How Maggie Is Maggie : A Girl Of The Streets?

Crane’s approach to writing about the war was fresh because, of the fact that we were basically inside the heads of one of the soldiers(henry). We could feel how he felt and we knew his fears. Besides that Crane was blunt about how disorganized the war was.

Stephen Crane was born on November 1st, 1871. He wrote several books such as Maggie and Georges Mother, but The Red Badge of Courage was by far his best work and biggest seller. In 1900 he became ill and was nearly broke so he couldn’t afford his multiple health treatments. On June 5th, 1900 he died and left his belongings to Cora Taylor, a close friend.

This lack of personal perspective in no way serves to hamper Crane’s staggering ability to paint prosaically and then, heroically beyond question, transform his own mighty pen into a proverbial sword. The author explains it best: “When I regularly read first-person accounts from soldiers serving in the Civil War, I often wondered how they felt. Their writing leaves them (and me) as emotionless as

During Crane’s time in New York he wrote pieces for the “New York Tribune.” He also wrote his first novel entitled Maggie. In 1894 Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage, which became cranes most famous novel (285). Stephen Crane survived the ship wreck of Commodore which permanently impaired his health, in 1897 (285). This event is what led Crane to write “The Open Boat.” Three years later on June 5th, 1900 crane died at a sanitarium in Badeweiler, Germany (285).

Stephen Crane wrote during the Romantic era in when there was a literary and intellectual movement concentrating on a more idealistic theme. In his novel, The Red Badge of Courage

Some Background information you should know about Stephen Crane. Crane was born in Newark in New Jersey on November 1, 1871. He lived into New York for a while to work as a newspaper writer, that inspired him to write his first novel "Maggie: A Girl of the streets". Living in New York, Crane struggled trying to make sketches and articles and feature them to New York newspapers. He first enrolled in Pennington Seminary then after other schools he went to Syracuse University. Some of Stephen crane's great accomplishments. Crane accomplished getting his poems and short stories published. Crane got his first novel published in late February or early March 1893. He wrote his first well known

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a novella written in 1893 by Stephen Crane, focuses on a poverty stricken family living in the Bowery district of New York City. This novella is regarded as one of the first works of naturalism in American literature and it helped shape the naturalistic principle that a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one’s biological heredity and the circumstances that the characters find themselves in will dominate their behavior and deprive them of individual responsibility. Throughout the story, the primary goal of the main characters is to escape the lives they lead and to find more comfortable lives away from their current problems, which differs from the romantic ideal that the main characters usually turn inwards to solve their problems.

People tend to be greatly influenced by stories, news, and other contemporary sources of knowledge, which ultimately affects the impact they have on the world. Stephen Crane was greatly impacted by the time period in which he lived. One such influence was the popular literary style of Realism. Realism is the trend in which literature is based on the true nature of everyday occurrences devoid of any fantasy or romance. It is the raw depiction of what life and society is actually like. This literary style can be found in many of Stephen Crane’s novels. Religion also had a significant impact on the way Stephen Crane wrote his novels. He was an atheist which brought about the idea that humans are just part of nature and must solve their own problems without the intervention of a higher being. This notion is evident with the protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage. Henry Fleming, a young union soldier in the Civil War, must overcome the fear of putting his life at risk to achieve what he wants most which is honor. Honor comes from actively participating in battle and sacrificing his life for the cause. Honor is physically represented from a wound noted as the “Red Badge”. In the end Henry doesn’t consult in a higher being and achieves what he wants most by overcoming the mental obstacles and ultimately finding the strength within to realize what courage actually is. Accompanied by the literary movements and his religion, his time period was heavily influenced by the

The Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephan Crane in 1895 gives a detailed, yet, fictional account of Henry Fleming, a farm boy who joins the Union Army in the American Civil War. Before Henry is battle-tested, he ponders his courage and questions whether he will be able to fight the urge to flee from battle. Henry does indeed end up deserting his comrades however he ultimately overcomes his guilt and becomes one of the best fighters in his regiment. In order to depict a realistic and relatable war scene, Crane includes Henry’s realistic thought-process and emotion in his struggles to maintain courage. The narrative simply revealed war in a manner that was divergent to all prior forms of literature in the 19th century. Previous novels predominately entailed the glorious and romantic aspects of war rather than the tedious, gritty, and gruesome details of close combat. Instead, Crane broke the barriers of literary norms in war-related literature; the novel depicted a pragmatic experience of combat from the eyes of an inexperienced and frightened youth. In the Red Badge of Courage, Stephan Crane primarily uses religious and gory imagery as well as symbolism to contrast the romantic conceptions of war versus the reality of experiencing battle.

The novel, Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets, by Stephen Crane, takes place in the slums of New York City during the 1890’s. It is about a girl, Maggie Johnson, who is forced to grow up in a tenement house. She had a brother, Jimmie, an abusive mother, Mary, and a father who died when Maggie was young. When Maggie grew up, she met her boyfriend, Pete. In Maggie’s eyes, Pete was a sophisticated young man who impressed Maggie because he treated her better than she had been treated to all of her life. Once Maggie’s mother and brother found out that Maggie was sleeping with this man, Mary threw Maggie out into the streets, condemning her to a life of evil. Eventually, Pete decided he no longer wished to see Maggie.

Crane’s literary skills were also influenced from a very early age; his brother was a newspaper columnist who lived with him at home during his youth (Szumski 14). Similarly, his parents were “educated and civic minded, used to making persuasive speeches, admirers and cultivators of the spoken word” (Szumski 14). Even while being raised in an environment with such high moral expectations, Crane soon displayed signs of independence. He dropped out of Methodist boarding school to attend a military academy, where he developed an interest for “poker and baseball,” according to colleague Harvey Wickham (Szumski 14). Following a life path deviating more and more from his family’s traditionalist beliefs of faith and purity, it is clear that through these factors Crane would hone his literary skills to combat traditional norms.

Stephen Crane wrote many short stories, one of which was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. His stories contained various aspects of Naturalism, a literary movement that sought to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Poverty, abuse and a survival of the fittest way of life created an environment which Maggie was negatively influenced by. Her environment is made up of many circumstances that affect her, one of which is poverty.

Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey on November 1st, 1871 to Jonathan and Mary Crane. Stephen Crane’s father was a minister and his mother was a writer and suffragist. After his father died when he was nine years old, his family continually moved around until his mother later sent him to college. He first attended Claverack College, a military school, then transferred to Lafayette University but later flunked out. For a time Crane attended Syracuse University in New York but he never received his degree. Later Crane began to work for the New York Tribune as a writer and journalist and experienced the poverty of Bowery, a district of Manhattan, by becoming acquainted with other local artists and familiarizing with saloons and brothels. After submerging himself in an impoverished lifestyle, he used his experiences as inspiration to write Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a novel about a girl from Bowery who falls into misfortune and poverty. A few years later after publishing Red Band of Courage, Crane became a war correspondent and was sent to Cuba, but while sailing his ship wrecked and he was stranded at sea. Crane was inspired by the ordeal he faced and based his short story the “The Open Boat” on his experience. Finally, Crane met a woman in Greece, Cora Taylor, and amounted a sum of debt. In hopes to pay off his debt, Crane continued to write, but eventually became ill

Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets opening scene features violence, which is a taboo subject during the time period he wrote the piece; “His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head”(946). The three children experience abuse, both physical and emotional, from the mother and the father in the early chapters of this work. Stephen Crane states, [ Youse allus fightn’, Jimmie, an’yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an’ it’s like we’ll all get a poundin’ (949).] Furthermore, this abuse is evidenced by the following quote from Stephen Crane [The mother’s massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled(949).] Violence is a

In Stephen Crane’s book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets there are various themes, one of them is the impact of the social environment. The impact of social environment is how people are products of their own environment and people are who they grew up to be due to the conditions, people, and environment that surrounds them. The Bowery is 14 blocks and has 82 bars there that make alcohol very accessible to the residents, including children. The Bowery has a negative impact on people and even children that live there. The Bowery is a concrete jungle where only the strong survive. The living conditions are unquestionably poor and the tenements where they live is full of immigrants. The kids in the Bowery live with alcoholic and abusive parents, pregnant women who are not married, and finally prostitutes. Maggie, Jimmie, and Pete are all characters that deserve forgiveness due to Stephen Crane message, people are products of their own environment and deserve forgiveness.