The poetics of Stephen Crane’s late novels” I. Introduction. II. The contribution of S. Crane to the development of American naturalism

Tommie, Maggie’s youngest brother, dies early in the novel, a victim of his pernicious environment.
Father of Maggie, Jimmie and Tommie, and husband of Mary. He is an alcoholic and casually abusive towards his children. He even resorts to stealing beer from Jimmie. The father dies early in the novel and Crane only gives him a last name.
The old woman has no name. She lives in the same tenement house as the Johnson family and befriends the Johnson children. She even offers Maggie shelter after the young woman has been shunned by her own abusive mother.
Miss Smith has only a brief appearance in the last scene of the novel. She encourages Mary Johnson into her false sentimental act of mourning for her deceased daughter Maggie.
Billie is a violent little Rum Alley child. He first appears at the beginning of the narrative where he is in embroiled in a street fight with Jimmie. Billie acquires the same violent behavior as Jimmie and becomes Jimmie’s ally in his hatred towards Pete.

The novel's title character, Maggie Johnson grows up amid abuse and poverty in the Bowery neighborhood of New York's Lower East Side. Her mother, Mary, is a vicious alcoholic; her brother, Jimmie, is mean-spirited and brutish. But Maggie grows up a beautiful young lady whose romantic hopes for a better life remain untarnished. Her seemingly inevitable path towards destruction begins when she becomes enamored of Pete, whose show of confidence and worldliness seems to promise wealth and culture. Seduced and abandoned by Pete, Maggie becomes a neighborhood scandal when she turns to prostitution. Crane leaves her demise vague--she either commits suicide or is murdered. She seems a natural and hereditary victim, succumbing finally to the forces of poverty and social injustice that built up against her even before her birth. Like all the people in this short novel, she seems chiefly a type rather than an individuated character, serving to illustrate principles about modern urban life.

All of Crane’s personages appear to be naturalistic stereotypes rather than authentic human beings. In the opening scene of the novel, Jimmie, then a “very little boy” [Crane, Maggie 3 ], is fighting viciously against a group of other urchins. At that point, the reader might expect Jimmie to become more sensible and less aggressive through the process of ageing. However, in chapter XV Maggie’s brother is still presented as an aggressive, reckless man whose “[r]adiant virtue sat upon his brow and his repelling hands expressed horror of contamination” [Crane, Maggie 93]. Instead of learning to control his emotions and dealing with problems verbally, the younger and the older Jimmie basically behave according to the same patterns. This incapability of internal development can also be seen in Maggie herself. She is unable to reflect critically on her experiences and adapt her behaviour to her cruel social environment. Even after being abandoned by Pete, the girl still clings to her naïve attitude. Although she never experienced any motherly love, Maggie desperately seeks refuge in her mother’s tenement, only to be rejected under “derisive laughter” (Crane, Maggie 94). Despite their differences, Maggie and Jimmie are both incapable of internal development, and can, therefore, be described as static characters . In that sense, they resemble stereotypes rather than authentic individuals.
When we first see a broad brush picture of the Bowery in the second chapter of the novel, we are told that the people are "withered. . . in curious postures of submission to something." Think about the set of events at the center of Maggie. Social circumstances poverty, a lifetime of brutality, and a lack of realistic prospects force Maggie towards Pete. She is steered towards a single escape route, and then finds that the only door out is in fact the path towards tragedy. The ruination of naïve women in Maggie is inevitable, as common as the incidence of desperate girls and reckless bachelors.
Yuqoridagi boblarda ta’kidlab o’tilganidek , naturalistik asarlarning bir qancha hususiyatlari mavjud. Ular determinism , survival ,heredity , pessimism and harsh life scenes bo’lib , “ Maggie asarida shu barcha hususiyatlarni ko’rishimiz mumkin.
Readers might object that Crane’s implicit characterization techniques could also be regarded as essential for American 19th century realistic writing, giving an authentic depiction of the setting and the protagonists. However, Crane’s novel surpasses the realistic literary school since it tries to show that “environment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently shapes lives regardless” . Thus, Maggie does not focus on the realistic development of the individual but on underlying forces such as heredity, social circumstances and moral conventions. Even the novel’s subtitle A Girl of the Streets suggests the absence of individualism; any girl could be the subject of Crane’s story. Because Maggie and her family are trapped by those underlying forces, they lack the ability to act independently; they “are not free agents” [ Walcutt ] . If Maggie had been able to think independently, she would have adapted to her brutal environment or found some other way of salvation instead of committing suicide. The girl’s downfall is not at all realistic but an impressive example of early American naturalism, depicting the significance of the environment.
Crane’s effective use of static stereotypes impressively conveys the determinism of life by heredity. Though Maggie and her brother Jimmie are both captured in the conventions of their environment, they represent contrasts in one fundamental respect. Whereas Maggie is presented as inherently good, Jimmie is described as inherently evil. Taking all of the protagonists in the novel into account, essentially two different stereotypes are distinguishable. On the one hand, the stereotype of an innocent, pure and somewhat naïve girl is represented by Maggie. On the other hand, Jimmie, Mary, and Pete represent the violent and hypocritical lower-class character. The explanation for this contrastive development is to be found in the characters themselves, namely, in their varying temperaments. Being provided with distinct biological dispositions, Maggie and Jimmie do not bear equal prospects to survive in the struggle of life. As Jimmie inherited his mother’s strength, he is capable of self-defence and adjustment to his cruel family life. His weaker sister though becomes the victim of an unfavourable combination of her genes and her hostile environment; this notion expresses the “belief that heredity and biology are destiny”. Hence, Crane’s novel highlights the naturalistic thesis of life’s determinism by both biology and environment.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets are implicit ones used to convey the naturalistic notion of life’s determinism. Without providing any authorial judgment, the protagonists are vividly described as violent, selfish and hypocritical by means of figural implicit characterization . Shu o’rinda mashhur yozuvchi, tanqidchi olim va Stephen Crane asarlarini yuksak baholagan W.Howellsning fikrlaridan namuna keltiramiz.
“The wonder of it is the courage which deals with persons so absolutely average, and the art which graces them with the beauty of the author’s compassion for everything that errs and suffers. Without this feeling the effects of his mastery would be impossible, and if it went further, or put itself into the pitying phrases, it would annul the effects. But it never does this; it is notable how in all respects the author keeps himself well in hand. He is quite honest with his reader. He never shows his characters or his situations in any sort of sentimental glamour; if you will be moved by the sadness of common fates you will feel his intention; but he does not flatter his portraits of people on conditions to take your fancy “ [ Howells, “An Appreciation,”]
Admittedly, Maggie is frequently characterized in an explicit way by the other protagonists. Mary, for instance, describes her daughter as a beast: “Ain’ she purty? Lookut her! Ain’ she sweet, deh beast?” (Crane, Maggie 91). However, this kind of explicit characterization only reflects Mary’s restricted point of view and must be regarded as unreliable. In fact, Mary unwittingly provides an implicit self-characterization while commenting on the girl’s behaviour and traits. Not only does her expression reveal her lower-class origin, but it also hints at her hypocritical personality. Throughout the novel, Crane’s characters are predominantly depicted by using figural implicit characterization techniques. Among other characterization techniques, the extensive use of the Bowery dialect and the detailed description of the character’s violent behaviour are effective techniques to convey the influence of heredity and environment on Maggie and her family. Yozuvchi asarning naturalistik asarligini quyidagi holatlarda yaqqol tasvirlaydi. Ya’ni bowery lahjasi , pessimistik ruh, determinizm va boshqalar.
The most important stylistic component for the implicit characterization of the protagonists is their uncensored use of the Bowery dialect. This novel seeks to portray the streets honestly, and this means adopting the rhythms of street talk and its slang. But there is more here. Readers may notice, as they progress through the novel, that when characters speak there is usually a great deal of sound, but very little actual meaning. Since this variety of language is a sociolect exclusively associated with the inhabitants of Manhattan’s Bowery district, the protagonists’ lower-class identity is easily detected. The characters tend to speak in what the writer Jayne Anne Phillips characterizes as "code phrases," and in bluster that is largely nonsense and slang. Their inability to break out of the slang conventions of speech is striking; when Jimmie means to express wonder at the moon, he ends up using the same expression he uses to damn his sister and others: "Deh moon looks like hell, don't it?" What they have to say is as much governed by language as expressed through language. They do not have complete control even over what they say, which comes back to haunt them in unexpected ways, as when Mary's "Go teh hell" is met by the narrator's smug double entendre: "She went."
The copious use of slum jargon illustrates the protagonists’ limited way of thinking and their restricted range of expression. Jimmie, for instance, is unable to express his emotions appropriately when wondering at the moon on a “star-lit evening” (Crane, Maggie 30); instead he uses the word “hell” to describe his astonishment: “Deh Moon looks like hell, don’t it?” (Crane, Maggie 30) Crane provocatively suggests that Jimmie would have had the potential to develop a sense of romance and a more cultivated way of expression if only his social environment had been different. Because he is trapped in the Bowery slang conventions, he is incapable of expressing himself adequately. The protagonists’ inability to transcend the limits of their sociolect vividly illustrates the imprisoned nature of their lower-class affiliations.
“New York was proud of the Bowery precisely as a child is proud of a burned thumb”… the name of Bowery had been made inclusive : adjoining streets , alleys and squares held bowery boys and girls in popular report There was no other slum in America so settled speech and habit. It was suggested that the Bowery invented words. In 1890 the word “ jay “ was current as a Bowery coinage. …..Though Stephen Crane was accused of inventing a meaning known in London before 1870. ….Bowery language was humorous ….There was a choppy rhythm in the speech from which the sound of “th “ had been drawn away. Many vowels were washed over so briskly that it look whether they had been pronounced or not. ….. [Beer John S.C ; a study in America 78 p ]
Maggie may be the title character of this novel, but it is certainly arguable that the real subject of the novel is the city of New York, and more specifically the Bowery neighborhood. How does the narrator treat New York and the Bowery? What do you think the attitude of the narrator is towards the Bowery? You should make reference to the novel's several extended descriptions of the neighborhood, bearing in mind, in most cases, that these are far longer than the novel's descriptions of actual people.
Like many of the realist writers for whom he laid the groundwork, and like the great French realists and naturalists whom he followed (Balzac, Flaubert, Zola), Crane was fascinated by the urban landscape. He was simultaneously repulsed and attracted. Lower New York was the scene of so much degradation and filth, but it was also vibrantly alive, shaking constantly with violent motion. This is the Bowery given to us in Maggie, a neighborhood with a viselike grip on its denizens, inescapable and all-encompassing, terrifying and grotesquely beautiful. Our first description of a Bowery tenement row, Rum Alley, is typical: it is "a dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. . . A thousand odors of cooking food came forth into the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping around in its bowels." For all that it is "dark" and "gruesome," it has the magnetism of life, strata upon strata of humanity. Lurching to life of its own energy and momentum, the Bowery is like the experiment of a mad scientist, irresistibly appealing to the curious. As much as Maggie quietly decries the dehumanizing life of the streets, its author cannot tear himself away from it.

Crane's novella Maggie: A Girl of the Street raises important questions about the capacity of people to be responsible for their own deeds. Is Maggie to blame for her descent into prostitution? Is Jimmie to blame for his violence, brutishness, and casual cruelty? Or must we point the finger at the social forces and diseases that brought them to the brink of degradation (poverty, coercive capitalism, lack of education, alcoholism)? How does this book steer a path between the two extremes of absolute personal responsibility and entirely contingent morality? Or does it avoid choosing a compromise position, and instead throw itself behind the position that social circumstance, not personal choice, is to blame for Maggie's tragedy? Color plays a crucial role in setting the symbolic and emotional overtones in Maggie. Most obviously, there are the repeated references to varying shades of red when describing Mary; it seems that her face is always "crimson" or "fervent red. . . turned almost to purple." What are the symbolic functions of the color red in this novel? Are there any other colors that Crane uses to symbolic or emotional effect? How? Where? But one of the remarkable things about Maggie is that the novel's refusal to blame Maggie does not mean that her mistakes are forgiven. Maggie's own failings are exposed here as surely as the social forces that lead to her downfall and death. As the writer Jayne Anne Phillips has observed, Maggie's romantic nature obscures her ability to see the world clearly, and is as much to blame for her downfall as the forces of reality. This is a novel that shows sympathy to the humanity of every one of its characters, with the arguable exception of Mary. The novel recognizes that, to a great and perhaps overwhelming extent, these are people brutalized and hardened and victimized by social forces beyond their control. But it is also a novel that refuses to condescend through showings of cheap pity. Even as it extends sympathy to all its characters, it critiques the injustices they work, their hypocrisy, sentimentalism, ridiculous ideas and attitudes. Maggie is a novel that mocks but rarely condemns utterly, that forgives and seeks to understand even those things that it cruelly exposes. And thus it is a novel that troubles the reader with its moral complexity. Who is to blame for these tragedies that continue to repeat themselves, tragedies that breed and interbreed, perpetuating themselves endlessly? Crane, and Maggie, refuse to provide an answer. However , Harold Bloom who wrote introductions to Stephen Crane’s books and gather most of his letters had an answer “ Her ghastly family, dreadful lover, and incessant poverty all drive her into prostitution and the ambiguous death bydrowning, which may be suicide or victimage by murder”[ Bloom , p4]

Lekin olim va tadqiqotchi James Nagelning fikricha Maggiening bunday ayanchli taqdiriga nafaqat “atrof –muhit “ balki o’zi ham sababchidir. “ She chooses Pete as an escape from the sordid depravity of her family. Pete is not driven by her animal lust : he desires Maggie for her beauty and for the preservation of his pride in not being played for a “duffer”…….The tragedy of Maggie is not the result of in exorable doom or impersonal forces but the more poignant result of numerous choices freely made on the basis of naivete,confusion and self-deluding pride “ [s.Crane and lit.p111]