Maggie A Girl of the Streets

A detailed Summary of Maggie A Girl of the Streets

Throughout history women have lived a life of depending on men to take care of them and have carried the stigma of being known as the weaker sex. Things have changed for the better since the 1800's when Stephen Crane wrote his book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Women now have the freedom to work and have careers without being looked down at. Here in the book, Stephen Crane writes a story in which the three main female characters represent the different lifestyles in the society of the 1800's. It was rare that women had a job in those days but as Maggie's brother put it, '"Yeh've edder got te go te hell or go te work!"' (Crane 17). Either way by going to work Maggie was in a hellish environment that was crowded with other female workers. All the woman were not happy and were all looked down upon by the upper class. These woman had to work to survive (NO WORK NO FOOD)! It was very rare in those days for women to support themselves. In those days it was expected that women who lived at home had to give all their earnings to their parents to help support the family. They were given just enough for lunch money and very little spending money. The rest was for family living expenses. Working at the collar and cuff company Ma

Even in today's society women are still valued for their beauty. We are still not free of the roles that society puts on men and women to play, but most women do not allow themselves to be completely dependant on a man for economic dependency. Times have changed for the better. Women have more opportunities to be educated and trained just as well as men do. Opportunities for women continue to arise for women to be more independent and effective in society. If women had these same opportunities in Maggie's era, who knows how much better their lives could have been.

ggie realized that if she worked there too long she would become like the "grizzled" women there. "She began to see the bloom upon her cheeks as valuable" (Crane 26). Maggie's beauty is the key of getting out of the slums that she comes from. "The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew up to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl" (16). Back in the time of the story beauty is all that a poor women had to escape the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. When men were looking for a wife they would look for someone that was beautiful and attractive. From reading the story it is clear that Maggie desperately wants to be married so that she can leave the present life she knows to get a new one. Marriage is one of her only options to escape her life of poverty and an abusive and alcoholic family. Maggie sees her chance to escape when Pete takes notice of her. '"Say, Mag. I'm stuck on yer shape. It's outa sight"' (19). Jumping into this relationship wholeheartedly Maggie went to extreme measures to win Pete's heart. Now that she saw that Pete showed interest in her she recognized that he was probab

Some common words found in the essay are:
Stephen Crane, Mag I'm, Nellie Mary, Mary Johnson's, Mary Johnson, , Confident Nellie, Streets Women, society women, abusive alcoholic, women lived, women opportunities, family living, times changed, stephen crane,

Approximate Word count = 1167
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English