Maggie died. Maggie died a prostitute. How she turned out to be a prostitute is unknown and will forever remain a mystery to readers. However, it is not how but why she ended up in that position and whether she deserved it at all. Stephen Crane has left an ominous ending for readers to interpret the story in their own way, but acknowledging that it’s a realist and naturalist novella, Maggie: a Girl of the Street was an example of American life’s brutality. Maggie, the protagonist of the story, was born into a pit of poverty since her birth and became a puppet of opulence. Readers would often sympathize with Maggie and call her the tragic hero who is flawed due to her circumstances. Maggie did die living a very tragic life, but she was never a hero, not to others or to herself.
In Maggie: a Girl of the Street, it was clear that Maggie’s background was impoverished and negatively influenced family. Within the first few chapters, there had been a violent conflict happening with “howls and curses, groans and shrieks, confusingly in chorus as if a battle were raging. With all was the crash of splintering furniture.” (Crane 17) This was a routine in the Johnson’s household: alcoholic and violent parents and an ignorant brother who paid no attention to Maggie. The community around her was not supportive and constantly mocking her. So it is predictable that she grew up with no childhood memories that would inspire her to be more than what she was. Everyday was a battle for Maggie, that was doubtedly why she turned to Pete to depend on. To her, Pete was a new spectacle that would enable her to enter a completely new world of wealth, or so she thought. Everything Pete did amazed Maggie, from the way “her heart warmed as she reflected upon his condescension” (Crane 34) to the plays he took her to that sparked a thought that maybe all the glorious drama could perhaps be “acquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house and worked in a shirt factory” (Crane 40). She started to built up this hope of a miracle that would eventually come to save her from poverty, and that miracle in her mind was Pete. However, because of her blind naivety to reality, her dependency on Pete led to her downfall instead. Maggie so far has grown up in a poor and destructive family that taught her no love nor knowledge. She seeked help from Pete, which in the end made her a prostitute and eventually her death. Maggie had a rather tragic life, but she did not choose to be born so.
Maggie is not a hero seeing that she is overly dependent with a lack of heroic characteristics. According to Dictionary.com, a tragic hero has been defined as “a great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat”. Even though Maggie is the protagonist in this story, she is unfortunately in no way great or virtuous. She has been shown to be overly reliant on Pete after being with him for three weeks. “Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look of self-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion” (Crane 57) Maggie was soon in the process of losing herself. She now sees herself as Pete’s companion; she’s the toy that comes in a kid’s meal in McDonald’s. Calling her a hero when the only person she is supposed to save is herself and she can barely do it is untrue. Regardless of the fact that she had no support or community to be there for her, Maggie was unable to flip her life around or change her fate. She failed at saving herself or anyone else around her, and saying that she was destined to be so is false. Maggie had the choice to stay in the factory and continue her monotonous life until she saves enough money for an independent life, but instead she spent them on a lambrequin. Maggie’s only choice was not to be with Pete and then become a prostitute; that could have been avoided. She did not have to become “a girl of the painted cohorts of the city [that] went along street” and “threw changing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations” (Crane 79) It was not her desire to become a prostitute, but it was her desire to change her life by depending it on someone else that made her a prostitute. One could say that all Maggie had been exposed to was the melodrama she has seen in plays that romanticized real life, hence, her ideal life would follow that. That is not true. Maggie has been exposed to more than that.
Maggie was the lead of an incredibly tragic life, but it would be unfair to put the blame all on her shoulders. The fact that she grew up in a poisonous environment with alcohol and violence had inhibited her from maturing and becoming aware of the world around her. Her mother, Mary, would go as far as claiming Maggie is with the devil and she has “fall so low as to bring disgrace upon the family” (Crane 60) when the mother was drinking and beating up her family since day one. The irony in this situation is extremely bitter. Mothers are usually the one children turn to for help and support, but not for Maggie. It was impossible for her to seek support from family, let alone her community. Maggie did have the courage to come back after being discarded by Pete, but rather than welcoming her or offering comfort, she was greeted by children ogling her and nosy women discussing her as if she was a philosophy theory. If only she had had a more understanding community support around her, it would not have to end with her death. Her circumstance is not her fault. And then there was Pete. Pete is ignitor for the downfall of Maggie’s life. He was the one who flirted with Maggie and gave her a false impression of his life and cruelly abandoned her when Nellie came. Maggie did make unwise choices that led to her downfall, but it could have been prohibited if she had a trustworthy assistance to rely on.
Maggie is indeed a tragically developed character with misfortunes that sadly led to her death. She did not have a say in where she was born or who she was living with, and that had hindered her exposure to the world. She also had flawed ideas of the differences between real life and theatre that formed her dependency on a man. The blame cannot be all on her; there are always external forces that take part. However, no matter how devastating her life went with all the wrong decisions, it does not compensate for her being a hero. Maggie is not a hero. Despite not being entirely her fault, she has failed in rescuing herself and in return, lost herself. Maggie is not a tragic hero; she is merely a tragic girl.