Deterioration of Dance Halls and Dreams

By Sam Gumprecht

The main character in Stephen Crane’s novel,  Maggie: Girl of the Streets, is a young girl stuck between her aspirations and reality. This novel follows the girl, Maggie, through her downfall to rock bottom as it is chronicled through the descriptions of her environment. “The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle” (Crane 18) is how the young girl is described at the beginning of the novella. She is a beautiful, young girl who was seemingly still ‘blossoming’ in the tough environment of a tenement housing neighborhood in the late eighteen hundreds. Little did she know her seemingly stagnant world was going to change as soon as the handsome, “charming” and bar fighting young man, Pete, walked into her home. Pete showed Maggie to the world she had always been curious about, the lavish life of someone with money. Pete brought her to dance halls that were filled to the brim with Crane’s descriptions of a new and exciting experience. Yet at the end of the novella as the glamour and wonder of the dance hall fades away through Crane’s writing so do Maggie’s aspirations and her individuality. Through Crane’s deterioration of detail for the lustrious dance halls and for Maggie herself, one can follow her personal downfall and her relationship with Pete.

As stated above, in the height of the story Maggie is a young girl in love with a young man. She is entranced by the life he lives and is rapt by extravigant dance hall he continues to bring her too. Though Pete is seemingly unimpressed by the crowded event, Maggie is caught up in all the “luxury”. “An orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed on an elevated stage near the center of a green-hued hall played a popular waltz” (Crane 24). The language of the text implores the wonder and newness of the environment. Even readers feel a sense of attraction to the hustle and bustle of the night life.

As soon as the relationship becomes serious between Maggie and Pete, the magic seems to disappear from their fairytale story. Pete is more entranced with other girls and treats Maggie more and more casually as the days go by. Given that Maggie has become so dependent on Pete to give her a slim escape from her tenement life, this change in their relationship pulls at her. Maggie’s very fragile jenga block tower of self esteem and personal being is wobbling as Pete’s ignorant actions pull piece after piece away. While being with Pete, Maggie subconsciously gave him her own independence, as she needs him to access the forbidden fruit of the wealthy life. Along with her independence she gives away her confidence and individuality, because she becomes so heavily reliant on the pinions of the wealthy including Pete. In the writing, readers can follow the diming relationship through the increasingly dulling scene of the dance hall. The more Maggie visits the vibrant dance hall the less appealing it becomes. “A submissive orchestra dictated by a spectacled man with frowsy hair and a dress suit” the descriptions of the once aweing performances simply seem tedious now.  

The final image Crane gives us of the dance hall is one of a crowded, smoke filled, and grimy room. The chapter the scene is in starts out by describing the hall as ‘hilarious’ and gives readers descriptions in more of a factual tone. “Soiled waiters ran to and fro, swooping down like hawks on the unwary in the throng, clattering along” (Crane 49). The impersonal way Crane describes the hall makes the readers feel distant and unattracted to the once glamourous dance hall. The facade from the beginning of the story of a high class dance hall filled with opulence seemingly melted away to reveal a simple room filled with subpar music and sluggish rich.  While following the metamorphosis of the dance hall the end result for Maggie is far from a beautiful butterfly. It’s really quite the opposite.

The final image Crane paints of Maggie is quite detached and gives no real personal descriptions of her. “A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street” (Crane 61) is the simple image the readers are given. Crane shows that Maggie is no longer that girl who was able to bloom in a mud puddle, the one who had the hopes and aspirations of a better life. All that is left is a simple girl running through the streets searching for the missing parts of her jenga tower. When Maggie and Pete’s relationship crumbled so did Maggie’s personal identity, literally in the text and within her own character.

Through Cranes deliberate and carefully thought out language, readers are able to align the deterioration of Maggie with the deterioration of the dance hall. Both once glimmering and lustrous images, by the end of the book had faded into despair that lacked the individual and bright details. Maggie’s downfall is attributed to her toxic relationship with Pete that sucked her independence and sense of self worth from her. The dance hall then being one of the things closely assimilated with Pete, when the relationship with Pete faded so did the love for and beautiful image of the dancehall.