feminine inequality and cuts short the growth of our liberty. Stephan Crane's novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, portrays our society's weakness in a harsh light that illuminates the injustice of Maggie's fall from grace resulting in her death. Stephan Crane pushes his readers to see the hypocrisy of the nineteenth century moral codes, which condemn illicit sexual conduct more fully than they condemn cruelty and rejection. True irony, that Crane himself may have foreseen, is that the same statement can be said about American society in the twenty- first century. Sexual hypocrisy confronts young women of today who are expected to abstain from sex regardless of the sexual images idolized in the media and peer-pressure pushed upon them by members of the opposite sex.
             By introducing the novel with physical violence, Crane reveals the dog-eat-dog mentality of the New York bowery. At an early age Jimmie as well as the other boys of Rum Alley acknowledge the fact that they live by simple ultimatums, such as beat or be beaten. Worse than this abuse Jimmie and Maggie confront on the street is the cruel hypocrisy reflected by their own parents. Both parents laminate over their inability "to beat any sense into [Jimmie's] damned wooden head" (Crane p. 7). Ironically the idea of punishing violence with more violence adheres to the common parenting practices of the poverty stricken district. Growing up in such a fearful environment, Maggie's self-esteem and confidence suffer. Children are dependant beings who are able to find little or no refuge outsi...