The Importance Of Naturalism In 'Maggie: A Girl Of The Steets'

Today, many scientists accept that behavior and personality are determined by both nature and nurture. However, there is still the debate about the extent that biology or environment has to do with shaping a person. Nativists think that genes play the greatest role on what causes human’s to act certain ways, while empiricists believe the human mind is born free and is filled with likes, dislikes, and goals based on their environment. Overall, people are born with likelihood to act a certain way and have a predestined fate due to the way they grew up. They may be genetically predisposition to like certain things, but are still capable of changing based on outside influences. These thoughts are all part of the Naturalistic belief that nothing

Right away, Crane paints the picture of the poor environment filled with violent children standing “upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley,” (Crane, 1). The setting is described as being on the outskirts of any civilization, gruesome, and chaotic. Maggie is clearly the victim of the terrible environment she is put in. Despite being the only flower in a heap of mud and filth, she still couldn’t fully bloom. Crane, in a way, shows naturalism differently than other writers, since Maggie isn’t directly as effected by her environment as her family and neighbors are. When she found Peter, she knew thought she knew, that he was her opportunity to escape from that environment. Being the high- hoping type of girl, in such a limited environment, she saw Peter as her knight in shining armor. True, Peter was rich enough, but he wasn’t the perfect man, the man of the highest standards that she thought him to be. She failed to see that Peter possessed the wild and boyish qualities as her brother and the rest of the violent neighborhood kids. Being in such a class and raised the way she was, she didn’t have the ability to truly see Peter and society as a whole. That, along with her terrible life, family, and environment was what led her to her horrible fate. Cane wrote Maggie’s death very vaguely, as if her short life was meaningless to the universe. No one truly cared about Maggie’s death, showing how life goes on no matter