MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS AND NATURALISM

Stephen Cranes Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1983) is a story of a young girls fall and death in the New York slums. This novel was considered so in appropriate for the public during Cranes lifetime that it was rejected by any publishers. However, later on, this novel undoubtedly often serves as a naturalistic fiction in America. From the very first sentence of the novel, audiences are introduced to a naturalistic element in a fiction that is the slum setting. Crane introduces Rum Alley as the setting where Maggie (the main character) and her family live. Exploring the story shows the influence of environment on the characters in general and on the main character in particular. Each character in the novel is bounded by social values, which are formed unconsciously by the working class society. This essay focuses on three key naturalistic elements in the novel: the "human beasts" (a term borrowed from Emile Zola) or animal qualities of human beings; the effect of the environment on human lives; and the doom of the main character.