Nice to Meet You, Quiet Stranger

How does a writer make a reader curious? By presenting a question that needs an answer. Curiosity is the first step to gaining focus. Relating directly to the reader’s emotions is important in order to maintain it. Writers use literary devices to subtly bond readers focus to the scene and take them along for the ride of intensity, in this case, the unforeseen confrontation between Pete and Jimmie in a bar. It’s important to keep the reader wrapped up in the scene, especially during conflict or a sudden progression, this hostile scene being both of these. To bring attention to the tone of the conflict as it developed into a skirmish Stephen Crane, the author of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, conveyed a newly exposed resentment between Pete and Jimmie in a violent scene through a complex use of simple literary tools such as repetition and metaphors.

Focus is the first step to writing a piece that truly resonates with the reader. Pete and Jimmie’s conflict escalated so quickly that Stephen Crane relied on striking curiosity in his audience and presenting the finest details in a simple yet efficient manner to maintain this necessary attention. In his novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Crane introduced a character that grabbed the reader’s attention and continued to hold onto it as the scene intensified, “The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion” (53) The first mention of the quiet stranger is instantly perplexing for the audience. This curiosity is how Stephen Crane gets his reader’s focus. It is vital for a writer to get its readers focus and continue to maintain it, otherwise, the writing itself will not be appreciated in its full value. In the bar fight scene, due to its dramatic shift into conflict, to maintain this focus is even more important. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets as a whole is a fast-paced book as it spans over a lifetime. In order not to confuse his audience, Stephen Crane condenses all the information his audience needs to know into shorter and simpler phrases. The quiet stranger being a perfect example of this. This character was not just a way to maintain focus, but to also set the tone of the scene as it plays out.

Once the reader’s focus is acquired, the writing itself must then be consistently intriguing. Stephen Crane uses a metaphor in order to set the tone of the bar fight scene and highlight the tension that grows as the scene progresses. The feeling of shock and disarray follows in the readers as well as in the quiet stranger after Pete and Jimmie’s brawl and is represented by the final mention of the quiet stranger, “The quiet stranger had sprawled out very pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block” (56) As unfamiliar as a stranger may seem, this quiet stranger is a lot closer to the audience than expected. Rather than a simple character, the emotions and actions of the quiet stranger represent the shifting in tone of the scene. As the scene intensified, the quiet stranger properly reacted. The reactions of the quiet stranger correlate directly to how Crane wanted his readers to respond as the fight began to develop. This tension that the quiet stranger feels is what Crane intended his audience to experience as well. All the tension in this scene quickly turns into fear and an underlying sense of being uncomfortable with the anger between two people that were once friends. Pete and Jimmie had some distrust for one another and it all came bursting out in this one scene. Since the beginning, when Pete wasn’t letting Jimmie get in a word during their conversations about Pete’s courageousness, Jimmie has always felt tucked away by Pete and his rather large ego. When all this irritation rises to the surface, the scene quickly spirals out of control and is clearly seen in the quiet strangers’ reactions. Turns out, the quiet stranger was not much of a stranger at all, but a metaphor for the readers themselves. However, a good metaphor wasn’t the only thing that made the bar fight scene so significant; this scene had many important and sudden changes throughout the course of just a few pages and this needed to be properly handled.

Stephen Crane grabbed his reader’s attention and provoked curiosity that held, but he needed to maintain it throughout the scene as the tone shifted. He used simple literary devices to their full extent in order to keep consistent. This one of the many things that made his novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, so powerful. Besides the concept of a quiet stranger, Stephen Crane brings up previous ideas about violence and trust to more effectively mark the change in previously amicable manners between the former friends when Pete says to Jimmie, “Drink yer stuff an’ git out an’ don’ make no trouble” (51) Back before Pete and Jimmie met on bad terms in the bar, Pete would tell Jimmie stories of his deceptively courageous past with other various men in other various bars and alleys. In reality, Pete is hypocritical to tell other men not to cause trouble while he often starts fights. In proof of his ironic quality, Pete would often say to these men to not make any trouble. This phrase soon become so common that the audience knew this indicated that a physical fight was bound to start. Foreshadowing for this tension can also be seen in Pete’s storytelling when Jimmie is pushed beneath Pete while his sickly vainglorious tendencies become more apparent, “Jimmie nodded understandingly. Over his features played an eager desire to state the amount of his valor in a similar crisis, but the narrator proceeded” (25) Pete seemed like a sign of hope as he was someone that Jimmie may look up to. Clearly, something changed as the bar fight scene is the result of a growing tension between the two. However, the underlying distrust for Pete seemed to have always been there. The bar fight is crucial to the novel as it changes a lot of what could’ve been if Pete and Jimmie became closer and more trusting in one another. By being repetitive in certain phrases, Stephen Crane was able to maintain his reader’s focus in not just the bar fight scene, but throughout the novel as a whole. He did this by using simple yet effective tools such as repetition, metaphors, and prioritizing the reader’s focus. He also used repetition in an unorthodox way, by stretching it out to develop a feeling of a recurring idea. In the case of the quiet stranger, it was the continuous build up of fear and tension. In the case of the order of “don’ make no trouble”, the recurring idea of Pete’s hypocrisy built the feeling of distrust for him in the audience. Stephen Crane’s literary style and use of metaphors and repetition enforced the focus and tone that makes the bar fight scene so significant.The mixture of literary tools is what truly brought out the best in Stephen Crane’s first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Street; this is what provoked readers to magnify on what the scene signified. As the pace of this scene increased and the violence developed, Crane didn’t shy away from telling his audience exactly how they were meant to feel by his use of the quiet stranger as a metaphor. Emanated through precisely worded metaphors and repetition of subtle yet striking ideas, the bitterness that turns physical between Pete and Jimmie in Stephen Crane’s novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, is a rollercoaster ride that the readers are rightfully intrigued by from the beginning and until its conclusion.