Argumentative analysis of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Maggie

Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, though a fictional novel, offers one of the best glimpses of lower-class life in the late 19th century in urban America that one could expect to find. As a result, the novel helps demonstrate how desperate financial circumstances alone do not create the problems associated with poverty; instead, other environmental factors combine with the poverty create the desperation usually associated with poverty. Violence, alcohol abuse, ethnicity, gender, and religion all help shape the environment surrounding the characters in the novel, and contribute to the characterization of these people as lower-class, possibly in an even more significant manner than their actual economic status.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets tells the story of the Johnson family, Mary Johnson and her husband (unnamed in the novel), and their children Maggie, Jimmie, and Tommie. The novel opens with Jimmie, the middle child in the Johnson clan, in a street fight with a rival gang of children. Jimmie stands alone against them and is clearly outnumbered until he is rescued by Pete, a teenage acquaintance. The violence of Jimmie's street fight pales in comparison to the violence at home, where Mary Johnson terrifies her children after her husband slinks off to the bar to drink. The entire house seems tainted by poverty, except for Maggie, who possesses both physical beauty and a seemingly innocent and sweet spirit. For example, when her youngest brother Tommie dies in childhood, Maggie steals a flower for his coffin. Mr. Johnson also dies, leaving Jimmie and Maggie solely at the mercy of their mother Mary, a violent alcoholic. Maggie maintains her serenity, but Jimmie becomes increasingly aggressive and cynical. Pete returns to the bowery and takes a job as a bartender. Soon, Maggie and Pete begin dating, and, presumably, having sex. Mary accosts Maggie about the relationship, and Jimmie accosts Pete, accusing him of ruining Maggie. Maggie flees from the Johnson family home and goes to live with Pete. Mary and Jimmie react dramatically to Maggie's flight, turning her relationship with Pete into the local scandal. However, even with Pete, Maggie is not able to escape the hardness of her childhood. Nellie, whom the story leads one to believe is a prostitute, steals Pete from Maggie, leaving Maggie homeless and without a reputation. Maggie tries to return home, but Mary and Jimmie refuse to have her back. For a short period of time, Maggie finds refuge with a neighbor. Maggie also tries to get Pete back, but he refuses her.

Jimmie's behavior towards Maggie is especially egregious, since the novel reveals that Jimmie has seduced and abandoned at least one girl. Though Crane does not name Maggie as a prostitute, the story concludes with scenes of a lone prostitute, walking the streets of New York; with Pete being abandoned and robbed by Nellie, and with Jimmie giving Mary the news that Maggie's been found, dead.

The overall impression one gets when reading the novel is that of filth. It opens up with Jimmie fighting on top of a pile of gravel, which one knows must be filthy, and which the reader must automatically contrast to the areas where a child should play. Jimmie and his father return to their tenement, which Crane describes in a vivid manner, capturing filth in all of its details:

wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows. Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.

Their working conditions seem equally filthy. Jimmie eventually finds work as a teamster, driving a team of horses through the dirty streets of New York. Maggie finds work as a seamstress in a sweatshop. They can literally find no respite from the physical filth permeating their lives.

Nor can they find respite from the violence that permeates their lives. While the novel opens in a slightly mocking way, initially making light of Jimmie's skirmish with the other boys, it quickly becomes apparent that the boys intend to really hurt Jimmie. When Jimmie's father sees his child involved in the violence, he responds with violence and threats to get his son away from the altercation. They return to the family home where it is revealed that Jimmie is alternately loving and violent towards Maggie. The parents are violent towards each other, and towards the children. After Mr. Johnson dies, Jimmie begins to be violent towards his mother, and the implication is that her violent alcoholism demands a violent response. In addition, judging from the response of neighbors and other bystanders, it is clear that violence, whether as a participant or as an audience member, is also one of the only forms of recreation available in the bowery.

Alcohol use also permeates the story. Both Johnson parents are alcoholics and one sees the negative impact that alcohol abuse can have on people. However, alcohol seems to be the main focus of recreation in the Bowery. From Mr. Johnson to the kindly neighbor who offers Jimmie shelter in return for him purchasing beer for her, the lives there are consumed by the desire for drink. Pete, whom Maggie views as a hero, is a bartender. When Maggie is forced out of the family home, she and Pete are shown socializing in a series of progressively seedier bars.