Impact Of Social Environment In Maggie

As a child, Jeannette’s sense of wonder and curiosity in the world undermine the need for money. During her young adult years, a new wave of insecurity associated with her poor past infects her. Finally, as an experienced and aged woman, Jeannette finds joy and nostalgia in cherishing her poverty- stricken past. It must be noted that no story goes without a couple twists and turns, especiallydefinitely not Jeannette Walls’. The fact of the matter is that growing up in poverty effectively craftsed, and transformsed her into the person she becomeshas become. While statistics and research show that living in poverty can be detrimental to a child’s self-esteem, Jeannette Walls encourages children living in poverty to have ownership over their temporary situation, and never to feel inferior because of past or present socio-economic

Furthermore, this is about how she has been in poverty ever since she was a little girl, how it evolved her, and made her the type of person she is. Poverty: This starts off while Ms. Anne Moody was a little girl her father

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.

The author uses a seemingly endless cycle of poverty to emphasize the cage in which the characters are trapped. As Lizabeth muses over her childhood, she recalls the daily cycle of how “each morning our mother and father trudged wearily down the dirt road and around the bend, she to her domestic job, he to his daily unsuccessful quest for work.” (1). Every morning began the same way, passed the same way, and ended the same way. Lizabeth feels trapped, forced to go through the same series of events for what seems to be the rest of her life, with the same people, in the same place. When the author pairs this with the “dusty” setting of the town and the time placement of the Great Depression, it creates an effect of hopelessness for the first part of the story. This is only furthered by Lizabeth continually returning to the idea that “Poverty was the cage in which we were all trapped.” (1). Lizabeth opens the story by first giving a description of her hometown as “dusty”, remembering the poverty and hopelessness. She then continues by referring to the cage of not having enough money, and the cycle that it put them through, and ends by alluding to her future being limited to her poverty.

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.

Imagine: A young boy scavenges for food to provide for his impoverished family which was composed of his ill mother and starving siblings or a homeless, single mom desperatley seeking for shelter. These synopses from "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt and "The Street" by Ann Petry share a common theme: perseverance through hardships. In "Angela's Ashes," a memoir by Frank McCourt, he stells about the harships he endured through his childhood, such as, struggling to assist his family in the midst of poverty by stealing food to provide for them. Futhermore, in "The Street," a novel by Ann Petry, tells the story of young Lutie Johnson, a homeless single mom who is seeking shelter for herself and her children. In these two excerpts, the authors use the characters, settings, and events to develop the theme, which I've identified as perseverance through hardships.

In the opening stages of the novella, Maggie tries to escape her troubling life through her relationship with Pete. As Maggie grows up, she becomes a beautiful girl who hates her life in Rum Alley. She sees Pete as a savior who could lead her away from her poverty stricken life and bring her into the world of leisure because he introduces her to popular music, dances, and dramas, all of which seem extravagant to her. Maggie “begins to note the well-dressed women she meets. She [envies the women’s] elegance (11).” Most of the melodramas that Maggie watches with Pete show the American dream of a person going from rags to riches, which is a goal that she thinks Pete will help her in achieve.

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.

He seemed to be doing better than Maggie, and could provide a way to a better life. Pete showers attention upon Maggie, leading her to believe that he is genuinely interested in her. Sadly for Maggie, Pete is not what he seems to be. He works in a bar, and regales Jimmie and Maggie with tales of the fights he got into at his job (Crane 969). His attitude is one of fighting, and he’s proud of that fact, which a reader would be hesitant to trust. Even his shoes are described as “[looking] like murder-fitted weapons” (Crane 967), which seems to scream that he’s not a man that is going to do better. Maggie doesn’t realize this, though, when she must decide whether to go with him or stay home after the battle of her mother and brother. For her, it’s either a chance to remain the way she’s always been, or the possibility of improvement. She chooses Pete, which leads her to the downward spiral ending with prostitution and death. Maggie could have avoided this by saying no and staying home. Her life may not have led to grandeur, and instead meant a life in a terrible factory, full of monotony and unhappiness, but it would have kept her away from the awful place she ends in. Even if neither option was fabulous, she did have a choice.

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

In a short story by Katherine Mansfield called “The Doll’s House,” there is a social barrier between a family with less that is struggling to make ends meet and a flourishing family, that appears to not have any difficulties getting through life. The Kelvey family, whose hard-working mother makes the best of life that she can by crafting clothing from materials she can salvage from the wealthy clients’ houses she cleans. The Burnell family, who is getting through life with ease because of their position in the wealthy class, is the complete opposite in lifestyles. The short story “The Doll’s House” suggests society is unfair to the people with less and that possessions play a part in the deciding factor whether people will be your friend, but it only takes one person to break from the social expectations.

First, Lily Bart, the protagonist of the novel, is a product of her environment in that she has no real skills and can only live in the

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.