The Use Of Language In 'Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets'

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While the use of language by Stephen Crane does help facilitate the meaning of “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,” there are ways in which it can be changed to reflect the time period of Cassandra Clare 's Clockwork Angel, without taking away from the overall message. This is accomplished by making the majority of the changes solely to the world building sections, rather than the dialog itself. Take for instance this section:
Evenings during the week he took her to see plays in which the brain-clutching heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her guardian, who is cruelly after her bonds, by the hero with the beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, …show more content…

Within the example, the use of “brain-clutching heroine,” “bonds,” and “out at soak,” can cause issues for modern readers. First, the use of “brain-clutching heroine” may be understood, as the phrase is referencing the sort of leading character who is likely to grab their head in a tense or dangerous situations. The use of the word heroine, though poses a slight problem, as today a heroine is generally thought of as the female hero, rather than the damsel in distress that the phrase “brain-clutching heroine” implies. Similarly, while the word bond is still used today, it is isn 't generally done so in the manner of the example. Rather than denoting an investment bond or a bond of say matrimony or family, it seems from context clues that the obsolete usage of bond to mean serfdom or slavery may have been intended. In this sense, replacing such a problematic word with something like servitude would be the best choice. Finally, the most problematic phrase within the example to a modern reader is “out at soak.” This phrase isn 't clarified by context, and in fact doesn 't seem to be used anywhere else that can be easily researched. However, it is possible to simply remove such a phrase as its meaning does not seem to effect the understanding of the rest of the

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