Maggie: A Narrative Fiction

I look at the wooden door opposite of me, I walked towards it and pulled the iron door handle and walked towards the dark abyss before me as I once again head out to challenge the

Have you ever noticed how some people just stand out from the crowd? Like the clouds in the sky and blades of grass, people are all different. “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker has a good example of an interesting, unique character. Maggie is a young girl who is not only physically but also mentally scarred. The way the burning house, her stuck-up sister, and society affects Maggie makes her different from everyone else.

“[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.

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.

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

Walking into the lounge room, David sat down on the couch, and refused Bill’s offer of refreshments. Sitting down next to him, Bill asked him, ‘Well, what is it then, David?’

comes walkin' out of the darkness - how am I supposed to know who he was?

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.

We sprinted through the door and seconds later the status smashed through the wall and kept after us. Running even faster we ran through the gold room as we passed I snatched up a small trinket of a sphinx. The jackal headed men once again smashing through the wall covered with doors I heard a deafening clatter as the spears scattered on the floor.

“Alex doesn’t have amnesia!” Kohta said. “I could’ve sworn that he flashed this angry look when I looked at him. Of course he remembers!”

The genuine appreciation of heritage and family is the focus of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”. Dee and Maggie’s characters are the vessels that Walker uses to demonstrate the difference between appreciating possessions for their usefulness as well as their personal significance and their contrasting value as a trendy, materialistic connection. There is a palpable difference between Maggie and Dee, both in physical appearance as well as in personality traits and their treatment of the personal artifacts that come into play within the story is very telling of this.

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.

Expose the incarnation Expose the concealed, biting force. I wish I could fade away But I've always been here You just couldn't find me.

He heard the voice in his head again. He still didn't know the language, but somehow he knew it was asking who he was.

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