Have Confidence
The first thing you need to learn in life is having confidence in who you are. In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane we see two similar characters, Maggie and Nelle who have the same profession but have very different outcomes. The difference between the two is Nelle has complete confidence in herself and Maggie has very little if none. The first time the difference in confidence is noticed is when we see how they view men. Nelle views men as objects while Maggie sees them as her knight in shining armour. The next time the difference in confidence is shown is when we see how they handle guys staring at them and making comments. Nelle is not fazed by this while on the other hand it makes Maggie tremble. The final time we see the difference is the ending of the book where Maggie is dead and Nelle is walking away laughing after spending all Pete’s money at the bar. The two are very similar because of their good looks but Nelle just knows how to use them effectively and confidently while Maggie is stuck playing catch up.
Maggie has only had her father and brother for examples of what it means to be a man so her standards started off very low. This is first seen when Pete comes over her house and she is immediately hooked on him and thinks he is the perfect man, “Maggie watched him furtively, with half-closed eyes, lit with vague interest.”(24) This shows that Maggie doesn’t understand her worth. She has been told by many that she is good looking so why doesn’t see act like it? She sees Pete and immediately thinks he’s something so special and that he can “save” her from her current situation. This shows that she has very little confidence in herself because she is good looking and she should know that she should be the one in charge of her future and not rely on the man she should rely on her looks. This is how Nelle thinks. She has confidence in herself and knows that she is the one in charge and she’s calling the shots, “Well, he didn’t have as many stamps as he tried to make out, so I shook him, that’s all.” (65) Nellie sees men as objects that are easily replaceable and isn’t fazed by them and if one doesn’t work out its onto the next.
The time we see the blatten difference in confidence is when guys are staring at them. Maggie like I said doesn’t know her self worth and doesn’t understand how to act in these situations. She doesn’t know how to walk with confidence and brush off the stares of men, “Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids, made her tremble. She thought them all to be worse men than Pete.” (59) That right there shows that she has no confidence at all, she trembles when men stare at her. To make it even worse she thinks that Pete is better than all these men while in the end Pete is exactly the same. Nelle on the other hand knows that she has it going on and is not fazed by stares of men at all. She knows that she is pretty and just embraces it and doesn’t let anything get to her head, “She looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men.” (65) She knows how to walk through a crowd of men and has the confidence to know that those stares mean nothing but a complement. She is confident in her looks and knows that in the end she is the one in control.
The outcome Nelle and Maggie have at the end of the story is solely based on the confidence level they have. Maggie is now a full blown prostitute and is clearly working for cheap and having to deal with horrible clients. Maggie not having confidence from the start put her in this position because everyone knows she pretty but she doesn’t know it herself so it resulted in her becoming a low end prostitute. She is last seen with a man who is describes as having “Great rolls of red fat,… brown, disordered teeth gleaming under a grey, grizzled moustache from which beer-drops dripped.” (81) This right here is who Maggie has to deal with and this is the last time we see her alive. If only Maggie knew her worth she wouldn’t of been in this situation to begin with and maybe wouldn’t have died. Nelle on the other hand has a happy ending because she knows she is the one calling the shots. Her and a bunch of girls are at a saloon with Pete drinking on his dime. Pete is completely hammered and the girls are having a great time. These are the situations Nelle puts herself in because she flat out knows how to manipulate men. The night ends with Pete on the ground passed out, “A guttural snore from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look down at him. She laughed “What a damn fool,” she said, and went.” (86) Nelle realizes her time with Pete is over and is ready to move on as she laughs at him and calls him a “damn fool”. This shows that she knows she is in control because she just gets up and walks away from the man while maggie on the other hand would have stayed and probably helped Pete.
The first thing you need to learn in life is having confidence in who you are. Maggie throughout the whole story never got this. She never understood that she was pretty and that she could use her looks to her advantage. This caused her to experience some pretty bad stuff and ultimilty cost her, her life in the end. Nelle on the other hand knows she is pretty and has the confidence in herself to handle it. She knows that she has control over men and uses it to her advantage and it clearly works out for her. If maggie ever found that confidence that Nelle had I believe she would still be alive and in a completely better situation than the one she was in before she died. What Stephen Crane was trying to show between the two character is that you need to have confidence in life, and if you do, you ends up in a better situation and ultimily live a better life. You need to be confident in who you are and choose your fate, take control of the situation and in the end you will have the last laugh just like Nelle did.
