The Magnitude Of Our Own Destiny

Have you ever wondered why two people of the same socioeconomic upbringing might end up pursuing drastically different paths in life? In a given family, one sibling might become a working man on Wall Street making six figures, while the other might become a forlorn drug addict on Skidrow. This is because we choose the magnitude of our own destiny with every action we make. With each choice or decision we make in our lifetimes,  the product of our choices directly result in the outcomes of our relationships, livelihood, and other perceived successes. Stephen Crane’s characters Nellie and Maggie from his novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, are as Crane puts, “cut from the same cloth.” Both Nellie and Maggie grew up with the same poor economic and societal realities of most citizens living in nineteenth century America. Both characters found themselves within situations that led them to a life of prostitution to sustain themselves. Although they chose to work on the streets, Maggie and Nellie are opposite in the way Crane characterizes them; Nellie presents herself with “brilliance and audacity,” while Maggie is characterized by her “timid and dependent” demeanor. The most central choice Crane presents in his novella is the choice to be independent. Nellie’s self assurance and confidence help her to deceive Pete and take advantage of his wealth, while Maggie, the helpless romantic, makes choices that ultimately result in her demise. Stephen Crane describes these two characters with such differences to illustrate the key to survival is to be self reliant.

Throughout Maggie’s whole life she has been forced to rely on herself. Growing up in a poverty stricken home surrounded by alcoholics, she had no other choice but to become independent to meet her own needs. This all changes for Maggie when she meets Pete, a wealthy young man who she feels can take care of her and give her the comfortable life she’s always idealized. As soon as Pete shows interest in Maggie, she becomes obsessed with hope for a better life, imagining every detail of their perfect future together. The narrator describes a sense of shame Maggie feels towards the juxtaposition between Petes life and hers, noting that  “Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and rather wistfully upon Pete’s face. The broken furniture, grimy walls, and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before her and began to take a potential aspect. Pete’s aristocratic person looked as if it might soil. She looked keenly at him, occasionally, wondering if he felt contempt” (Crane 26). In Maggie’s eyes, Pete’s beauty only highlights her filthy, poverty stricken home. She idolizes Pete in comparison to her dirt filled furniture. Maggie wants more for herself and sees Pete as the key to getting her there. Throughout the book, Maggie’s shame and unhappiness leads to a growing fantasy about the life Pete was capable of giving of her. Maggie remains awestruck by Pete despite the prevailing issues in the two’s relationship due to obvious contempt, and as the narrator describes, “Maggie perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man. Her dim thoughts were often searching for far away lands where, as God says, the little hills sing together in the morning. Under the trees of her dream-gardens there had always walked a lover” (Crane 23). Maggie’s utopian fantasies all depended on dream-like images of Pete’s life, rather than a realistic portrait of Pete as a human being or what their relationship would entail. Maggie wishes to absolve reality and depend on Pete for a way out of her harsh lifestyle, rather than seeking a reality in which she can attain a better life by herself.

Nellie’s most prominent characteristic as described in the novel is her confidence and poise. Unlike Maggie, who seeks love and support from Pete, Nellie chooses to be self reliant and to not pay attention to anyone else’s antics or promises. Maggie, noticing the contrast between her and Nellie’s demeanor, “. . .took instant note of the woman. She perceived that her black dress fitted her to perfection. Her linen collar and cuffs were spotless. Tan gloves were stretched over her well-shaped hands. A hat of a prevailing fashion perched jauntily upon her dark hair. She wore no jewelry and was painted with no apparent paint. She looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men” (Crane 64). Nellie’s appearance and behavior show that she doesn’t fantasize over Pete or view him as superior to her in the way Maggie does. Despite the fact that Maggie and Nellie both turn to prostitution, Nellies advantage is her disdain towards towards people like Pete. To Nellie, prostitution was a choice she made to support herself and one day move forward and attain a better life for herself, while Maggie becomes a prostitute and hopes that one day someone will come along and give her a happier life.

Maggie’s fantasies soon turn into a more unromantic reality when Pete agrees to take her in to his home. Unlike Nellie, Maggie makes it very obvious to Pete that she needs him to provide for her. The narrator notes that when Maggie first starts living with him, she views the world as a place “composed of hardships and insults,” (Crane 28) and admires Pete for his ability to ignore the pain that is innate to life. She imagined Pete faced with death, and saying: “Oh, ev’ryt’ing goes”’ (Crane 28). His nonchalant attitude soon becomes an issue within his relationship with Maggie, and Maggie becomes aware of Pete’s growing lack of interest. The day Nellie meets Pete and Maggie, Maggie’s time with Pete came to an abrupt end, as he was enthralled by Nellie’s bold and dignified personality. Seduced by Nellie, a woman with seemingly much more to offer to him than Maggie, Pete abandons Maggie to pursue a relationship with Nellie. Now alone and helpless, the narrator compares Maggie to a dog to portray her lack of identity and independence, “Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home. The air of spaniel-like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effect in the peculiar off-handedness and ease of Pete’s ways towards her” (Crane 65). Just as a stray dog, Maggie is thrown out of Pete’s house and forced to fend for herself again, with no one to provide her with the tools to sustain herself.

The novel ends in Maggie’s mysterious death, showing that her helplessness and her expectations that someone would come along and save her from her own choices had failed. Nellie on the other hand, was able to trick Pete into giving her his money, and left him drunk and powerless in the bar. Just as Maggie succumbed to fantasies of a perfect life with Pete, Pete trusted Nellie to bring his life more fulfillment, and was ultimately robbed and abandoned. The fates of Pete and Maggie after choosing to rely on someone else to satisfy their hopes and dreams prove that dependence on someone is not as empowering or effective as achieving your goals independently. Despite her unethical and unconventional methods, Nellie prevailed as the book’s successor, by using what little she had to further her agenda and provide for herself.