Maggie A Girl Of The Street Analysis

In Erik Margraf’s essay on The Awakening, he points out that naturalistic writers frequently “focused their attention on heredity and environment respectively as the primary forces that determine the individual.” This emphasis in part on environment is a major theme in three texts that have female protagonists—The Awakening by Kate Chopin, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane. Though all three women experience remarkably different environments—whether they are vast rooms of a lush or cataclysmic landscape, or a physical and mental prison—each woman shares a common victimhood to forces beyond their control, and which their environments dictate. An analysis of each woman’s environment
Chopin writes, “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.” Edna’s journey towards independence and self-discovery results in a rejection of society. The effects of the sea, her learning to swim, and the music she hears inspires her to be true to herself; however, the world in which she lives is unsympathetic to women’s desires, and she realizes that the only way in which she can gain absolute freedom is to swim out to the one place where this can be realized: the afterlife. After the failure of her romantic pursuits with Arobin and Robert, she realizes that only the sea can fulfill her desire for physical intimacy: “The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” Edna finds herself attempting to solve a problem in which there is no escape because the solutions are mutually conflicting. She wants to be able to fulfill her desires, experience romance, independence, and freedom from social duties, but this would involve a rejection of the society that is necessary in order to realize this. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is another story where environment impedes on a woman’s progress; however, the effects of the wallpaper environment in this story are a result of confinement, not