Naturalism in Maggie: A Girl

¶ … Naturalism in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane illustrates how the environment and circumstances out of our control shape our lives on a daily basis. Certain aspects of Maggie's environment are working against her throughout the entire novel, leaving her to react in the only ways that she knows how in order to survive. Survival is the key to understanding Maggie's plight and Crane's message. From a naturalistic point of reference, Maggie can be held only partially responsible for her actions because she is responding to her immediate environment. Maggie is what we call a victim of circumstance because she has no control over where she is born, she has no control over her socio-economic status, and she has no control of those in her immediate life. Circumstance becomes the primary factor in determining Maggie's fate, as her decisions are merely reactionary to her surroundings.

Maggie's life is a constant struggle against the various elements in her environment. From the very beginning of the novel, we see what Maggie witnesses every day as part of her normal routine. Young boys fighting in the streets provide us with the appearance that violence is acceptable behavior. When Jimmie and hi father enter the building, we are told that infants "fought with other infants" (5) and women "leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels" (5). While the outside of the home seems reckless, the inside of the home is not much better. Maggie suffers from abuse from her own brother who hits her. These opening scenes prepare us for the environment that Maggie was born into and the life she is destined to live. This world is one in which has been placed and it is one in which she has no control. Her means of survival becomes how she responds to the violence and abuse she encounters on a daily basis.

Maggie's choices are made as the result of something that happens to her. She never makes a decision without being forced to make it either by some act of violence or other negative experience. While she attempts to turn her life around with Pete, we see that she can only get so far because she allows herself to become dependent upon him. While things look positive for a while, hope vanishes when Pete ends the relationship and Maggie is once again forced to do something as a reaction to a bad experience rather than make a choice in response to the good things that are happening in her life. Maggie's life ends with a dark message about life and how some individuals will never escape their harsh environment and they will either fight to survive or die from exhaustion.