Loss Of Innocence In Maggie

Everyday, people of all ages lose their innocence and develop morally through their daily experiences. Children deal with mishaps on the playground, conflicts with friends and family, and trouble in school. Similarly, Adults deal with conflicts within their own families, problems at work, and the loss of a loved one. In each situation, the person is learning important lessons that impact the way a person thinks, acts, approaches situations, and treats others. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem loses his innocence and grows morally through his daily experiences in three stages of understanding in Maycomb, Alabama.

Maggie was so traumatized from her house burning down that she became a timid and under appreciated little girl. Maggie is so self conscious that her mom says she walks like a dog run over by a car: “chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.” This

Maggie Vandermeer dwells in a contemporary society where proficiency in regards to social media is a rather dominant feature, especially in her search for a job and as an attempt to conform. As Maggie is not familiar with such social media’s, especially in comparison to the younger generation, this renders Maggie somewhat of a misfit and continues her path of solitude, as she has no friends or a job. Although Maggie routinely uses her cell phone to text or tweet, she has not yet integrated herself to this contemporary society, as the younger generation is remarkably adept with social media. Moreover, Maggie isn’t conversant with the proper norms that belong to social media. For example, at the beginning of the story, Maggie is woken up by her daughter, Lacey Vandermeer, who sends her a text at 1:27 AM. Next, she begins to Twitter stalk Lacey’s page until she discovers Lacey’s presumed lover named Dane Davis, and begins to stalk him as well. Maggie also seems to prefer face to face interactions, rather than communication with some sort of social media. This preference differentiates her from the younger generation, as they tend to prefer communicating through social media. For example, When Lacey suggests how she does not need to come over, Maggie insists on the value of face to face interaction. “The point was to have a visit with you,” Maggie says (Cullen, 36). When Maggie attends her job interviews, the interviewers, who are of that younger generation, stress the

‘The Outsiders’ by S.E Hinton was written in the 1960’s, a time of rebels and outlaws. The novel follows the story of two rival gangs, the Socs and the Greasers. The Socs are rich and powerful but feel no emotion; they are cool to the point of not feeling anymore while the Greasers are in poverty and are often shunned by society,but they have a passion for life, the exact opposite of the Socs. The story also discusses the loss of innocence in the main character, Ponyboy Curtis, a young teen in the 1960’s. Throughout the story he is subjected to many forms of corruption to make him lose his childhood innocence and make him cold and hard. Hinton explains this message to us through the use of a poem by Robert Frost ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay ‘

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.

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles carries the theme of the inevitable loss of innocence throughout the entire novel. Several characters in the novel sustain both positive and negative changes, resulting from the change of the peaceful summer sessions at Devon to the reality of World War II. While some characters embrace their development through their loss of innocence, others are at war with themselves trying to preserve that innocence.

Student athletes in college are held to a higher standard than normal students since they are juggling a lot more in their lives. Student athletes have to set aside a lot of time for practice while still maintaining good grades and a social life. Some people believe that because of this demanding schedule that student athletes should be paid. Where on the other hand many believe that they shouldn’t since they choose to be on a sports team, this is a topic that is debated upon by many. One solution could be to lower the tuition for student athletes since they are offering their talents to the school. As long as the students stay on the team they will get some money off their college tuition every year.

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 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.

1) Define and describe the terms listed below in your own words and discuss their relationship to behavior:

Everyone is born into this world with a sense of innocence, completely oblivious to the cruelties of the world. However, as humans grow up and reach early- adulthood, they begin to realize the realities of this world, all that is real and all that is, in fact, a figment of the imagination. As people learn that it is truly impossible to stay hidden from the harsh realities of adulthood for their entire life, they also learn that it is impossible to shield others from these truths as well. They learn that although they may not be able to protect themselves from life’s misfortunes, they must perceiver, move forward, and not hold anyone back in their tracks. Just as all humans eventually learn to accept and move past life’s various misfortunes,

A child is known for having innocence, and bad experiences strip kids of it. In Sarah’s

In J.D.Salinger’s novel, Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield, the main character of the novel, is a walking paradox who desires to hold onto his innocence and ,in his mind, thinks that people who lose their innocence will either turn into a “phony” or a “jerk”. During his journey towards trying to preserve his innocence Holden affected his desire to hold on to his innocence through his action, such as his experience with a prostitute named Sunny, his interaction with Sunny shows him that most of the world of adults is just an illusion. Another person who affects Holden desire is his 10 year-old sister Phoebe Caulfield, his interaction with his sister phoebe shows how it’s ok to lose your innocence because with the loss of that innocence you

Loss of innocence is one of the major elements of The Catcher in the Rye that make the novel so renowned. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about an adolescent named Holden who wanders around New York City after being kicked out of a prestigious boarding school in eastern Pennsylvania. While learning more about himself and the adult world, he experiences alcohol, prostitution, and sexuality. Holden struggles with issues such as identity and maturity. Eventually, he realizes what it means to become an adult and accepts that maturity and development is inevitable. Holden suffers from a loss of innocence when

A central theme occurring in “Maggie” is naturalism, and within this specific story, no one escapes their environmental and biological destiny. Stephan Crane highlights the harsh effects of urbanization and industrialization occurring within the story. Maggie’s parents are represented as unfit guardians: Her parents are not only abusive, but also display alcoholic tendencies. Regardless of Jimmie and Maggie’s desire to break away from the miserable life within bowery, they find themselves unable to.