Maggie: a girl of the streets

Maggie: A Girl Surrounded by Hypocrites

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane is essentially a story about hypocrisy and judgment. Maggie is the only character in the story that does not judge people morally for things that they themselves are doing. Virtually every character in the novel is guilty of judging Maggie's supposedly immoral behaviors when their own behaviors are far worse.

Maggie's is the novel's protagonist. Her character is a paradox because she has been raised in squalor by abusive, drunken parents, yet she still manages to have hope and bring a small ray of sunshine into the dark, dismal setting of her home. Her brother Jimmie on the other hand is not able to see the proverbial silver lining in the clouds the way his sister is, and lets his miserable family life corrupt his personality and his outlook early on. Maggie's entire family is a dysfunctional mess, yet they have the gall to judge her and call her immoral because she moves in with Pete without being married to him. Her own mother tells her, "Yeh've gone t' d' devil, Mag Johnson, yehs knows yehs gone t' d' devil. Yer a disgrace t' yer people" (p. 77)

That is the epitome of hypocrisy because the choices Maggie has made are not hurting anyone else, while the choices her mother and the other members of the family have made have hurt numerous people, both loved ones and strangers. While all of the characters other than Maggie are hypocrites, her mother Mary is the worst hypocrite of all because she is the one who is supposed to love and nurture her children, and if they have turned out 'badly', she has no one to blame but herself.

So many people have treated Maggie poorly that it is no wonder she ends up becoming a prostitute and dying by the end of the novel. When Pete betrayed her by leaving her for Nellie, that was when Maggie could no longer continue to tell herself (and believe herself) that things were going to get better. Her judgmental, hypocritical family would not take her back in after she left Pete's home and she basically had no choice but to feel completely abandoned and alone.