Bread and butter, ham and eggs, Maggie and Pete. All three pairs fit together seamlessly and cannot stand alone. However, one pair is different: Maggie and Pete. In Maggie: A girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, Maggie and Pete’s relationship is a parasitism, Pete gains while Maggie suffers. But Pete does not cause the suffering, Maggie does. Maggie’s lack of reliance on herself and overreliance on Pete causes Maggie to suffer. Maggie adores Pete, but Pete feels indifferent and only likes Maggie for her body. As soon as Pete finds a better women, he moves on, but Maggie cannot as she relies too much on Pete. Maggie is now left alone in the world and is entirely lost. Without having Pete to rely on, Maggie turns to a life of prostitution as her only means to survive, ultimately leading to her death. Despite Maggie’s lack of self-reliance, Maggie is not a tragic hero. A tragic hero is someone who is responsible for their death. Maggie cannot be this as she is not liable for her death. Although her lack of self-reliance leads to her death, Maggie is not responsible for the development of this flaw. The flaw is rather developed as Maggie has no options or support, no home, and is apart of a low social and economic class.
Throughout Maggie’s life, Maggie received no support from anyone around her, nor possessed any options. In the beginning of the novel, one of Maggie’s neighbors states: “‘Eh, Gawd, child, what is it dis time? Is yer father beatin’ yer mudder, or yer mudder beatin’ yer fader?’” (Crane 12). Even at an early age, Maggie’s drunk parents fought with each other daily and put Maggie in a dangerous and unsupportive environment. Maggie had no safe place to go and was trapped. She had no role models and could not develop any skills of self-reliance from her parents like a child should be able to do. Maggie is rather left to survive on her own in an environment that does not provide the confidence she needs to develop her self-reliance. In addition, Maggie received no support from her community, the tenement. When Maggies is faced with a problem, the tenement responds by: “Children ventured into the room and ogled her, [Maggie] as if they formed the front row at a theatre” (Crane 72). To the community, Maggie was seen as a show and performance rather than a real person. The community shows no sympathy for Maggie’s situation and even finds it entertaining and funny when she runs away to the devil. By receiving no help or support, the community drives Maggie away to find her knight, Pete. To Maggie, Pete is her only support. She has to rely on him and trust him as she has no other choice. Now that she is driven away by her community, Maggie is left with only Pete and her lack of self-reliance. Maggie has no control over who her parents are and therefore no control over her ability to develop her self-reliance. The community, that Maggie once again has no choice over, drives Maggie to run away with Pete where her lack of self-reliance can begin to cause her demise. Maggie’s lack of self-reliance is caused by her broken family and community. Maggie has no choice in deciding these groups so she cannot be blamed for developing her fatal flaw.
After a few weeks with Pete, Maggie soon finds herself abandoned. Maggie cannot stay with pete so she turns to the only other people she knows, her family. When Maggie returns home, she is desperate and has realized her mistake of sleeping with Pete. She has relied on him to much and is now abandoned. Maggie is ready to return home and right her mistakes. At this moment, Maggie needs support more than ever, but her family does not provide it. Maggie’s mother and brother believe that: “Maggie’s gone teh deh devil” (Crane 47). Both family members are aware that Maggie has had sex before marriage and she has therefore gone to the devil for her ungodly act. When Maggie returns home, her family has not forgiven her for this act. When Pete is talking to Maggie: “Radiant virtue sat upon his [Pete’s] brow and his repelling hands expressed horor of contamination” (Crane 72). When Maggie returns, Pete feels that he has higher moral than Maggie and can be contaminated by her devilish acts. This act, along with the repeling attitude of Maggie’s mother, makes it impossible for Maggie to attempt to return to her normal life and right her wrongs. Now, knowing her family is not willing to help, Maggie turns to the tenement for support. However, just as before Maggie had left, the tenement was not able to show sympathy and help Maggie. Like her family, the tenement feels like Maggie has also gone to the devil. They are not willing to help as they claim their morals are too high. The only person that briefly helps only helps as she has no morals. With truely no place to go, Maggie turns to the streets like a wandering prostitute. Like in the tenement, Maggie once again pleads for help, but she finds no one as people view her as a prostitute and will not offer their help. Truly left with no one to rely on, Maggie finally becomes what everyone sees her as, a prostitute. Soon after Maggie is dead. Although Maggie has no ability to rely on herself, she is intelligent enough to seek help when she knows shes needs it. A person can not expect to do everything on their own, especially someone as young as Maggie. If the community and her family provided a home as they should have, then Maggie’s flaw would not have lead to her death. The lack of support Maggie received was out of her control and took the responsibility of death out of Maggie’s hands.
Now that Maggie is left alone on the streets, imagine a world where Maggie is self-reliant. It will quickly become clear that the alternate world has the same outcome as Maggie’s real world, early death. If Maggie was self-reliant, it means that she would be able to find a place to stay and work when she is abandoned. But Maggie has nowhere to go. Maggie is apart of a low class neighborhood and has no access to a good job that pays enough for rent and food. Without any support, Maggie has to live on the streets, even with her self-reliance. In addition, she also does not have access to an education or library in order to gain the knowledge to obtain a higher positioned job in order to afford rent or food. When Maggie is wandering the streets, she walks towards a man to seek help: “But as the girl [Maggie] timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved his respectability by a vigorous side-step” (Crane 77). Even before Maggie becomes a prostitute, she is already viewed as one. She is an outcast in life and cannot find any help. Prostitution is the only way Maggie can find a place to stay and make money for food. No matter how self-reliant Maggie is, it does not matter. She is trapped within her social class and turns to the only thing she can turn to for survival, prostitution and death.
To be a tragic hero, one must be responsible for their own death. Maggie is not responsible, but rather her lack of options, no home, and low social and economic class are. Maggie has no control over these areas and therefore no control or responsibility in her death. Maggie tries everything in order to right her wrongs, but cannot as she is kicked out of her house and made a castaway by her unsupportive community. Maggie is not responsible for her death, and if she had a supportive community or was a member of a higher class, her life would not have been cut short.