The 's Maggie : A Girl Of The Streets

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.

Nancy Jo Cullen’s story “Hashtag Maggie Vandermeer” is about a middle-aged woman’s failed attempts to conform to the younger generation, her search for a job. Maggie Vandermeer’s inability to conform highlights the battle people from the older generation face as they are forced into alienation. Maggie Vandermeer is forced into alienation as she cannot use social media properly, and struggles to find a job because of it. Furthermore, Maggie’s interactions with Jasmine, her interviewer, as well as with the college girls at the park, demonstrate her inability to connect with people from the younger generation. Lastly, Maggie is further secluded from this society, as she can’t connect with her daughter, Lacey. Thus, Maggie Vandermeer is alienated

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

In The Red Parts: An Autobiography of a Trial, Maggie Nelson, the author tells the story about her aunt who was murdered in 1969 and how her family suffers through the reopening of the case. Maggie’s aunt, Jane Mixer, was found dead, shot in the back of the head twice, strangled, and then was left unceremoniously, abandoned in a cemetery. Because of the way Jane’s murder was presented, she was thought to be part of a killing spree. During the initial investigation, the police arrested a suspect in 1970 and he was sentenced to life in prison. In 2005 however, Maggie’s family got a call from a detective explaining that he might have a new lead in Jane’s murder and that the man that they originally arrested for it, was innocent after all. He had “every reason to believe [that] this case [was] moving swiftly towards a successful conclusion” (Nelson 1).

“His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths.” (Crane 1) The definition of countenance is a person’s face or facial expression. This particular quote establishes the emotional state of Jimmie. The little gangs that infiltrate the neighborhood cause chaos within the people and often lead to brutal fights and violence.

In the novel "Saints at the River" Ron Rash shows the reader that everyone should be at peace. Maggie a photographer gets chosen to go back to her childhood town to find out what happened with the 12 year old that drowned in the river. It has been ten years before Maggie's arrival she starts to recognize everyone in town, but later it gets awkward when she has to face her father because she does not get along with him. As things progress the town people come to a realization if it was all worth it when they lose randy one of the community divers. After reading the novel Maggie shows first her love, compassion and finally demonstrates forgiveness for her father.

It is crucial to first fully understand the character Maggie in “Everyday Use” and “Recitatif.” This will help the readers have knowledge of the characters so that they will have a first-hand grasp on the physical similarities of these characters. In both stories, Maggie is described as having a physical deformity. In “Everyday Use,” Maggie is described as having “burn scars down her arms and legs” (Walker 315). Mama still remembers how she carries out Maggie, badly burned out of their previous house. When Maggie showed herself wearing the pink skirt and red blouse later in the story, she is described by Mama as a “lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks” (Walker 316). The reader becomes aware that she

Grittiness play a key aspect in the story of Million Dollar Baby. It takes a person with authentic strength and the mindset to overcome and achieve some of the obstacles that are presented throughout this storyline. Maggie Fitzgerald and Frankie Dunn are the two main characters that make this movie intense and engaging. Although both characters are very gritty and have similarities, only one holds the title to be the grittiest. Maggie Fitzgerald is gritter than Frankie Dunn because she exemplifies the characteristics of fortitude, toughness, tenacity, and determination more so than Frankie.

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.

Mrs. Johnson must have biased Dee than Maggie. As the mother, she is willing to forgive and welcome her daughter even she didn’t return home such a long time. She talks about her daughter with all her proud. She imagines that one day by Dee’s succeed, they will appear in a TV show, and she will receive gratefulness from Dee. In her eyes, “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (418).

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.

Just like in the beginning of the novel the reader gets an understanding that Maggie isn’t the prettiest girl but she has some qualities that make her for who she is. Now that she started to go on more dates with Pete, she is staring to feel that insecurity towards the way she looks. She isn’t as fortunate as the rest of the girls Pete might know. In those times people had one well, clean outfit they would use to go out. The more Maggie and Pete went out the less she could impress him because she didn’t have money to spend on herself. Just like she didn’t have the best clothing, she also didn’t live in the best part of town either. In the novel she tries to clean up her home to again impress Pete, but knowing how furious her mother gets she

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.