How Maggie Is Maggie : A Girl Of The Streets?

If one is a fan of irony, then Stephen Crane's work is worth the read. He uses irony for real life situations to relate to his readers. In “War is Kind” Stephen Crane develops emotional connections with the readers by using irony to comfort the families. In “A Mystery of Heroism” he gives us the perspective of what being in the war is like. Stephen Crane uses irony in both “A Mystery of Heroism,” and “War is Kind” to prove that he is opposed to the war by developing emotion’s of the soldiers’ families, viewing the soldiers’ perspective, and using figurative language towards all the wrong parts of war.

The novel, Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets, by Stephen Crane, takes place in the slums of New York City during the 1890’s. It is about a girl, Maggie Johnson, who is forced to grow up in a tenement house. She had a brother, Jimmie, an abusive mother, Mary, and a father who died when Maggie was young. When Maggie grew up, she met her boyfriend, Pete. In Maggie’s eyes, Pete was a sophisticated young man who impressed Maggie because he treated her better than she had been treated to all of her life. Once Maggie’s mother and brother found out that Maggie was sleeping with this man, Mary threw Maggie out into the streets, condemning her to a life of evil. Eventually, Pete decided he no longer wished to see Maggie.

Stephen Crane was born on November 1st, 1871. He wrote several books such as Maggie and Georges Mother, but The Red Badge of Courage was by far his best work and biggest seller. In 1900 he became ill and was nearly broke so he couldn’t afford his multiple health treatments. On June 5th, 1900 he died and left his belongings to Cora Taylor, a close friend.

Crane’s approach to writing about the war was fresh because, of the fact that we were basically inside the heads of one of the soldiers(henry). We could feel how he felt and we knew his fears. Besides that Crane was blunt about how disorganized the war was.

During Crane’s time in New York he wrote pieces for the “New York Tribune.” He also wrote his first novel entitled Maggie. In 1894 Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage, which became cranes most famous novel (285). Stephen Crane survived the ship wreck of Commodore which permanently impaired his health, in 1897 (285). This event is what led Crane to write “The Open Boat.” Three years later on June 5th, 1900 crane died at a sanitarium in Badeweiler, Germany (285).

This lack of personal perspective in no way serves to hamper Crane’s staggering ability to paint prosaically and then, heroically beyond question, transform his own mighty pen into a proverbial sword. The author explains it best: “When I regularly read first-person accounts from soldiers serving in the Civil War, I often wondered how they felt. Their writing leaves them (and me) as emotionless as

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a novella written in 1893 by Stephen Crane, focuses on a poverty stricken family living in the Bowery district of New York City. This novella is regarded as one of the first works of naturalism in American literature and it helped shape the naturalistic principle that a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one’s biological heredity and the circumstances that the characters find themselves in will dominate their behavior and deprive them of individual responsibility. Throughout the story, the primary goal of the main characters is to escape the lives they lead and to find more comfortable lives away from their current problems, which differs from the romantic ideal that the main characters usually turn inwards to solve their problems.

Being known for writing what he saw and experienced gave Crane his recognition in his book “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” was said to be a very brutal story of a prostitute that lived on the streets. Crane’s eye for detail gives “A Dark Brown Dog” full life; that this was just a short story based off of what he experienced while living on the street. He wrote about the life of a little boy that he watched and the tragedy that the boy had to deal with in

People tend to be greatly influenced by stories, news, and other contemporary sources of knowledge, which ultimately affects the impact they have on the world. Stephen Crane was greatly impacted by the time period in which he lived. One such influence was the popular literary style of Realism. Realism is the trend in which literature is based on the true nature of everyday occurrences devoid of any fantasy or romance. It is the raw depiction of what life and society is actually like. This literary style can be found in many of Stephen Crane’s novels. Religion also had a significant impact on the way Stephen Crane wrote his novels. He was an atheist which brought about the idea that humans are just part of nature and must solve their own problems without the intervention of a higher being. This notion is evident with the protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage. Henry Fleming, a young union soldier in the Civil War, must overcome the fear of putting his life at risk to achieve what he wants most which is honor. Honor comes from actively participating in battle and sacrificing his life for the cause. Honor is physically represented from a wound noted as the “Red Badge”. In the end Henry doesn’t consult in a higher being and achieves what he wants most by overcoming the mental obstacles and ultimately finding the strength within to realize what courage actually is. Accompanied by the literary movements and his religion, his time period was heavily influenced by the

The Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephan Crane in 1895 gives a detailed, yet, fictional account of Henry Fleming, a farm boy who joins the Union Army in the American Civil War. Before Henry is battle-tested, he ponders his courage and questions whether he will be able to fight the urge to flee from battle. Henry does indeed end up deserting his comrades however he ultimately overcomes his guilt and becomes one of the best fighters in his regiment. In order to depict a realistic and relatable war scene, Crane includes Henry’s realistic thought-process and emotion in his struggles to maintain courage. The narrative simply revealed war in a manner that was divergent to all prior forms of literature in the 19th century. Previous novels predominately entailed the glorious and romantic aspects of war rather than the tedious, gritty, and gruesome details of close combat. Instead, Crane broke the barriers of literary norms in war-related literature; the novel depicted a pragmatic experience of combat from the eyes of an inexperienced and frightened youth. In the Red Badge of Courage, Stephan Crane primarily uses religious and gory imagery as well as symbolism to contrast the romantic conceptions of war versus the reality of experiencing battle.

Crane’s “Maggie: A Girl in the Streets” is a story of unyielding realism. The story follows Maggie, a girl who resides within the Bowery with her physically and emotionally abusive parents and brothers, Jimmy and Tommie. The story focuses on the life and struggles of Maggie and her family within the slums. Maggie desperately tries to escape the life within the Bowery, but eventually succumbs to it and passes away a broken woman.

Stephen Crane wrote many short stories, one of which was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. His stories contained various aspects of Naturalism, a literary movement that sought to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Poverty, abuse and a survival of the fittest way of life created an environment which Maggie was negatively influenced by. Her environment is made up of many circumstances that affect her, one of which is poverty.

Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets opening scene features violence, which is a taboo subject during the time period he wrote the piece; “His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head”(946). The three children experience abuse, both physical and emotional, from the mother and the father in the early chapters of this work. Stephen Crane states, [ Youse allus fightn’, Jimmie, an’yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an’ it’s like we’ll all get a poundin’ (949).] Furthermore, this abuse is evidenced by the following quote from Stephen Crane [The mother’s massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled(949).] Violence is a

Stephen Crane was one of America’s most influential nineteenth century writers of realism. He was credited for being a novelist, short-story-writer, poet, and journalist. He was born on November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey, as Stephen Townley Crane. Stephen was the youngest sibling of fourteen children (“Stephen Crane Biography”). His writing inspiration came from his family. His mother dedicated her life to social concerns, while his father was a Methodist minister. Two of Crane’s brothers were journalists so it was destined for Stephen Crane to become a writer. His passion came from his parents and the insights from his family life. He attended preparatory school at Claverack College, where he developed a better concept of the Civil

In Stephen Crane’s book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets there are various themes, one of them is the impact of the social environment. The impact of social environment is how people are products of their own environment and people are who they grew up to be due to the conditions, people, and environment that surrounds them. The Bowery is 14 blocks and has 82 bars there that make alcohol very accessible to the residents, including children. The Bowery has a negative impact on people and even children that live there. The Bowery is a concrete jungle where only the strong survive. The living conditions are unquestionably poor and the tenements where they live is full of immigrants. The kids in the Bowery live with alcoholic and abusive parents, pregnant women who are not married, and finally prostitutes. Maggie, Jimmie, and Pete are all characters that deserve forgiveness due to Stephen Crane message, people are products of their own environment and deserve forgiveness.