Maggie, A Girl of the Streets notes PDF

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Summary of events in Maggie, A Girl of the Streets
In-depth analysis of roles, themes, and style...

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Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane Part 1: Chapters 1-10 Background:  Published in 1893  Heavily revised version in 1996 o We are reading the unrevised version Chapter 1:  Extremely descriptive, modifies almost every verb  Emphasis on how small he is  Jimmie of Devil’s Row o Thinks he is very tough, but gets taken home by his father  Rum Alley vs. Devil’s Row  “Lad of 16 years”  Pete o Paints him as mature, but rebellious o Confident Chapter 2:  Crowded apartment building  “Infants” fought or were in the street  Women gossiped  “Withered persons” sat smoking pipes  Personifies the building, “weight of humanity”  “I can never beat any sense into yer damned wooden head”  “Urchin” = Jimmie Chapter 3:  Old woman down the hall o Has Jimmie go get her beer, but his dad takes it  Parents continued to fight o Alcoholics o Then they passed out Chapter 4:  Baby Tommie dies o Flower that Maggie had stolen  Church go-ers only there for food  Jimmie begged on the streets o Saw himself as a king o “All good coats covered faint hearts” o Also considered himself about Christians  Jimmie became a truck driver (horses) o Saw the worst in the world o Police = only men in the city who had no rights

o Continued to fight a lot o Only ever respected/moved for fire trucks  “an appalling thing that he loves with a distant dog-like devotion” Chapter 5:  Maggie “blossomed in a mud puddle” o Pretty girls didn’t usually come from their area  “Feminine aversion of going to hell”  Jimmie became head of the family  Maggie develops a crush on Pete Chapter 6:  Pete hits on Maggie  Maggie keeps thinking about him  Pete asks her on a data Chapter 7:  Working-class people at the show o Pete showed superiority, which Maggie picked up on, and almost was attracted to o “heart warmed by Pete’s condescension”  Maggie enjoyed the show, Pete watched her the whole time  Pete asked for a kiss, Maggie denied him o Pete was shocked, thought he deserved it because he took her on a date o Why didn’t Maggie kiss him?  so controversial at the time Chapter 8:  Pete made Maggie want nicer things  She doesn’t like her job  She becomes vain  Plays keep making her desire more and more Chapter 9:  Young boys teasing old Mary  Jimmie and his mom fight  Pete shows up, offers to take her out  Mary gets mad, Maggie goes with Pete Chapter 10:  Jimmie gets upset about Maggie and Pete

Presentation Notes Background:  Ellis Island opened in 1892, this is published in 1893  Irish potato famine drove immigration o Tenement housing arises Style  Brutally honest, realistic  Violent yet indifferent  this is the norm in this setting o Similarity to Frederick Douglass’s work  Dramatic switch between dialogue and narrator o Sophisticated and then lazy accents Themes  Poverty o Violence, domestic violence o Characters’ loss of innocence in childhood  Hypocrisy o Irony o Reacts to violence with more violence o Bitterness/jealousy of Maggie  “such a bad girl could grow up in our family” but that family is clearly terrible  Hope o Maggie looking for a way out of this lifestyle and her beginnings o Theater/plays as a distraction, give her hope, helps her see what she wants someday o Pete inspires her desire for more

Discussion notes - Climax when Jimmie finds Maggie and Pete? - Jimmie and Mary don’t like Pete because he acts like he is of higher standing than everybody else, but he’s just a bartender - Maggie is into Pete, but doesn’t kiss him because she is concerned with her reputation - Pete=bartender, which is a slightly better job, but not as great as he makes himself out to be - Pete talks the same way as everyone else, but Maggie describes him as way better o Her romanticizing him o Maggie thinks Pete is something that he isn’t - Positioning of narrator is ironic o Contrast between narration and dialogue o Narrator judges the characters - Jimmie literally gets a job where he gets to physically be above people

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o Started observing from the gutter when he was begging, then ends up looking down on others from his “truck” Pete is intrigued by Maggie, but does he actually love her? o He’s able to date within his class, but still be “superior” because she is poor but is much better looking than most girls of that class o He thinks she led him on after the date when she doesn’t kiss him Crane is different because he is writing about the poor o Similar to Charlotte Perkins Gilman What is the goal of the text? o Naturalism: your environment creates you  Poverty, violence, loss of innocence  They can’t help but be this way o American Dream is drowned in poverty o Gender double-standards  about being outside Mom is associated with masculinity Comparison of children to animals

Part 2: Chapter 11-19 Chapter 11:  Bar that Pete works at o “Opulence and geometrical accuracy”  Jimmie and a friend go in, already drunk  Pete really despises being made fun of or feeling like he is less than others  Jimmie lets his friend take the fall for the fight trouble Chapter 12:  Maggie and Pete at the orchestra  Maggie seems more submissive o Maggie = “Dependent air” o Pete = “Air of distinguished valor”  Maggie gets stared at, she has adopted Pete’s point of view Chapter 13:  Maggie = “disgrace” for her family o Mary thinks she did nothing wrong as a mother  Jimmie thinks to bring Maggie home, Mary refuses, then warms up to it Chapter 14:  Pete and Maggie at the club  Nellie o Maggie is jealous, gets disregarded o Asks Pete to leave with her, he says no and offers to explain  Ends up leaving and never comes back

Discussion/Presentation notes Key question to think about:  Is there a crime here? o Who is the perpetrator? o Who is the victim? Theme: Bigotry  Mother didn’t agree with how Maggie chose to live  Mary “didn’t raise her to be like that”  Not her child anymore, and “child of the devil” Theme: Betrayal  Pete betrays Maggie o Pete liked Nellie more o He just walked out of her life like he walked out of the door o Pete didn’t talk to her again o Betrayed trust not just of Pete but also her trust of herself  Can’t trust her own judgment Most striking about the text…  Mother taunting o Treated her terribly when Maggie tried to come back o “Contamination” o Maggie consoled Jimmie when they were younger, but Jimmie denied her when she came back Un-named person not being who we think  Name mixing Mary similar to speaker in The Black Cat Repetitions: Maggie’s role to Pete with Nellie What is the point? - Hypocrisy - Gender roles - Role reversing - Break social barriers - Attacking romanticism - Double standards Mary drives out her husband and Maggie  Home is bad, but you die if you leave it Violence of only seeing literally Depth vs. shallow

Genuine vs performance  Language when Maggie first comes home Maggie’s funeral “watching contortions of a dying dog”  Animalized by the environment  Animalized by their own treatment of others Key questions:  Role of family in the person you become o Maggie vs. Jimmie...