Relishing the Ambrosia of Hope in Stephen Crane´s Bowery in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

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At the bed of the deepest ocean, exist a distinguished sect of people. They live with no warmth or light, in the darkest, most nefarious pit of the world. They eternally drown. An occult force leisurely sips their souls, relishing every drop. It savors the thin and sweet nectar of innocence as it fluidly streams down its throat, appeasing its taste buds but never quenching the crave for more. This mystic being extracts the cherubic innocence of a child’s laughter before it even has the chance to dance upon their lips. However, it lives within the souls of the children; it is engraved in their bones, an intrinsic quality passed from generation to generation. It works from the inside to turn every person against one another, to make them fight for a life of wealth and happiness. Little do the victims know that it does not matter whether they attain the life they strive for. The battle is only an illusion. Whether they reach this fantasy or not, they will live a life devoid of any happiness or love, for the demon within will continue to imbibe their joy. It will mercilessly consume this sweet nectar until it pilfers every drop. This ambrosia is the only hope for the victims of Stephen Crane’s Bowery in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Once this hope has disappeared, the victims of his Bowery are condemned to a life of addiction and desperation. The lurking beast’s existence and power is unknown to the rest of the world. There is no way to save its victims because their destitution is invisible to those who hold the ability to lift them from the seabed. There is no way to save these pitiable victims from the depths of the ocean, for the evil spirit that lurks within their souls is too strong for anyone to surmount. Crane unleashes the ...

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...forget about the real world and thus fail in it. They become addicted to these retreats and hence die when the withdrawal comes about. The victims of the Bowery try to fight the current that the demon of the Bowery oppresses them with. However, swimming upstream is impossible because they do not believe that they can reach their final goal. Furthermore, they cannot see where they want to go because no light of hope every reaches them. Without intervention from wealthier and thriving individuals, there is no way these destitute beings can rise from the depths of their naivety, corruption, and misinterpretations. These people will always be present in society; it is just up to people like Crane to recognize them. The ideas of Naturalism will remain reality if the impoverished and the interventionists do not detain and surmount the beast that drinks the hope its prey.

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