The Power of Words in a Fight

Words can be as strong as steel.  They can be as soft as fur.  They transport you through decades and across continents.  The best authors manipulate words so that your heart begins to race and you hold your breadkth unwittingly.  You feel the characters’ pain and rage and misery.  You feel their jubilation and excitement and bliss.  The words on the page weave a web of circumstance that fills the room.  The tension and intensity, calm and tranquility become genuinely palpable.  In Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie: Girl of the Streets, the magic of the words spring to life and one of the greatest examples of this is the bar fight scene between Pete and Jimmie.  The description of the struggle between them generates an expanding excitement that radiates from the pages and permeates throughout the room.  Crane’s use of increasingly intense words and vivid figurative language, specifically simile and metaphor, is the cause of the mounting tension in the scene.

In order to build the excitement of the conflict in the scene, Crane makes use of progressively harsher words in both sound and meaning.  The chapter opens with a calm and orderly description of the bar.  Crane describes the bar from the street as, “call[ing] seductively to passengers to enter,” (Crane 50).  This is personification of the saloon and the use of the word “seductively” suggests a relaxed environment for customers.  In the description of the inside of the bar, Crane lists the, “pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed,” and “Lemons, oranges and paper napkins, arranged with mathematical precision,” (Crane 50).  These narrations set a scene of an orderly and calm environment.  These descriptions of a relaxing and ordered nature are set up for the chaos that will come with the impending brawl.  

Crane does not just burst into the raucous fight scene, alternatively, he builds the anticipation.  The first disruption to the placid portrayal of the bar is when Jimmie enters.  The doors are “swung open and crashed against the siding,” (Crane 50).  This occurrence, although slight, is the first change in mood and causes a disturbance in the bar that generates a feeling of anticipation.  Jimmie and his buddy further disturb the environment by “conversing loudly in tones of contempt.”  Their loud, obnoxious presence slowly builds a foreboding expectation.  Pete is aggravated by their actions and “put[s] down the bottle with a bang.”  This is another ripple in the formerly still waters of the bar.  Crane’s use of  words like “bang” and “crash” is onomatopoeia and helps escalate the intensity of the scene.

Figurative language also plays a part in developing the action and energy in the scene.  In the beginning, there is little use of simile and metaphor.  This lends itself to a more bland description and this contributes to the still environment of the bar at the onset of the scene.  After the tension has begun to mount and Jimmie and his companion are confronted by Pete, Crane uses a multitude of similes and metaphor in order to enhance the description of the actions, and subsequently the excitement and tension in the scene.  The first is when he says, “Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side.  He snarled like a wild animal,” (Crane 52).  The comparison of Jimmie to a wild animal serves to amplify the qualities of the new environment.  They are no longer acting like civilized human beings, but are acting like “wild animals.”  This is further shown in metaphors such as, “ the glare of a panther came into Pete’s eyes,” or similes like, “they bristled like three roosters,” (Crane 53).  These comparisons to animalistic traits signify how they have completely changed their demeanor.  The bar no longer has a relaxing environment, but one of ferocious vigor and excitement.  This fis further intensified by Crane’s similes comparing the boys to tools of fighting and war.  He says, “their clenched fists moved like eager weapons,” (Crane 53).  He also compares them to frigates getting ready for battle.  This shows the difference in words and expressions from the beginning of the chapter to the midst of the melee.

Crane uses a change in word choice and increase in literary devices in order to show the mounting tension of the bar fight scene.  The words slowly build up and change in order to properly describe how the mood of the scene escalates.  He extracts the most out of each word in order to portray this change.  Crane combines this with specific similes and metaphors that enhance the escalation and tension.