Strong or Good Natured?

In the novel Maggie: Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, Maggie is the tragic hero. The novel follows her epic downfall as she struggles with her self-reliance. At the end of the novel, the reader can observe the theme that a woman must be strong and ruthless to make it in the harsh world that they are living in. This theme is highlighted by Nellie, the foil character. The two women come from the same background and circumstances, however their lives end up very different. Maggie is innocent and naive and ends up living on the streets as a prostitute, while Nellie is horrible to the people around her but is spoiled and gets what she wants. These two characters invokes the question: is it better to be good and weak or to be bad and strong? Crane is illustrating the point that there is no such thing as happily ever after. The world does not pardon good people from the harshness of life. Maggie is naive and believes in the good and morality of people, but she ends up selling herself away until she is no longer herself.
Both Maggie and Nellie grew up in a poor immigrant area. They are both very beautiful women. Maggie’s home life and childhood is described in depth and is often referred to as “hell”. Maggie was lucky enough to be beautiful. The narrator states, “The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle.” (Crane, 18) She came from a horrible home and area, but her beauty was something that could have saved her. While Maggie is very modest and does not indulge herself in her beauty, Nellie is very aware and conscious of her beauty and uses it.
Nellie is a gold-digging woman who uses her beauty and superior attitude to get what she wants out of men, while all the while leading them on. She holds herself with a confidence that makes men want her. The narrator describes her when Maggie first notices her, “Maggie took instant note of the woman… The woman looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men.” (Crane, 50) Nellie is not a good woman. However, in this novel goodness is not common among the characters. In the end of the novel we see Nellie and her girlfriends with Pete in a bar. They are accompanying Pete so he will pay for their drinks. When Pete slumps over drunk the women get up to leave. Before they leave, Nellie, out of greed and selfishness, takes his money. The narrator says, “The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind, taking up the bills and stuffing them into a deep, irregularly-shaped pocket. 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.” (Crane, 66) Nellie is a ruthless woman who does not have a sense of goodness or morality, however she needs this to survive in the world she was born into.
Maggie is very innocent and does not see her own her beauty until she realizes Pete is noticing her. She does not have the confidence that Nellie does. She becomes completely dependent on Pete for money, a place to live, and love for herself. The narrator describes her as a dog following its owner, “The air of spaniel-like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effect in the peculiar off-handedness and ease of Pete’s way toward her” (Crane, 50). She becomes completely dependent on Pete and her need for his attention is only makes her less attractive to him. Maggie lacks the entitlement of Nellie from the beginning.She feels lucky to have Pete. However, Pete is not good enough to be faithful and loyal to Maggie, so he finds Nellie who is knew and a challenge for him. Therefore, Maggie is left without her only source of life. She tries to return home but her mother and brother refuse her. Maggie has nothing else to do but become a girl of the streets. She sells herself to stay alive.
Crane develops the character of Nellie to create a foil for the tragic hero of Maggie. Nellie comes from the same background as Maggie, however she is very different and highlights Maggie’s characteristics. Nellie’s fierceness is very much different from Maggie’s softness. Nellie’s characteristics and actions in this novel are the opposite of Maggie’s characteristics. Nellie is reliant on herself, while Maggie is completely reliant on Pete. The bigger point that Crane is trying to make is that the world does not look out for people who have goodness in them. Both of these women are in the same harsh world of the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City in the turn of the 19th Century. Nellie learns how to survive in the world she was born into. She may not be the most moral and good of people, but she develops this shell and ruthlessness because she has to to survive. Maggie is thrown onto the streets with nothing to fall back on because she has not learned how to take care of herself. She is not tough like Nellie, which is why she is on the streets with nowhere to live. She does not know how to stick up for herself because she is naive. If she had been aware of the way the world works, she would not have lost herself and become just another girl of the streets.