In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, the base of the novella is about the Johnson Family who lives in Rum Alley, New York. Crane starts off the novella with Maggie, at a young age, where the living situation is described to be horrendous. Maggie lives with her mother, Mary Johnson, who is a drunkard and has a temper, and Mr. Johnson, who comes home from work only to sleep or get into a fights with Mary. Jimmie, her older brother, develops the same views as his father. Tommie, Maggie and Jimmie’s younger brother, dies shortly after the novella starts. A dynamic character is a character that undergoes a change. Maggie is a dynamic character who grows up in an unpleasing and extremely violent environment. Over the duration of the novella, she grows up to be a beautiful young woman who is an optimistic dreamer. While she maintains this outlook for a while, in the end, her desperation to survive makes her lose hope and give up on her romantic dreams. …show more content…
In this quote Maggie will have a daydream about her perfect man. “Maggie perceived that was a beau ideal of a man. Her dim thoughts were often searching for far away lands, where as God says, the little hills sing together in the morning. Under the trees of her dream-gardens there had always walked a lover” (Crane 138). Maggie is day dreaming about Pete because she really likes him a lot. Later Pete takes notice of Maggie and suggests they go out to the theaters sometime. Maggie, head over heals, of course says yes. Pete and Maggie date for a while and go out a lot, but Pete does not show much interest in
Who is the dynamic character in “The Scarlet Ibis?” To answer this question, one must first know what a dynamic character is or means. A dynamic character is one who changes by the end of the story. In “The Scarlet Ibis” the narrator is the one who is the dynamic character. How? First of all, the reason why the narrator is dynamic is he feels atrocious of how he has treated Doodle, his brother. The second reason is the narrator comprehends he should have appreciated his brother more. The last reason is the narrator feels fallacious of what he has done to Doodle; which has possibly led to Doodle’s death.
A character is just a character until given a chance to evolve. By evolving in a story the character becomes dynamic almost visually alive. That is what Old Phoenix undergoes in the short story “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty. The audience follows Phoenix, an elderly Negro woman, on her strenuous journey from the far countryside to town. On this trip the audience watches Old Phoenix grow into a character that they begin to form a connection with allowing her to jump out at of the pages. This is accomplished through Welty’s use of physical description, action, and dialogue to bring Phoenix Jackson to life.
Nanabush is infatuated with Maggie, wanting to help, and intends to do no harm to Maggie because of his infatuation for her. During the story Maggie is struggling to deal with the problem of what is to become of the new land.
With the stories written these days, it is hard to tell who a complex character is because the stories in itself are so complex. A complex or dynamic character is a character in a story who changes. Some change throughout the course of the story, while other character change continuously. In order to create a complex character, an author must use contradiction. Contradiction between how the character feels and their actions. The character may appear a certain way, but may act opposite. In the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the protagonist is the complex character. Although his name is not known, a reader can determine how he is so complex.
When we meet our narrator, the mother of Maggie and Dee, she is waiting in the yard with Maggie for Dee to visit. The mother takes simple pleasure in such a pleasant place where, "anyone can come back and look up at the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house." (Walker 383) This is her basic attitude, the simple everyday pleasures that have nothing to do with great ideas, cultural heritage or family or racial histories. She later reveals to us that she is even more the rough rural woman since she, "can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." (Walker 383) Hardly a woman one would expect to have much patience with hanging historical quilts on a wall. Daughter Maggie is very much the opposite of her older sister, Dee. Maggie is portrayed as knowing "she is not bright." (Walker 384)
In this story, Maggie is a lot like her mother. They both are uneducated, loving, caring, and allow Dee to run over them. Maggie has been through more things than her mother has though, because of the incident that happened. Maggie has scars like Emily, except Maggie’s scars are from a house fire (319). The house fire has impacted Maggie’s life tremendously, since she is very self-conscious and shy. Walker stated that Maggie is “ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs (318). The mother is protective of Maggie and will be there for her whenever she needs her too. Even though her mother knows all her struggles, she still supports her and pushes her to be better. I think that is one reason she pushes her to marry John Thomas, because she wants her to become her own person and to be strong (319). The mother of “Everyday Use” is opposite from the mother in “I Stand Here Ironing”, because she is there for her children no matter what their financial status
In the story, Maggie is the younger sister and she got burn in a fire. Mama Johnson is the mother of Maggie. Maggie also has a sister name Dee. Dee has a problem. The problem is the she don’t know what is true representation of heritage. Dee is the only good educate from her family. Maggie didn’t go to school and she is very shy. Dee takes a friend name Hakim-A-Barber. Dee and hem are the black power movement. Hakim-A-Barber is very religious and he doesn’t what is true representation of heritage.
In the story “Everyday Use” Walker weaves us into the lives of Momma, Dee, and Maggie, an underprivileged family in rural Georgia. Momma is described as a loving, hard working woman who cares more about her family’s welfare than her appearance. The conflict comes along with Momma’s two daughters Dee and Maggie whose personalities are as different as night and day. Dee, the younger, is an attractive, full figured, light skinned young lady with ample creativity when it comes to getting what she wants and feels she needs. Maggie on the other hand, is darker skinned, homely and scarred from the fire that destroyed the family’s first house. Throughout the story we are told about Maggie’s timid and withdrawn behavior. Her own mother described her as “. . . a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car . . . That is the way my Maggie walks . . . chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire.” (Handout, Walker) She is constantly overpowered by her dominant sister who “held life in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her” (Handout, Walker). It seems as if Walker herself find Maggie inferior, seeing as how she is a minor character in the story. Things begin to turn around for Maggie towards the end when she receives the family’s...
With this in mind, the mother, or the narrator of the story describes herself as a big-boned, manly woman with hands so rough from years of physical labor. She is a tough parent, taking the role of both mother and father for her daughters and providing for them. Taking into account that they are a poor family and most of them are uneducated. By her mother’s observation and words she describes Maggie as shy. “Maggie walks chin ...
The use of color in Stephan Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is crucial when looking at the setting of the story; the repeated use of red is significant when describing Maggie’s mother Mary and the importance of color in describing the social system through the story. It is seen prominently when Maggie and Pete go to the theater, parts of the play paralleled the lives of the common people: "The latter spent most of his time out at soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, re...
“Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff. Then... everything went dark. Maggie woke up in her bed. “Finally woke up from that nightmare. Man… I miss my brother. Who was that person that my brother wanted to kill?” she looks at the clock and its 9:15am “Crap I’m late for work!” Maggie got in her car and drove to the hospital for work.
Maggie lives with a poor and dysfunctional family and a hopeless future with only the small possibility of change. The environment and setting she grows up in do not support anything more than a dull, dreary and pathetic future for her. An old woman asks Maggie's brother Jimmy: "Eh, Gawd, child, what is it this time? Is yer fader beatin yer mudder, or yer mudder beatin yer fader? (Maggie, 10)" while he runs to Maggie's apartment one night. The lack of love and support of her family hinders Maggie's ability to live a happy and fulfilling life. Without knowing that someone loves her no matter what she does or how she acts Maggie may feel desperate enough to change her situation by any means she can, and without any useful guidance. Even without any positive influences Maggie grows up different from the low-life's living with and around her. Crane explains Maggie's uniqueness in the passage "None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it" (Maggie 16). Maggie's uniqueness gives her the chance to improve her life, but only a slim chance. Even though Maggie differs from the people around her they remain sleazy, making it harder for her to change her life because she must go outside of her community for help.
They may argue Maggie could of escape from the slum life and she didn’t have to let it take a hold of her. They may also say that Maggie was her own downfall and demise by letting a boy drag her down to the mud and damage her good name. However, because of her upbringing, it was hard for her not to be affected by her environment and social factors.
Maggie goes on multiple dates throughout the novel, and even Sloane is hitting on the new kid at her school. This would be similar to projecting your feelings in your dreams. They both lost someone important to them, too. Maggie’s dad died when she was young and later Sloane’s best friend died in a car accident. Many of the characters dialogue also suggests that Sloane isn’t real.
This culminates in one moment where Maggie’s mother comes back from drinking. Jimmie has to drag her in, and the two fight, with Maggie hidden in another room (Crane 977). In all that destruction, Pete comes, and tells Maggie “Come out wid me! We’ll have a hell of a time” (Crane 978). Maggie has a choice: go with Pete, or stay.