Essay about Hypocrisy in Steven Crane’s Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

In the beginning of the novel, we learn about Johnny Cade - a quiet boy who is haunted by his past. A short time ago, Johnny was beaten senseless by a bunch

Someone once said, “Fake people are like pennies, two-faced and worthless.” In And Then There Were None, Emily’s character in one word can be described as a penny. First, the narrator remarks on her life before coming to the island and how this makes her arrogant. Secondly, Emily’s own actions make her out to be a hypocrite. Next, other characters in the book see her for who she really is. Finally, her act caused her to feel guilty near her end. Emily Brent pretended to be proper and perfect and relies on being a Christian to carry out this false front, but this gimmick led to her eventual admittance of guilt and to her death.

“[E]nvironment is a tremendous thing in the world, and frequently shapes lives regardless.” (“Although it’s origins…”) Stephen Crane was influenced to write his 1893 novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, as a result of his religious family, the secrecy to publish a novel that reveals the reality and impurity of the real world and from the impact of needy, urban landscapes that ended realism and began naturalism.

In the novel The Catcher In The Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield views his surroundings with hypocrisy and contempt in an attempt to avoid the corruption of adulthood. Holden places himself above the crowd because he believes everyone acts phony. In the process, Caulfield reveals his true problem: his refusal to change.

Maggie feels terribly unloved in her marriage with Brick. Because of her unfulfilling marriage with Brick, she seeks affection and attention with someone close to Brick. In addition, when Mae interrupts Maggie and Brick from conversing by talking about her own children and how adorable they are, Maggie says, “why did y’give dawgs names to all your kiddies... sounds like four dogs and a parrot”(29). Maggie has a grudge Mae because she has many children with Gooper. Maggie feels insecure about having children, so she mocks Mae and her offspring to reassure herself and make her self feel better. Margaret has a dreadful relationship with Brick and also with Mae and her kids.

There are two groups in this book, the lower income families on the east side called greasers and the higher income paid families who live on the West side of town called Socs. One night the protagonist, Ponyboy Curtis and friend Johnny Cade were making their way back from a movie, they decide to lay down and talk for a little bit before they go home. His older brother, Darry, is waiting when Pony walks in. They instantly start arguing and Darry smacks Ponyboy across the face. Ponyboy and Johnny runaway moments later and find themselves in a park with drunk Socs who attack Ponyboy. Ponyboy regains consciousness to find himself lying on the ground next to an Socs dead body. Johnny had stabbed a Soc in the back with his switchblade. They hang low at an abandon church for a long week. Then, Dally arrives to check up on them and takes them out to lunch. He

“Girl Unprotected”, by Laura Robinson, was published on May 11, 2008. In this essay, the author informs the reader about the dark side of hockey culture in Canada. Serious, formal, and objective tones are used throughout this essay in order to create a negative tone without using negative forms of diction. This technique is used so that the writing shows no bias, however, has the ability to sway the reader's opinion. In doing this, the author keeps an objective, unwavering stand on the issue yet plays with the reader's sense of pathos and ethos. Pathos and Ethos are used in the essay as successful forms of rhetoric. Robinson begins with a second person point of view, connecting with the reader and enticing them to continue reading. Although, as we move forward in the text, the author takes on an objective, the first-person point of view on the court cases later described. The essay takes on an inductive form of reasoning and argumentation. This is proven in the way that the author discusses the issues of a small town hockey team and moves forward to discuss the coaches and players of the much larger NHL organization.

Despite being looked at in a certain way, Women are being portrayed as “going exactly where their mothers and grandmothers have already ‘been’: into sexual bondage at the hands of a male ‘Friend’” (Christle 1). This is showing how even though women are changing the way society works, some people still want it to be the same. In the story Connie’s mom wanted Connie to be like her and her sister, just the average, not overly pretty looking lady. Some people think that “women have been silenced,” (Spelman and Lugones 574) but Connie had other ideas, she wanted to be different from them. She was constantly looking at herself in the mirror and thinking about what others were thinking about her. When she went out, she would always wear nice clothes that would get her noticed. Looking through a feminist lens one can conclude that Connie’s family sees women now as they always were.

The protagonist of the novel is Janie Mae Crawford. When the book starts Janie is a 16 year old girl anxious to be with a young man named Johnny Taylor. However Janie's grandma had other plans for her, she was determined to not let Janie become like her mother and also for her to be taken care of. As the story progresses Janie not only faces conflict with other people, but also within herself. This is shown where Janie is with Joe and he just became mayor when Joe says “Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home…She went home that night behind him feeling cold.”(Hurston 43) At this point of the story she feels belittled by Joe and she has no voice. Therefore she has an inner conflict with herself, though she feels something is not quite right she fights herself to basically end up a slave to Joe after he hits her. As she stays obedient to him, she constantly struggles to keep her anger in composing herself. Throughout the novel Janie has conflicts with herself in trying to find out who she really is.

The story ends with them happily talking about their mothers, and then the readers are left with a mysterious question, Roberta says, “What the hell happened to Maggie?” (Morrison 147).

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.

This happened as a result of the violence shown to her from Mary; she does not trust her mother. Her mother then proceeds to, later on in Maggie’s life, kick Maggie out of the apartment because she does not like Maggie’s boyfriend, Pete. Mary tells Maggie “Yeh’ve gone the deh devil, Mag Johnson, yehs knows yehs have gone the deh devil. Yer a disgrace the yer people, damn yeh. An’ now, git out an’ go ahn wid dat doe-faced jude of yours. Go the hell wid him, damn yeh, an’ good riddance. Go the hell an’ see how yeh likes it,” (27). This verbal abuse is something which Maggie has lived with all her life. This quote is the climax in Maggie’s life. The abuse from her mother pushes her out of the apartment and to her subsequent death. All of the abuse and violence influenced Maggie and caused her to have a messed up life.

After the Civil War, realism became a dominant form of writing in the United States, with writers attempting to write about everyday life. After realism came naturalism, a form of writing similar to realism, but with more pessimism. One of the reasons for this pessimism stems from free will and the question of whether people possess it or not. In realism, it is definitely true, while in naturalism it seems less so, but the options are often less than ideal. Because choices do exist for characters, free will is still there, which indicates that naturalism is a derivative form of realism. In Stephen Crane’s “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,” the characters may have little chance to escape the world they inhabit, like Maggie, Jimmie, and

Maggie, the youngest daughter, saw herself as a shy, introverted youthful woman. She had scars mentally and physically from when their house had burned down some years before, and she is very ashamed of them. Once Dee and her

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