Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

Maggie: A girl of the streets by Stephen Crane is a story that was written based on the theme American Realism. American Realism was a style of literature that showed the lifestyle, everyday activities, and social relations of an ordinary person. The literature on American Realism often showed character development and the empowerment of women based on what is said to be normal in their society. The literature, Maggie: A girl of the streets by Stephen Crane shows character development through their experiences, influencers, and individually taking actions. Mary Johnson showed character development, at the beginning of the book. Mary is what you would classify as a bad mother, towards the end you will now classify Mary as a decent mother. Mary is violent, abusive, irrational, and because of unfortunate circumstances, she becomes less self-centered.

“ The
mothers massive shoulders heaved with anger.
Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulders she shook him until he rattled. She… began to scrub his lacerated face. Jimmie screamed in pain…” (Pg.8, Crane). The mother Mary in this scene finds out that her son, Jimmie was engaged in a fight with boys who called themselves “Devil’s Row”. As a reaction to her son fighting, she automatically grabbed Jimmie and took him to the bath where she proceeded to scrub his bruises. The pain was unbearable to the point where he “ screamed in pain.” As a mother, the first initial thing that needs to be done when you see your child covered in bruises is to ask them who did it, comfort them, and try to speed up the healing process. Mary did the opposite, instead of comforting the child and showing the child love, she physically abused him and inflicted pain on his wounds. Mary is hinted to be an abusive mother by her husband: “ Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin’ ’im. When I come nights I
can’t git no rest ‘ cause yer allus poundin’ a kid.” (Pg.8, Crane) In this quote, the father notices how the mother poorly treats her kids. The beating of the child has been to a point where the father can't get any sleep. Another piece of evidence that can classify Mary as an abusive and violent mother is shown.“ The women’s operations on the urchin instantly increased in violence.” (Pg.8, Crane). After a child has been abused, they feel as if whatever they do may cause the parent of releasing their wrath, so they mainly keep to themselves. This is shown when Jimmie entered his home and his mother and father were sleeping, because of traumatic experiences Jimmie was scared to wake his parents up. “He began to shiver in dread of awakening his parents. He was fearful lest she should open her eyes, and the dread within him was so strong…” (Pg.13, Crane).