Maggie

Maggie

Stephen Crane’s Maggie is a pyrotechnic display of American naturalism, shot through with a few key strands that I found particularly interesting. First, though I want to discuss the contradiction that I’ve found in the first two pieces presented in the Maggie section of The Portable Stephen Crane. In the first, an inscription to Hamlin Garland, Crane writes: “[Maggie] tries to show that environment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently shapes lives regardless” (1). This seems to be a clear endorsement of naturalism’s belief in the importance of environment on the human subject. But in a letter to Catherine Harris about the book, Crane says: “In a story of mine called ‘An Experiment in Misery’ I tried to make plain that the root of Bowery life is a sort of cowardice. Perhaps I mean lack of ambition or to willingly be knocked flat and accept the licking” (2). First, this sounds very different from depending on environment, second, it sounds nothing like the characters of Maggie, none of whom take a licking lying down, save perhaps Maggie. After reading the story in question, perhaps I’ll have further insight.

The first strand I want to discuss is the novella’s mock heroic take on life in the Bowery slums, particularly the battles that Maggie’s brother, Jimmie, continually engages in. As the editor of my volume noted, Crane uses the phrase “deeply engaged one” on page 5 – drawn from Homer, this mock-epic epithet seems to mark Crane’s strong condescension to his characters, a condescension which continues through the novel.

Another interesting and naturalistic device Crane uses is a tendency to avoid both proper names and pronouns in certain scenes, conveying a sense of pure documentary description and throwing the reader off-balance. An example: Chapter XV begins: “A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue” (59). There are no indications who the woman is, and the next two paragraphs simply describe her walking around looking for someone. The logical guess is that this forlon woman is Maggie, but it turns out to be Hattie, looking for Jimmie. This is a continuation of Crane’s point that Jimmie is a hypocrite (other people’s sisters can be ruined, not his); more importantly, it seems to be both documentarian (just “a forlon woman” described with no further literary characterization) but also quite un-documentarian (were we truly experiencing this event, we would recognize the figure as not Maggie, but Crane has used a literary trick to fool the reader).

Death is treated in a brusque and highly naturalistic manner. “The babe, Tommie, died” (15) and “His father died” (17). Even Maggie’s death is treated brusquely, but, of further interest, is not even delivered to us by the narrator, but in Jimmie’s dialogue: “ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘Mag’s dead.’” That’s all we get about Maggie’s death

Finally, I would like to mention a very brief part of the novel concerning Maggie’s development. “The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl.
None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it.”
Not only does this contain further mock-epic description (philosophers) it does something very strange in a naturalist works: it makes the appearance of Maggie seem to be a miraculous event, one outside nature/genetics/blood. This strange emergence of a flower in a mud puddle, with none of the blood of her people in her veins, bears further investigation.

“Stephen Cranes Maggie and American Naturalism” from The Theory and Practice of American Literary Naturalism by Donald Pizer.

Pizer’s first point is that Maggie, despite standing as one of clearest examples of American naturalism, has certain characteristics that make it a strange fit with other naturalist texts, particularly as we understand them from Zola. First, as Pizer points out, it is a bleak and deterministic picture of slum life in which a young girl is ruined, cast out, and perishes after a bleak life of prostitution. These characteristics, combined with Crane’s insistence that the book demonstrated the effect of an environment on life, seem to make it the perfect naturalist text. But there remains a telling difference: Crane’s novel is full throughout of irony and mock-heroic imagery, and Maggie herself seems not to have been personally affected by her environment. Pizer writes: “There is nothing, of course, to prevent a naturalist from depending on irony and expressionistic symbolism, just as there is nothing to prevent him from introducing a deterministic theme into a Jamesian setting. But in practice the naturalist is usually direct” (124).

Pizer’s explanation of these two oddities is quite useful and telling. As he points out, the novel is constantly treating life as a moral performance. Pete doesn’t want Maggie to be in his bar so it won’t appear to be a low-class joint; Mr. Johnson doesn’t want Jimmie to beat Maggie on the street so they won’t appear to be a low-class family. If that isn’t clear enough, Crane gives us the theater scene, in which villains in the audience cheer for the heroes in the play. Crane, Pizer tells us, is introducing a strong disconnect. Bowery life is amoral, savage, and animalistic, full of violence, hatred, and death. But Bowery morality remains high-minded. This is what really kills Maggie; not that she sleeps with Pete, but because after sleeping with Pete she is considered “ruined” and then, for the public’s sake, thrown out of the Johnson apartment. Pizer concludes by suggesting that Crane, like Howells, is pointing out contemporary issues and showing their negative affect on us. But whereas Howells took aim at social issues, Crane is showing us how some simple changes in moral issues could have changed the course of Maggie’s life. Alterations in the Bowery’s amoral savagery would save lives, but so would a moral system that better reflects that savagery.