Journal #11: Stephen Crane/Maggie

"Over the eternal collars and cuffs in the factory Maggie spent the most of three days in making imaginary sketches of Pete and his daily environment... She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure. He had friends, and people who were afraid of him."

The mere title of Stephen Crane's Maggie, suggests that the story is a sympathetic look at this female character. Much of the story, especially the beginning, doesn't even discuss her character directly, though. Instead, Crane carefully sculpts a masterpiece depiction of the bleak and colorless bubble that she lives in. He displays Maggie's brother Jimmie, her wretched alcoholic parents, and a boy named Pete. He paints her dead center into a snapshot that a viewer would feel the reflexive urge to look away from, and leaves her there to fend for herself. The reader wonders if she can possibly survive this... and the answer is ultimately... "No."

While critics argue that Crane is dark and pessimistic, and that Maggie is nothing more than a reflection of his hopeless view of the inevitable shittiness of mankind, I see it rather as a depiction of a woman who tragically falls victim to her surroundings, and fails to find a way out. The poor girl is met with utter ugliness in every human being she encounters, and her unfortunate decline into the abyss of homelessness and prostitution was the only path she knew. All that being said, I think Crane wanted the reader to take a look at people of the streets, particularly prostitutes, and stop to consider why they end up there... take a moment to look at each one as a human person and realize that she once was a child, and that her background may have led her to a place that people judged as "going to the devil." I think Crane portrayed Maggie as the only somewhat likable character among a cloud of unsavory ones, and wanted the reader to root for her. The fact that she died at the end and none of the unsavory characters were changed is perhaps a testament to Crane's naturalistic tendencies, or maybe... a tragedy to be seriously pondered, in hopes that the unsavory characters that read Maggie will take a moment to consider that their selfish and cancerous ways could be guiding the downward path which the people closest to them are stumbling down.