Tragic Heroes Are Not Killed By Circumstance

A quote from German poet Ernst Wiechert states: “Only pious people believe that hell is in a world beyond.” While Stephen Crane’s novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, supports this idea throughout the text, Maggie in particular is an excellent representation of the fact that life is often highlighted by the moments of darkness, not of light. Maggie’s story ends with her untimely death—a moment that is disappointing, perhaps, but not surprising. As Wiechert’s quote suggests, not everyone is privileged enough to view the world as a paradise rather than a living hell—Maggie is not one of those people, and she is certainly under no delusions as to her unfortunate conditions. A tragic hero is a protagonist whose fatal flaw is responsible for their downfall. On the surface, Maggie fits into that box. It is her naivety that allows her to miss Pete’s ugly personality; it is her naivety that causes her to leave home; it is her naivety that ultimately leads to her death in the dark streets of New York City. What that view misses, though, is that society is the true reason for her death—the true villain of her story—not Maggie’s own choices or missteps. By labeling Maggie a tragic hero, you ignore her desires, the circumstances of her birth, and Crane’s reason for telling her story in the first place.

There is no doubt that Maggie’s naivety played a role in how she overlooked Pete’s red flags. However, another piece of her character was a much more important factor in that ignorance: her blatant, overwhelming need to escape the life she was born into. For Maggie, this was not just desire, it was survival. The end of the book only cements the idea that her life was unsustainable. At home, with her parents, she suffered their insults and abuse. On the streets, she unwillingly sold her body. Pete was legitimately her best chance at escaping both of those fates, and he knew it too, as suggested by his reaction to her fate. Early on in the novella, Maggie describes Pete: “Here was a formidable man who disdained the strength of a world full of fists. Here was one who had contempt for brass-clothed power; one whose knuckles could defiantly ring against the granite of law. He was a knight” (Crane 17-18). Maggie was a princess locked in a castle, and Pete was her knight in shining armor, come to rescue her. There was no one else in whom she could trust to take her away; Pete was the only chance she had. That being the case, it makes complete sense that she would ignore his negative traits; focusing on them brings no benefits, but pretending they do not exist allows her to hold on to her desperate hope for escape. Hope is not a character flaw, and neither is a desire for survival. It is this hope that drives her avoidance of Pete’s problems, not her naivety. Unlike other famous tragic heroes, she does not die because of her personality, but in spite of it.

There is no denying that naivety can be a character flaw in certain cases. Maggie, however, is an excellent example of how society and the environment you grow up in have a tremendous impact on the course of your life and how you act. In the beginning of the novella, Maggie and Jimmie’s home life is described in intimate detail. From their tiny house and broken furniture to the parents that abuse them both mentally and physically, the audience quickly realizes that this is not a happy place, nor is it healthy for Maggie and any number of other kids to begin their lives there. It may not be explicitly stated that the children never went to school or received any sort of education, but that fact comes through quite clearly. For example, it can be seen in their language alone: “‘Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin’ ‘im. When I come up nights I can’t git no rest ‘cause yer allus poundin’ a kid. Let up, d’yeh hear? Don’t be allus poundin’ a kid’” (Crane 7). Maggie and her family have little to no sense of “respectable” language or grammar; they speak almost entirely in slang. In no way does this diminish their worth as human beings, but it does show that they have not had the exposure to education that many are lucky to receive today. Society is not based on equality, and Maggie and her family suffer because of it, looked down upon by those fortunate enough to have money. If no one cares enough about them to actually provide them with the tools they need to succeed in society, it is not at all surprising that Maggie does not make the smart decisions that we might expect her to. Her naivety is not an inherent piece of her; it came from those in power and their blatant lack of concern for the lower class.

The most obvious example of Maggie’s lack of education is her speech, but it is not the only one. Children learn important lessons in school—they learn to interact with others, solve problems on their own, and grow their common sense and intuition. More important to her story than language is knowledge—something Maggie is lacking. She has no understanding of the world around her, but is still forced to reckon with it alone. This becomes abundantly clear when she is exposed to new environments, the dance hall in particular. Rather than express embarrassment over watching a stripper next to her boyfriend, Maggie wonders about other matters:

She divulged the fact that she was attired in some half dozen skirts. It was patent that any one of them would have proved adequate for the purpose for which skirts are intended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon the pink stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendor of the costume and lost herself in calculations of the cost of the silks and laces (Crane 20).

At this moment, Maggie expresses no feelings over the display she is currently watching, and why should she? She does not even understand what’s happening. Rather, she focuses on the one things she does understand: how expensive goods are. Similarly, when she watches the ventriloquist perform, Maggie asks in all seriousness: “Do dose little men talk?” (Crane 21). Her experience in the dance hall proves that naivety is not a trait Maggie was born with; it was something that was forced upon her, and goes far beyond simply missing social cues. She genuinely has no idea what she is watching, no understanding of the fact that she is missing information. Maggie’s naivety is in no way her fault; she had absolutely no control over the circumstances of her birth. In this way, it is shown that she is not a tragic hero; her death would not have occurred had the government paid any attention at all to the lives of its citizens, as her “tragic flaw” would not have existed.

Claiming that Maggie was born naive itself ignores the fact that a deeply problematic society shaped her into the person she became, but stating that her death was her own fault—as is the definition of a tragic hero—is even more problematic. It ignores the fact that Crane’s novella was written with the purpose of examining and critiquing the state of the world, and highlighting the fates of those less fortunate. Maggie’s death was not her fault, especially compared to other examples of tragic heroes. Take, for example, John Proctor. John Proctor who, in his excessive self-pride, sacrificed his life for the sake of his name. Did his death send a message? Of course. Could he also have saved himself? Absolutely. The same cannot be said about Maggie. Maggie, who is last mentioned “[going] into the blackness of the final block” (Crane 48). Her death was not dramatic or full of meaning; she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the same could have happened to any number of other girls like her. Maggie’s death was meaningless, and that is the point. It cannot be said that her naivety, her end, was her own fault when society forced it upon her. She faded into the background, and in the grand scheme of things no one will remember her. Crane wrote this novella to highlight the fact that this was not abnormal—the same story could have been written about many other people, and pretending that it was all Maggie’s fault removes that message. Maggie did not end herself in her decision to try and escape her life, society ended her with its intentional ignorance and unjust hierarchy.

Stephen Crane’s novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, is a study of poverty and immigration; an illustration of how fortune favors the rich and society stomps on those that appear different from their rulers. Maggie is the protagonist of the story, but, ultimately, her name could be replaced with that of countless others. Maggie may be naive, but we will never know what she could have been had she been provided what those in power will always have access to: education. Claiming that Maggie’s naivety brought about her downfall places the blame on the one person it was not meant to; it ignores her desires, her upbringing, and the message that Crane sent by writing her death in the way that he did. Maggie was killed by her deeply unfortunate circumstances, and circumstance is not a fatal flaw.