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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page research paper that critically analyzes Stephen Crane's novel Maggie, a Girl of the Streets. The writer argues that Crane's principal theme suggests that Maggie's behavior is not entirely her fault, but rather results from her environment and social forces beyond her control. Bibliography lists 8 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khmag.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
writing that would come to characterize his style in later years. Cranes so-called "Bowery works" Maggie (1893) and Georges Mother (1896), along with the newspaper articles he authored and
other early sketches, indicate a tendency toward environmental determinism that threatened to invalidate the authenticity of human agency (Dooley 14; Golemba 235). In other words, the principal theme in Maggie
suggests that her behavior and her fate are not strictly Maggies fault, but rather the result of her environment and the social forces at work during this era, the
so-called "Gilded Age." Maggie, the novels protagonist, grows up amid abuse and poverty in the Bowery neighborhood of New York Citys Lower East Side. Her mother, Mary, is
a mean-spirited alcoholic, her brother Jimmie is brutish and cruel. But Maggie is a beautiful romantic who hopes for a better life than what she has known in her childhood.
As this suggests, within the framework of the social structure provided by the Bowery slum, Maggie is an anomaly. Initially, she is the physical and moral antithesis of her
immigrant mother (Irving 30). Maggie is presented as the "archetypal, melodramatic heroine," a role that entails "vulnerability and a kind of passivity" as well as the implication of "perfect" goodness
(Grimstead 174). Maggie appears to simply lack the environment in which she might have blossomed into the ideal of American womanhood. However, Maggie is a product of the Bowery
environment. With no references on which to make a value judgement, she is taken in by the machismo of a Bowery tough named Pete. His confidence and worldliness seem to
offer a promise of wealth and a better life. According to Crane, Maggies principal sin was not promiscuity but a severe lack of judgement in regards to character. With
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