Eng 327

Maggie: A Girl from the Streets-The Almost Cinderella Story.

A theme that is often reoccurring in novellas and novels written in or around the time of the late 1800s and early 1900's is that of class. Status appears to be one of the most important ideals that the characters within these types of novels seem to cling to. They become embarrassed of the life style they lead, and always keep the attitude that the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence." Maggie: A Girl from the Streets is no exception. When I first began reading this novella, I expected it to be a "rags to riches" tale and looked forward to reading the happy ending. However, this was not the reality that would present itself at the end of the story.

Maggie came from a family that was, to say the least, more than dysfunctional. Her father and mother were both drunks who endlessly beat their children and each other. With the beatings and the death of her baby brother, her life was that of a struggle. Both her and her older brother Jimmie were forced to grow up at an early age. Jimmie was hardened in spirit and began to lose any sense of emotion that he had before. As he grew older, he replaced the role that their father once had, and became no better than a lazy drunk. Maggie was the complete opposite of her negative and troubled brother. She had to support the family by working in a shirt and cuff factory, which she did with a strength that is admirable. She was, to use another clichй, a "diamond in the ruff", and known as one of the most beautiful girls to set foot in their neighborhood. She was innocent, sweet, naпve, and soon she fell in love.

When she meets Pete, Jimmie's friend, the first idea of a class above Maggie's is presented. He was a bartender and a fighter. Stephen Crane, the author of Maggie: a Girl from the Streets, presents Pete in a swooning type of way, as to make it seen the way that Maggie perceived it to be. "His mannerisms stamped him as a man who had a correct sense of his personal superiority. There was a valor and contempt for circumstances in the glance of his eye. He waved his hands like a man of the world, who dismisses religion and philosophy, and says, 'Fudge.' He had certainly seen everything and with each curl of his lip, he declared that it amounted to nothing. Maggie thought that he must be a very elegant and graceful bartender." (P. 20) Upon meeting Pete, Maggie began to feel a shame for her house and her living conditions. She felt that her home and family could not live up to the standards of Pete. She searches for ways to make her house appear more as a home, and for her to appear to be much classier than she indeed perceived herself to be.

Maggie hung on to every last word that left Pete's mouth. His topic of conversation was that of fighting and who he can and has "mopped the floor clean with". (According to Pete, that's anyone.) When he finally took note of Maggie, he began to boost up his stories even more with tales of fighting people, always winning of course, and with all the sights and things he's seen. Maggie saw him as almost God-like. This is most apparent in her description of her emotions towards him. "To her the earth was composed of hardships and insults. She felt instant admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that if the grim angel of death should clutch his heart, he would shrug his shoulders and say, 'Oh, ev'ryt'ing goes.'" (P. 23)

This is where I began to see the signs of what could be a Cinderella story. I thought that perhaps Maggie would be rescued from her lower class status to meet that of Pete's. The story truly begins to revolve around what Pete has and what Maggie doesn't. She spends her weeks pay on flowers to decorate the house, only to have them unnoticed by the most magnificent Pete. He begins to take her to shows and theatrical performances where he seems slightly bored and uninhibited while she is hanging on every word of the performance and deeply touched by each of them. Stephen Crane makes it a point to have the reader notice Maggie's attire, compared to that of Pete and the other people in attendance at the shows.

When first reading this story, I saw Maggie and Jimmie's drunken mother, who was the only elder left of the family after their father passed away, as a pathetic sort who ruined the lives of her children. I began to blame her for the problems that put Maggie and Jimmie at "lower status". I began to think things like, maybe if their mother had acted with kindness instead of detest perhaps they would not be such lower class and Maggie would be able to afford the dresses she so longed for. As the story progressed though, I began to feel a sense of sympathy for the mother. It was then that I realized that was sure to be Maggie's future if she should stay with Pete, as he would grow up to be a drunken idiot just as her father had. I began to see Pete for what he was, rather than the beautiful picture that Maggie had painted of him.