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Selfishness and Poverty, A Life Full of Fulfillment

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In the Book “Maggie: A Girl of The Streets”, (“the tale of a pretty young slum girl driven to brutal excesses by poverty and loneliness,” (Lo)) Stephen Crane depicts selfishness in humanity by showing how living in a poor, poverty stricken, urban area can reduce people to their basic natural instincts by showing how they destroy their chances of progressing foreword, and using brutal tactics, such as selfishness and aggression to survive. He also uses Imagery to show how the filth of the streets that occupies Rum Alley (”An aptly named area where life is centered on working, drinking, and fighting” (dlschirf).) is like an echo of the bowery in which there house is also mentioned to reflect.
In the book, Maggie, Stephan Crane shows the inability for humanity to move forward when stuck in the bowery’s of the poor by showing how when the main character of Crane’s book, Maggie, cleans up the home’s floor and walls, her family ultimately destroys it and when she puts the furniture together again she comes back to find it all broken. So she tries to go out and create a life for herself by working in a cuff factory, “she got a position where they made collars and cuffs” (Crane, Pg.17) but violence and anger destroys her chances, just like her mother destroys the furniture that Maggie keeps putting back together. “When Maggie came home at half-past six her mother lay asleep amidst the wreck of chairs and a table” (Crane, Pg. 21) It is inferred that her mother destroys her chances
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