Stephen Crane published his first novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets in March 1893 on his own expenses under the pseudonym "Johnston Smith". As a young author "who was yet to find a public he was cautious about immediately identifying himself with a work that he himself regarded as shocking" (Ziff x) because it tried "to show that environment is a tremendous thing [...] and frequently shapes lives regardless" (Sorrentino 82).
That Maggie is one of the major works to criticize the environment of late 19th century New York City becomes obvious when the reader notices that the protagonist Maggie does neither occur in the first, nor in the last chapter of the novella.
Looking more closely at the word "environment" itself one can observe that the term is ambiguous. On the surface the term seems to describe the external living conditions, namely where and under which circumstances the characters live. But it is not the life in the Bowery and the tenements Stephen Crane is referring to since Maggie does not die of starvation or diseases, but of the mental influences, such as the Church and the theater that constantly affect the people. Exactly this environment, Jacob Riis argues, "is indeed a ’tremendous thing in the world’ and it frequently shapes the lives of children who grow up in it" (LaFrance 42).
Nevertheless, the external living conditions determine the way people are and act. "Crane depicts the influence the city exerts upon the perception of reality of its inhabitants, and this perception differs very much already from one member of the Johnson family to the other" (Schaetzle 19). This is the reason for me to argue that the bad circumstances in the Bowery of New York City contribute to the decay of the moral values and shape lives, as well. The very title of the 1893 version illustrates that the city is also an important factor in
the novella: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York). [...]
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Topography of New York City around 1890
3 Living conditions in New York City
3.1 The Bowery
3.2 The Tenements
4 Mental influences
4.1 The Media
4.2 The Church
4.3 Maggie’s Family
4.4 Maggie’s Path of Life
5 Conclusion
Research Objectives and Themes
This paper examines how the environment—comprising both physical living conditions and influential social institutions—shapes the life and eventual downfall of the protagonist Maggie in Stephen Crane's novella "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets". The study aims to demonstrate that Maggie's tragedy is a result of a deterministic interaction between her harsh urban surroundings and the hypocrisy of the moral standards imposed upon her.
- The impact of New York City's topography and urban development in the late 19th century.
- The role of physical living environments, specifically the Bowery and the tenement housing system.
- The influence of social and cultural institutions such as the Church and the theater.
- The portrayal of middle-class moral values and their destructive effect on the urban poor.
- The naturalistic perspective on individual fate determined by environment and heredity.
Excerpt from the Book
3.1 The Bowery
The place, the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is set in, derives its name from the Dutch word bowerij and means "farm". During the 17th century, it was a farming area north of the city, whose governor was Peter Stuyvesant. It remained on the outer fringe of the city until about 1800. At that time, the Bowery was a very fashionable place and well known for its entertainment program. The streets were full with taverns, oyster bars, minstrels and theaters. It even housed the largest auditorium on the continent: The Great Bowery Theater.
After the Civil War, the Bowery had to compete with Broadway and Fifth Avenue as new addresses and so, it was more and more associated with cheap entertainment. When the new elevated line was placed over 3rd Avenue, the once so popular boulevard was doomed. The pedestrians were showered with oil and coal and from then on avoided the street and went along Broadway. This event, and the great number of immigrants from Europe and Asia, who could not find enough room to live in, made the Bowery the place like we encounter it in Crane’s story:
[A] dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and gutter. [...] 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. [...] A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about it in its bowels. (Crane 7).
These first few lines give the reader a short glance at how people used to live at the end of the 19th century. It is a dark place with children playing in the dirt. It does not smell very pleasant and the reader can only hear from reading the lines the creaking and noisiness of the place. But there is more to the Bowery.
Summary of Chapters
1 Introduction: This chapter provides an overview of Stephen Crane’s work and defines the central argument regarding how the environment shapes lives.
2 Topography of New York City around 1890: This section explores the urban geography of late 19th-century New York and its role as a setting that influences the characters.
3 Living conditions in New York City: This chapter analyzes the physical harshness of life in the Bowery and the overcrowded tenements.
4 Mental influences: This chapter examines the ideological and institutional factors, such as the Church and the theater, that dictate the moral lives of the characters.
5 Conclusion: The final section synthesizes the analysis, confirming that the combination of social environment and moral hypocrisy leads to Maggie's demise.
Keywords
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Naturalism, New York City, Bowery, Tenements, Determinism, Environment, Heredity, Social Morality, Poverty, Hypocrisy, Urbanization, Moral Decay, Prostitution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core subject of this academic paper?
The paper explores how the environment, encompassing both the physical living conditions of the Bowery and the social/mental influences of institutions, determines the life and fate of the protagonist in Stephen Crane's novella.
What are the central themes addressed in the work?
The main themes include urban poverty, the role of naturalism in literature, the destructive power of rigid middle-class moral standards, and the influence of social institutions like the Church and the theater on the poor.
What is the primary research goal?
The goal is to analyze the "environment" as a "tremendous thing" that shapes the characters, specifically arguing that Maggie is driven to her death by the interplay of her harsh reality and the false ideals surrounding her.
Which scientific methodology is applied here?
The author uses a literary analysis approach, contextualizing the novella within the framework of 19th-century Naturalism and referencing historical and sociological sources on the living conditions of that era.
What topics are discussed in the main body?
The main body focuses on the topography of New York City, the material conditions of the tenements, and the mental determinants such as melodrama, religious hypocrisy, and family dynamics.
Which keywords define the scholarly focus?
Key terms include Naturalism, social determinism, urban environment, moral hypocrisy, and the Bowery district of 1890s New York.
How does the Church function as a "mental influence" in the story?
The author argues that the Church fails its mission by favoring social respectability and wealth over genuine benevolence, which eventually leads Maggie to feel abandoned in her crisis.
What role does the theater play in Maggie's downfall?
The theater provides Maggie with romanticized, unrealistic ideals of life, causing her to lose touch with her actual reality and leading her to hope for an escape that is impossible within her determined social class.
Why does the author classify the family's actions as hypocritical?
The family members, particularly the mother, apply middle-class virtues to judge Maggie while simultaneously embodying the very corruption and cruelty they claim to abhor, thus effectively isolating her.
- Quote paper
- Kim Vahnenbruck (Author), 2011, The Environment of Maggie in Crane's "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/172566
