After the Civil War, realism became a dominant form of writing in the United States, with writers attempting to write about everyday life. After realism came naturalism, a form of writing similar to realism, but with more pessimism. One of the reasons for this pessimism stems from free will and the question of whether people possess it or not. In realism, it is definitely true, while in naturalism it seems less so, but the options are often less than ideal. Because choices do exist for characters, free will is still there, which indicates that naturalism is a derivative form of realism. In Stephen Crane’s “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,” the characters may have little chance to escape the world they inhabit, like Maggie, Jimmie, and Pete, but choices are there, even if these choices aren’t very good.
Maggie, herself, is a prime example. In the end of Crane’s tale, Maggie is turned into a prostitute and dies (995-999). Yet, her life didn’t have to end in that fashion. One of the big decisions Maggie makes is whether to be with Peter or not. 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 tell Maggie “Come ahn out wid me! We’ll have a hell of a time” (Crane 978). Maggie has a choice: go with Pete, or stay. Before all this, Maggie had been working in a factory, “where they made collars and cuffs” (Crane 967). This life was hard. Factories of the time had horrible working conditions, and left little chance for a woman to advance. Considering the slums that Maggie grew up in, though, this was one of the best options she could have.
When Pete comes into...
... middle of paper ...
..., but he had a chance. Even if he may not have done outrageously well, the fact that he had a choice remains.
Perhaps it could be argued, in the end, that Maggie’s fate wasn’t hers. She could be considered a victim of lack of free will due to the fact that some of what influences her life deals with other’s choices, like Jimmie’s and Pete’s, making a lack of free will in naturalism like a new genre of fiction. Yet, the fact remains that Maggie did have a chance to avoid the fall into prostitution and, ultimately, her death. Because of these possibilities for choices, she does have some sort of free will, no matter how horrible her choices are or how much she can’t totally avoid the world of the slums. Thus, naturalism isn’t a new form, but related to realism. The two are closely connected, with differences and similarities, much like a any family would.
For instance, when August and May went to the paint store to buy paint, August wants to get her favorite color blue, but May decides she wants the Caribbean Pink color. Caribbean Pink was the tackiest color August had ever seen, but since it would to bring a bit of happiness to May, August decides to get it knowing that “[t]he hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters” (147). She wants what her heart desires but she’d rather help May recover. The same applies to June, she would have accepted helping Lily at the beginning when Lily first came to the pink house. Then, later June did not want her to stay any longer because she did not trust Lily and did not want Lily to cause any more trouble for the family because May will feel sorry for Lily. Before May’s death, May leaves a note saying she is “[t]ired of carrying around the weight of the world...It’s [her] time to die, and it’s [June’s and August’s] time to live. Don’t mess it up” (210). After reading that letter from May, June made a decision to get married and finally moves on with her life. August quits making and selling honey she decides to take care of Lily, Rosaleen, and the pink house. May knows she was holding them both back by having them continuously worrying for her instead of worrying for themselves and their
The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.
In the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Short Fiction by Stephen Crane, Crane tells a story about Maggie, a girl who lives in the slums of New York City in the 1800s with her family and friends. In novella it is portrayed that Maggie desperately tries to escape the slums, however, because of Maggie’s environment and social forces, it ultimately led to her downfall and demise within society.
For example, Theodore Dalrymple writes of a woman so terrified by her boyfriend and filled with hopelessness that she tries to do the unthinkable and take her own life by overdose even though months before while in a drunken state she becomes pregnant, yet again by another abuser, and has shown a pattern of moving from relationship to relationship to escape one abuser only to crawl into the arms of another. With no money the government of England provides this young woman with a way to flee her abuser by gifting her with groceries to feed her children who have no escape from the everyday monotony of living such a life, a home warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer that has also been supplied with modern day appliances and entertainment such as furniture, a refrigerator, stove, and TV’s. With no repayment required due to lack of funds on the recipients half she will once again as Theodore Dalrymple states “invite him there” once again without the consequence of losing all that she has been
Helga Crane can never fit completely into either of the societies she has chosen to associate herself with. As a bi-racial woman in the early 19th century she fits in neither with black people nor white. But there is a place where she can feel more at home and that place is Copenhagen. Her ideals, likes and dislikes align better with the society in Copenhagen than Harlem.
An example of this is when Elizabeth in “The Leaving”, is ordered around by her husband “get over her ‘n’ make my supper wom[a]n!”, (Wilson, 1990 p. 3). This is a strong example because she is not appreciated or respected. Even though she lives in a different culture and time frame, the same sort of situation can be observed in “Another Evening at the Club”. This occurs when Samia does not have a choice of who she marries “you're a lucky girl,... he’s a real find” (Rifaat, 1998, p. 255). Along with these two women Anilam, Aqsa has to overcome their families not approving who they want to marry or how they want to dress. Finally, Mrs. Mallard also experiences this while she does not really love her husband but cannot confess to him as he has more power over her, so she has to just put up with him. This is shown when she says “free, free, free!” (Chopin, 1894 p 2), and she is finally happy even though he had died. Since all of the women in the story live in a patriarchal society or a repression they face really similar
His heart may have been in the right place, but he did not have the
Humans are born into certain circumstances, genes, and an environment which shapes them (Cave). These factors also create natural biases which also influence them. However, “ there is a big difference between having less and none at all” (Nahmias). In the novel, the characters exercise their free will based limiting factors beyond their control. For example, Zeena and Mattie come and stay in Starkfield due to the gender roles at the time. They could not get jobs to support themselves, and therefore relied on living in the Frome household (Wharton). This demonstrates how limiting factors influence influence how people exercise their free
Stephen Crane’s first novel Maggie (girl of the streets) is a tale of uncompromising realism. The story chronicles the titular Maggie, a girl who lives in the Bowery with her emotionally abusive parents and brothers Jimmie and Tommy. The novel revolves around the trials and tribulations of Maggie and her family in the Bowery. Highlights of the story include the death of Maggie’s father and brother Tommie which drive Pete to turn into a cold and hard person by novels end. Maggie desperately tries to escape bowery life, but in the end Maggie succumbs to the Bowery and dies a broken woman. Crane is considered a Naturalist, and in Crane’s naturalist world no one escapes their biological chains. Maggie’s parents are both unfit parents: they are emotionally and physically abusive, and have alcoholic tendencies. Despite Maggie’s and (to a lesser extent) Jimmie’s longings to escape the bleak world of the bowery they do not. Crane is making a statement on the adverse effects of industrialization and urbanization with the novel. Industrialization and urbanization on the surface create jobs and strengthen business, but upon further examination it disenfranchises the very people it promises to help. Many of the families in the bowery are immigrant families who become wage slaves. Maggie’s family is no different; because of their dependency on big business they have become disenfranchised and incapable of growth. This idea of being set into a world where there is no escape from one's biological heredity that Crane showcases the in the novel is mirrors Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory. According to Darwin only the biologically strong would survive in the world, with the weaker specimens expiring. In Crane’s novel the people are not inherently weak; it is the environment that shapes them and prevents them from growing. Ultimately, all of the characters in Maggie are victims of the Bowery life.
In the late nineteenth century people obtained more freedom. The American rags to riches story struck a chord with many people and they tried to change their social class. For some, even with new opportunities in life, it would be hard for them to climb the class ladder. Many people live lives full of hardship and obstacles, such as Maggie Johnson from Stephen Crane's Maggie a Girl of the Streets, who grows up in the slums of New York City. Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin's The Awakening lives a life of extravagance and wealth but still ends up dying a sad and lonely death because she makes poor decisions. Maggie also dies in a tragic death, but not because of bad choices, but because of the situation she finds herself in throughout her life. Maggie's situation turns her into a victim and facilitates her tragic death while Edna makes herself into a victim and causes her own death.
Up until the post war period and the rise of post-war feminism, women struggled to attain social equality. Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, the Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006), explores the damaging effects of patriarchy on women in Western society in the 1930s, the inter-war period. With its juxtaposed settings of the 1930s and late twentieth-century Scotland, the lives of Esme and Kitty Lennox, and, contrastingly, their descendent Iris Lockhart, are examined to reveal the variations in the effects and impact of patriarchy, as determined by their chronological place in history. Expectations around behaviour, education, and marriage reveal the restrictions of the 1930s and the very different freedoms of the 1990s. Using three narrative voices,
Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman" revolves around a wife and mother who becomes overwhelmed with her husband and child and withdraws from them, gradually shutting them completely out of her life. Unsatisfied with her role as dutiful mother and wife, she tries on other roles, but finds that none of them satisfy her either. She is accustomed to a specific role, and has a difficult time coping when a more extensive array of choices is presented to her. This is made clear in this section of the story.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can be anything you want to be”. He believed that free will is enough to allow people to be what they want to be. On the other side, tales such as Greek mythology speak of inescapable destinies locked in by fate. Whether the fate is targeted at a god or a hero, he tries everything to eschew the prophecy, except the fate always comes true; often the free will’s resistance against the fate acts as the root of the fate. One of William Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth, revolves around issues involving fate and free will. The main character Macbeth is seen attempting to invalidate unfavorable prophecies by his free will. Macbeth is not under complete free will, but he is a mere victim of ruthless psychological manipulation disguised in the name of fate; it leads him to the “fates” that should never have occurred.
For example, in Lusus Naturae, the girl, who is now called “freak,” shows how she was shunned from society when she says, “It was decided that i should die. That way I would not stand in the way of my sister, I would not loom over her like a fate” (Atwood 3). Society, and even her family, feared her so immensely that they wanted her to die, so that they would not have to deal with her looks or the embarrassment of her. They want her gone. In The Lost Children of Tuam, a boy named P.J. was raised in the Tuam home because he did not have a father. “P.J. was happy enough until his teens, when he was called a ‘bastard,’ and people avoided the pew he sat in, and the girls tittered at the sight of him” (Barry 21). P.J. lived his childhood feeling as if he was a normal child, but as he grew up and began to leave the Tuam home, he was shunned and called a “bastard.” No one wanted him in their
Humans enjoy choices. Whether the decision is putting on a coat in the morning or participating in an exhilarating activity like skydiving, every decision starts with the ability to make a choice. That ability to decide reflects a state of free will. Free will tells us we are essentially is in charge of our choices. Fate guides those who have no control over their choices. While the origin of fate and free will remain a mystery, these ideas can be traced back for centuries and found in our daily lives: in our code of ethics, politics, and religions. Kurt Vonnegut wrestles with the coexistence of fate and free will, ultimately arguing fate dominantes.