Maggies Tragic Downfall

A tragic hero can be defined as  a character in a dramatic tragedy who has virtuous and sympathetic traits but ultimately meets with suffering or defeat. A character who definitely fits this is the protagonist Maggie from the book Maggie:A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane because of how harsh her life was growing up with her brother Jimmy. She grew up in an abusive household and it really did a toll on her and her brother. Maggie did a great deal of suffering and that started to happen when she met Pete. Maggie was very innocent before meeting Pete, but once they started talking, Pete introduced her to the crappy and cheap aspects of life and that ruined her. Maggie led herself to her own tragic downfall because of her dependence and attention seeking on other people like Pete, Maggie meeting Pete, and doing whatever it took to get herself out of the situation she was in at home. 

“‘Give us a kiss for takin’ yeh teh deh show, will yer?’” (Crane 35)

Maggie was brought up in a very poor and abusive household and it did a toll on her mentally. She was abused, but her brother was way worse off than her and she would have to watch her brother being abused mentally and physically and it was bad like when the mother hurt him by, “Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. She dragged him to the sink…soaking a rag in water, began to scrub his lacerated face with it” (Crane 8). This is when Jimmy was being abused for defying his mothers orders and Maggie felt so bad for him, even though she was still a little girl. That does a lot to a little girl, and created dependency issues on top of so many other mental issues like self blame and relying on the wrong people for a positive outcome. She relied on Pete so much and he knew that, but he didn’t really care and manipulated to a point where Pete had her wrapped around his thumb. Since Maggie had been through a rough time growing up, Pete knew it would be easy to take advantage of an innocent girl who had never even had her first kiss before, and that was morally wrong on his part. Even though Maggie had been through a lot, she still should know what to look for in a person, especially a person she was going to love. Although, that was not her only reason for downfall.

Maggie meeting Pete was probably the biggest reason for her tragic downfall. Pete was a scummy individual who was no good for Maggie. Maggie wanted out of her home life so badly and once she met Pete and thought he was successful and high class, she became attached to him. He became the one and only thing Maggie would worry about all the time and Crane describes it by stating,  “Maggie contemplated Pete’s man-subduing eyes and noted that wealth and prosperity was indicated by his clothes. She imagined a future, rose tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had experienced” (Crane 58). She was so obsessed with him because of her dependency issues, Pete became very good at manipulating her, and because of how desperate she was to get out of her current situation. Pete was probably the worst thing for her at the time and since she only focused on him, she ended up getting herself kicked out of the house because of Pete. Also, she cut her family and friends out of her life for Pete, and quit her job. She did all this for Pete even though Pete was just manipulating her for nothing. When they split up, she was devastated because was depressed, lonely, and had nowhere to live. Even though Pete manipulated her into everything, she still did them and listened to him leading herself to her own downfall, but sadly, there are other reasons too. 

The last reason leading Maggie to a tragic downfall was doing whatever it took to get herself out of her home situation. She did everything she could to get out of the situation she was in, but it was all in the bad ways. She relied way too much on thinking Pete would save her from everything snf did everything for him. She even let him take her virginity because she was playing the end game and that was getting herself out of her current situation. He even manipulated her into a first kiss, but she let him as Crane showed it as, “‘Give us a kiss for takin’ yeh teh deh show, will yer?’” (Crane 35). Maggie should have had way more confidence and dependability in herself, but since she didn’t, she allowed Pete to walk in and basically own her. Even with all she had gone through, she should have had more reliance in herself and waited for the right opportunity to leave her home, not attack a slight possibility. 

Even though Maggie was brought up in an abusive and toxic household, so are other people who turn out way different than her, especially in her time period. Maggie should not have done what she did with Pete and poured herself into him and he basically threw it in the trash. After Maggie and Pete split up, Maggie still threw herself at her family members for food, and other men she was throwing herself at. Maggie living the life of prostitution brought her down so many levels mentally and eventually, led to her tragic downfall and death.