Maggie's World: A Vision of Hell

[hellsapoppin]

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1890)


New York City during Maggie's brief lifetime:



https://thejewishvoiceandopinion.com/wp-content/uploads/Street-NY-Turn-of-Century.png


http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/ImagesNYC13/NYC091813b.jpg


http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/LibraryofCongress/LOC6.jpg


a reported communist riot (1874):

http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/ImagesNYC08/Dec227.jpg



endless poverty and deprivation:


http://www.maggieblanck.com/NewYork/Images2016/061516j.jpg


https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jacob-riis-how-the-other-half-lives-thumbnail.jpg




And there are MANY more photos and proofs that Maggie's milieu was a veritable HELL on earth.

[hellsapoppin]

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets begins thusly,


A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him.

His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths.

"Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll get yehs," screamed a retreating Rum Alley child.

"Naw," responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, "dese micks can't make me run."

Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus.

The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of a tiny, insane demon.




Crane's Maggie is filled with symbolism which portray pictures of Hell. The symbolism also includes images of people equated with animals as the milieu is an atavistic society where people are reduced to the level of animals because of the violence, the poverty, and the injustices:



howling urchins = sea creatures

roar = that's what animals do when they threaten others

in the fight there is "triumphant savagery"


When the fight stops, someone intervenes and says ""Ah, what deh hell"



Paradise it is not. There is pervasive violence. Blood flows so readily. Adults nearby are totally indifferent. Anger and vindictiveness everywhere. And, no surprise considering it's New York, cops are nowhere to be found. Hardly a pleasant introduction to Maggie's world. No surprise as to why it was always called Gotham.

[Sancho]

Street urchins, guttersnipes, slumdogs, les enfants terribles.

Good way to start a book — a battle royale, une bataille des enfants, on the gravel pile, in lower Manhattan, early 20th century (I’m thinking). I’m about halfway through it. Jimmie is going through life with his guard up. He won’t let anybody in, hence no one can hurt him. Not so, Maggie…

Good pics, Poppin, Thanks. Looks like things have strayed pretty far from Jefferson’s vision for the nation of virtuous agrarianism. For an agrarian paradise we may have to leave New York and head south, maybe to Georgia, vicinity of Tobacco Road, yuk-yuk. Have you read Erskine Caldwell?

[hellsapoppin]

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell


Read it about 25 years ago. A great read. Strongly recommended.

[hellsapoppin]

"Flash" was the name of old NYC English in the 1800s. The term does not appear in Maggie. However, some words from the lingo are used in the book such as "allus" which means 'always'. The letter d is used instead of th in words such as this or that. "Woik" means 'work'. The letter h is often dropped when one speaks. And the term 'croak' or 'croaker' is used to denote a dead person.

I'm in my 70s and still speak with an old New York accent. As you may have noticed, I used the term croaked in our discussion of Crime and Punishment. Several years ago an older fellow I knew told me he had been listening to me talk for the past 15 years and that I never once used the letter h when speaking. My NY accent really stands out here in Minnesota!

Here is a primer on old New Yorkese:


https://casanders.net/new-york-city-history/the-rogues-lexicon-nyc-slang-in-the-1850s/



Re the photos, perhaps the greatest collection of old NYC photos ever assembled can be found in this gem of a book:


The Columbia historical portrait of New York: An essay in graphic history in honor of the tricentennial of New York City and the bicentennial of Columbia University


https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/573/101/445101573.0.m.2.jpg



Historians agree that this is one of the greatest history ever written. It is outstanding.

[hellsapoppin]

Street urchins, guttersnipes, slumdogs, les enfants terribles.


The book is a very fast read (I read 50 pages last night which normally take me a week). Jimmie grows up quick and mean. Maggie cares for the baby but the latter dies. The Johnson parents turn into absolute vermin - there is squalor all over the apartment, they both drink and brawl, and get into trouble with the crushers (old NYC term for cops).

Jimmie starts to hang out in street corners much like the Bowery Boys of old:


https://historica.fandom.com/wiki/Bowery_Boys




These guys did actually exist. At the very beginning of the book Jimmie got into a fight and referred to his opponent using an anti-Irish derogation. The Bowery Boys were Protestant, old school New Yorkers of British and Scot-Irish descent. They hated and got into many fights with Catholic Irish with full scale wars going on between them over the decades. They dominated the fire fighting stations, dressed superbly well (even though they were from the lower classes), and worshiped Shakespeare. This even though most did not go to school.

Jimmie continues to fight with every other teamster he encounters in his daily life. Maggie has virtually nothing to look forward to in life and worships Pete the street tough who is in the money from his tavern operations. This would turn out to be her biggest mistake.

[Sancho]

Hah. Minna-soht’ns have a pretty distinct accent too. They pronounce their “R”s with such a harsh edge, it probably makes up for your “Ah”s.

I don’t want to paint anybody with too broad a brush, and I know I ain’t tellin’ you nuttin, but those Nordic-types up there tend to be a tad more reserved than your average New Yorker, disposition wise. I used to love to listen to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion on NPR. I remember one of the skits that perfectly got at the reserved nature of Minnesotans. They were having a church potluck dinner and all the women were silently seething about another woman who’d brought a potato salad that she’d *gasp* sprinkled paprika on. That was just a little too show-offy for the other women’s sensibilities.

When Maggie got a job sewing collars, I thought — Oh great, she’s probably working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. (Years ago I visited the site of that fire to try to get a sense for it)

[hellsapoppin]

Actually, it's Bostonians with the "ahs". In New York we often say "uhs".

As for the Lake Wobegone accent, it's more like long oooooo's and aaaaaa's. The food here is often quite bland but it is improving, thankfully, as New York style cooking is being adopted.

Re Triangle Shirtwaist Company, I recommend David von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire That Changed America. Very striking book.


In the 19th century many women and girls spent long hours at the sewing mills. Then they took the work home and finished their projects there:


https://www.womenshistory.org/sites/default/files/fashion-yourself-19.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/71/ba/7c/71ba7ce2768eec494429eb08944bd6e3.jpg




It was abut survival at best. But as in Triangle, it was Hell. I worked not too far away from where that tragedy took place. Such a terrible thing with all the corporatists happily getting away with it.

[Sancho]

I wish I could find an article I read a few years back in The New Yorker (I think). It was all about American accents and regionalisms. There was an old man who’d been collecting samples of people’s speech and cataloguing the tapes for pretty much his whole life. His whole house was lined with bookshelves of tapes. He had tapes instead of books. His ear was so good he could listen to a recording of someone’s speech and tell you the time and the location (almost down to the city block in say Brooklyn) where the tape was made. He also did a lot of voice coaching for Hollywood actors.

My ear’s not that good. If I listen to someone from Brooklyn, or the Bronx, or New Jersey, or even Boston, my ear tells me — yup, they’re speaking Yankee.

[hellsapoppin]

Sancho,


His ear was so good he could listen to a recording of someone’s speech and tell you the time and the location (almost down to the city block in say Brooklyn) where the tape was made.



I believe it. When I first heard Bernie Sander's accent you could tell immediately that he was originally from the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Indeed, in the old days you could actually tell what neighborhood a person came from just from their accent. With gentrification and the disruption it causes, we will never see this again.

Masterful magician Harry Lorayne spoke with an old Lower East Side Manhattan accent as did pro boxer Rocky Graziano. It was always great to hear them talk both for what they said and for that terrific accent which, sad to say, has disappeared and will never return. Listen to them speak in some old video - you will see that this was very close to how Maggie and the folks in her milieu spoke.

[Sancho]

I used to love to listen to Phil Rizzuto call a game. He didn’t have a super strong accent, but just enough around the edges so that you know you’re listening to a Yankees game. And whereas Phil probably tried to suppress his native Brooklyn accent, Fran Drescher played up her Queens accent on The Nanny. Oh man, she cracked me up.

But languages and accents morph. It’s what they do. I doubt we’ll ever all sound like a TV announcer. My wife is from California. Her people tell me — We’re from California. We don’t have an accent. I tell ‘em — Sure you do. You have a California accent. My mother-in-law’s voice is a dead ringer for Grace Slick. Also they tend to flatten their Rs a bit. The wife’s Uncle Ron becomes Uncle Rahn.

Here’s one I notice Gen-Zers using: Shouldn’t has become Shuh-int. Or the mock-shock expression — Oh no you di’int!

Accents morph. Yah, sure, yew bet’cha.

[hellsapoppin]

^I always like Casey Kasem's accent ~ there was always a lot of excitement in his speech. Ditto for other Californians I've known. Must be the atmosphere.



***


Young girl with baby in the Bowery (photo by Jacob Riis):

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lYLS-wrhI6w/TqwRs4GOj9I/AAAAAAAAAHk/TcfYvfmtjEU/s1600/crane5.jpg



Crane describes the atmosphere in "Devil's Row" as a 'dark region' comprised of many 'gruesome doorways' (a term used repeatedly). There are gloomy halls and Maggie's mom calls it a "a regular living hell". "The building “quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.” It is also described as a 'panther's den'. When Maggie ("a small ragged girl)" goes out to dinner with Pete she ''ate like a tigress" because she had been so hungry.

People in the milieu are described as "pestering flies" and a preacher tells them "you are damned".

The term "what the hell" is repeatedly stated.

Maggie's Gotham is certainly no Paradise.


Like Dostoyevsky, Crane is showing that the environment is what shapes people into what they become. As with pre Revolutionary Russia, there is considerable opulence as the dominant class live in luxury while so many suffer in poverty. In Crane's Gotham, Maggie sees beer halls with flamboyant characters such as women in yellow silk costumes, fancy men in “costumes of French chefs”, and elaborate chandeliers. Maggie is struck by all this fanciness and she longs to be able to partake in it. Again, this is what led to her ultimate doom.

Such is life in Hell, or in this case, Gotham.

[Sancho]

Also she'd run out of options. "Ruined" then dumped by Pete (schmuck). Her drunken mom playing the victim and throwing her out. The girl had no where to go. But more importantly I think she felt the burn of her tarnished reputation. So, based on strictures of her faith, she was going to hell anyway, might as well hurry up the process. Religious faith gives an awful lot of comfort to people, but it also causes an awful lot of pain. The jury's still out on whether it's been an overall plus or minus for us as a species.

It's writing like this that pushes society (and sometimes legislation) forward.

[hellsapoppin]

Sancho,

It's writing like this that pushes society (and sometimes legislation) forward.




Indeed. Crane grew up in poverty and was very sympathetic towards the poor. He was looking for social reform just like Dickens who Bleak House brought about changes in chancery court. Those changes finally gave relief to those who needed inheritance funds to live and took away much of the graft enjoyed by crooked judges.

How interesting that Dostoyevsky saw the church as redeemer which brought about comfort and relief to the poor. But in Crane's Gotham, the preacher was quoted "you are damned". 'Deh HELL! Deh HELL!' "Ah, what the HELL!" Jimmie muses, "his voice was burdened with disdain for the inevitable and contempt for anything that fate might compel him to endure." All this being the very precise opposite of the Russian milieu which, at the very least, promised Heavenly reward for all one endured.


Meanwhile, Maggie dreams on:

''Maggie perceived that {Pete} here was the 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.

Dreams. That's all she has.

[Sancho]

All in all I thought Maggie was a pretty flat character. As you said It’s a short book. So there’s not too much room to delve into her psyche, but I found myself wondering if Crane was capable of getting inside her head, or if she was just a convenient vehicle for illuminating the societal problems of that time and place. At any rate, she was certainly a victim. Moll Flanders by contrast is a survivor. But of course Defoe’s book is about Moll. Crane’s book is about the Bowery and its problems.

Have you read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell? I think in this book the writer is not so much interested in affecting societal change as he is interested in showing his readers that side of life.

[hellsapoppin]

As with Dostoyevsky, historians and biographers agree that there was some degree of anti Semitism to Crane (however, there does not appear to be any historical evidence to show that he approved of Tsarist pogroms or other forms of anti Semitic brutality). This was first shown in his short story "Greed Rampant". Here's a brief synopsis:


An event is about to be staged. Jews contrive to take all the seats in the front rows. The "good people", that is the Protestants, are thereby forced to take secondary seating.

Then someone cleverly says out loud, "gee they are selling stock for only pennies on the dollar". When the Jews hears of this they leave their seats and rush to buy stock before it runs out.

Immediately, the "good people" take all the seats that were abandoned and the Jews wind up getting the bad seats. Stocks were not being sold as it was all a hoax designed to get those front row seats.


This was one of Crane's earliest stories and illustrates what he perceived to be Jewish greediness and materialism.


In Maggie, we read of the harsh and exploitative environs in the sweat factory where Mag works. She is thoroughly disgusted with the atmosphere, the work conditions, the foul smells, terrible noises (probably of the machinery), and the cheap wages she gets. The factory is owned by a "fat foreigner" (the term was understood to mean a Jew in those days) who speaks with a foreign accent. Maggie looks at women walking the streets wearing elaborate clothing and yearns to be wearing such costuming. Alas with the cheap wages she gets, she is unable to buy any. She tries to doll up her own garments but it is useless as her mother goes on rampages and damages them along with the furnishings.


Unlike Dostoyevsky, Crane affirms Marxist/socialism as a type of reform that helps the poor and underprivileged. Maggie is alienated from society as she is not able to purchase or produce good clothing while the greedy business owner profits from her labors. But unlike Dostoyevsky, Crane does not attack the lyceums, unions, or guilds that were largely run by Jewish intellectuals both in the US and in Tsarist Russia.

Another contrast is religion ~ Dostoyevsky perceives the church as the exclusive source of 'salvation'. Crane sees it as a place of dreary sermonizing but where, at least, one could get a bowl of soup. History does show that the Bowery did have several soup kitchens in that era to help drunks who needed to fill their bellies with stuff other than Demon Drink. Dostoyevsky sees the church/religion as ideally suited for people. Crane turns all this on its face as Marxists/socialists saw the church as the opiate of the masses but Crane is not so benign in this regard. :


Mary (the mother of Jesus) was an angelic, self sacrificing woman. In Crane, Mary is the mother of Maggie and is a destructive b_atch of the worse order.

James was the brother of Jesus. In Crane, Jim (derivative of James) was the destructive brother of Maggie.

Peter was the leader of the biblical church who self sacrificed for all. In Crane, Pete was a brawler and an enemy to all. His evil actions lead to Maggie's death. Peter distributes money, oil, incense, and wine in the tavern. He is called "offering priest" in what is society's New Temple.

In Dostoyevsky, the church leads to salvation. At the end Maggie approaches a preacher for help but is turned away. Thus, the church did not make any effort to give her renewal or salvation.

In the Bible, Jesus is the Light that saves. Maggie walks into the dark to her doom. Biblical water baptism is the first step towards salvation. In Crane, water is what caused Maggie's death.

Retribution is used to punish the evil both in the Bible and in Dostoyevsky. In Crane, evil doers such as the rich exploitative Jew and the brutal Pete are not punished but flourish. Forgiveness exists after biblical retribution. In Crane, there is no retribution or attempt to reform or to save. Ironically, Maggie's crazed mother who caused so much of the mayhem in the story shouts out that she "forgives her" daughter even though Mag was the victim, not the cause of the problems.


The entire story of Maggie's unhappy fate is a realism that the Guilded Age did not want to see or hear. In those days the American Dream with Horatio Alger stories flourished. It was an era known as "The Gay 90s" where materialism was the order of the day. Poverty and injustices dismissed as mythical. Jacob Riis with his How the Other Half Live (1890) side stepped and its revelation completely ignored. The tragedy of Wounded Knee was viewed as if it was nothing more than a harmless fairy tale. Many people, in fact FAR too many people, viewed that era as the good old days. But good old days they weren't. Crane gave us a realistic portrayal of those times. This is why the book was censored at that time. Thankfully, we have the Internet to reveal the truth.

[hellsapoppin]

Sancho,

Have you read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell?



Enjoyed 1984 and Homage to Catalonia. Mebbe some day soon I'll read Down ....

I recommend London's People of the Abyss. That was an awesome book on the subject of urban poverty.

[hellsapoppin]

HELL is repeated so many times in the book that its symbolism here cannot possibly be misunderstood.

When Maggie goes off with Peter, Mary refers to him as that "jude fellow". Evidently, being a Jew makes Pete into a menace. Maggie goes "to the DEVIL" according to her mother. "We'll have a HELL of a time" he tells Mag.

Somehow this soils Mag's reputation (she is now "cursed forever") and Pete is suddenly confronted by Jim and an associate about it. He has "the glare of a panther" and the three fight like "roosters". Jimmie sees the cops coming and he flees. Rather than trying to save his pal he says, ''oh, what the HELL".


To Mag, Pete is like a "lion of lordly characteristics". she admires him and briefly views him as a protector. "Wealth and prosperity was indicated by his clothes". While everyone looks at her strangely, "she imagines a future, rose tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had experienced".

How wrong she was! In Christianity the apostle Peter is said to hold the keys to the Golden Gate. In Crane, he brings about Maggie's hellish downfall.

Mary goes into yet another drunken rampage and is put before a police court. The magistrate tells her, "Mary, the records of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in the annals of this court, and this court thinks—"

Evidently, it had been an endless cycle of drunkeness, violence, endless excuses, and dissipation for her.


Maggie continued to go with Pete for three weeks. She had a "spaniel-like dependence" on him. Pete had been "leonine" but is rather submissive to a skank named Nell who turns her back on her date to speak with him. The date called a "mere boy" refers to Pete as a "plug ugly". He drinks "as if replying defiantly to fate". Pete and Nell leave while Mag and the mere boy chat uncomfortably. He then pays her fare for her to get home.

Jimmie is followed by a girl he got into trouble. But he eludes her. He escapes and finds his way home. Maggie returns only to be taunted by everyone. She leaves in despondency.

Pete feels some guilt over what happens. But Nell says that Mag is "a pale little thing with no spirit". Mag implores Pete to take her back but he says "GO TO HELL!" Indeed, she tried to approach a preacher but he thought she was a hooker and avoided her in order to save his reputation. She walks the streets for several months barely surviving. As she walks those streets, they get darker and darker.

Pete nearly drinks himself into oblivion. Nell says Pete never betrays anyone nor go back on his word. "I'm a good f'ler" sez he in his stupor as he slurs his words. He stumbles on the floor and drops his money which Nell picks up happily and stuffs into her pocket.


Mary is told Maggie has died. Seemed like people felt more badly for Mary than for her deceased daughter. "She's gone to where her ter'ble sins will be judged". "Her life was a curse an' her days were black." All implore Mary to forgive her. I the end she shouts "I'll forgive her, I'll forgive her!"



As Sancho said above, Maggie is a "flat" or shallow character. She is weak, vulnerable, naive, and given to being overly dependent. But why? Clearly, Crane views Gotham as a HELL on earth. He repeats the word HELL so many times throughout the story and repeatedly equates the characters with animals in this sordid society. There is no real free will, all is predetermined. Death, destruction, dissipation, poverty, misery, want, are all one is fated to endure in this hellish, atavistic society. The church is no real help. People scurry to and fro. Many do work but no background information is given so that we could determine why or how they escaped these terrible conditions. For all its troubles, the Lower East Side did have many settlement houses, anti-vice organizations, and relief agencies. There were also progressive political groups which sought to reform society that the problem of prostitution would be dealt with as a health problem and not a crime. Why were these not mentioned in the book?

Gotham sure is a HELL on earth according to Crane. What's worse is that he does not appear to believe there is any hope for anyone who is in it.

As they say all throughout the story, "ah, what the HELL?" Such is fate, there is no escape.

[hellsapoppin]

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/R577TP/title-page-of-a-dime-novel-the-mysteries-and-miseries-of-new-york-new-york-1851-source-12703g281-author-buntline-ned-R577TP.jpg




Ned Buntline was probably the most prolific writer of the 19th century. While he was more famous for his writings of the old West, he was originally from NY and wrote many stories about Gotham. One of them was The Mysteries and Miseries of New York (1848).

Buntline was a Protestant who hated Catholics, was one of the founders of the Americanist movement, hated the British, and was instrumental in starting the Astor Place riots.

Crane was undoubtedly influenced by his writings. Indeed, Crane wrote about Gotham and the old West as well. Maggie reads quite a lot like Mysteries though it is considerably briefer.

[Sancho]

Nice set of posts, Poppin. I can speak with some authority on “spaniel-like dependence.” Over the years the Señora and I have burned through a dozen or so Springer Spaniels. We have three now. These are the kind of dogs who build a strong attachment quickly and it’s a bond that lasts their entire life. While they are easily distracted by — Look! Squirrel! — generally they follow me around everywhere I go and they stay close, sometimes too close. They like to get under my feet when I’m carrying something heavy. More than once I’ve found myself splayed out on the ground yelling and cursing, the neighbors looking on and laughing, while one of the dogs is standing there wagging his nub seemingly thinking — what’re you gettin’ all pissy about. This is fun.

I can’t speak with the same authority on the Jewish question. Books from this era do seem to engage in a reflexive anti-semitism. It’s almost like the writer expected only like-minded christians to read their book. At any rate the propensity by christians to bash jews over money issues comes up again and again in books of that era. As you noted, it came up in both the books we recently discussed. The irony of course is christians brought this ineptness towards money on themselves through all the anti-usury rules passed down by the church from way back. Ya don’t do it, ya don’t get good at it, and ya certainly don’t fully understand it. But what the hey — might as well just blame somebody else, eh?

Anyway, the book is good at illuminating the hypocrisy of the churchy people. But I think it comes out more strongly against drunkenness than churchiness. Temperance is a thread that runs through American culture back to the Puritans. I could almost see Carrie Nation reading this book and taking notes.

[hellsapoppin]

Sancho,


Temperance is a thread that runs through American culture back to the Puritans. I could almost see Carrie Nation reading this book and taking notes.



What a great quote! This especially since Nation encountered Crane's widow a couple of years after his death:



https://thecoastal.com/featured/grand-madam-jacksonville/


https://i0.wp.com/thecoastal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/grand-madam-jacksonville.png?resize=750%2C375&ssl=1

[Sancho]

Haha, go figure... and then Carrie went home and began to sharpen her axe...

[Sancho]

...meanwhile, in a neighborhood just west of the Bowery, several of the boys who'd recently immigrated from Sicily, were hatching out a scheme for a new stream of revenue.

This stuff just writes itself.

[hellsapoppin]

The Cop and the Anthem


https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/the-cop-and-the-anthem


Great irony in this little comedy story set in Gotham. But so memorable that it was adopted into a movie and later as a TV skit on the Red Skelton show. In this fun little tale, the writer reveals that, strangely enough, there is no free will. Life is directed by an unchangeable determinism. This much like the fate suffered by those in Maggie. But at least here the church, despite all of life's injustices and unfairness, appeared to have or tried to have some redeeming value. Thankfully, there is survival so there is some measure of hope.

I like the language used by O Henry ~ the milieu the chief character aspired to was described in flowery language, very paradisiac and almost Heaven like (quite a contrast with Crane who described the milieu as HELL). Again, ironic as most folks would not normally view prison that way.

[hellsapoppin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDoBtHznukw



Jacob Riis photos illustrate Maggie's frightening nether world.

[Sancho]

Good pic’s. I could almost smell the stink.

Have you read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle? It’s set in the early 1900s in the stockyards and meat packing plants of south-side Chicago. Sinclair intended it as a worker’s rights polemic, but instead it wound up getting people all riled up about food safety. I’ve started it a couple of times, but never managed to complete it.

[hellsapoppin]

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle


Started to read it as a teen well back in the 1960s but couldn't stomach its contents. Mebbe some day as it is a very significant revelation about certain important conditions in Chi Town.

[Danik 2016]

HELL is repeated so many times in the book that its symbolism here cannot possibly be misunderstood.

When Maggie goes off with Peter, Mary refers to him as that "jude fellow". Evidently, being a Jew makes Pete into a menace. Maggie goes "to the DEVIL" according to her mother. "We'll have a HELL of a time" he tells Mag.

Somehow this soils Mag's reputation (she is now "cursed forever") and Pete is suddenly confronted by Jim and an associate about it. He has "the glare of a panther" and the three fight like "roosters". Jimmie sees the cops coming and he flees. Rather than trying to save his pal he says, ''oh, what the HELL".


To Mag, Pete is like a "lion of lordly characteristics". she admires him and briefly views him as a protector. "Wealth and prosperity was indicated by his clothes". While everyone looks at her strangely, "she imagines a future, rose tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had experienced".

How wrong she was! In Christianity the apostle Peter is said to hold the keys to the Golden Gate. In Crane, he brings about Maggie's hellish downfall.

Mary goes into yet another drunken rampage and is put before a police court. The magistrate tells her, "Mary, the records of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in the annals of this court, and this court thinks—"

Evidently, it had been an endless cycle of drunkeness, violence, endless excuses, and dissipation for her.


Maggie continued to go with Pete for three weeks. She had a "spaniel-like dependence" on him. Pete had been "leonine" but is rather submissive to a skank named Nell who turns her back on her date to speak with him. The date called a "mere boy" refers to Pete as a "plug ugly". He drinks "as if replying defiantly to fate". Pete and Nell leave while Mag and the mere boy chat uncomfortably. He then pays her fare for her to get home.

Jimmie is followed by a girl he got into trouble. But he eludes her. He escapes and finds his way home. Maggie returns only to be taunted by everyone. She leaves in despondency.

Pete feels some guilt over what happens. But Nell says that Mag is "a pale little thing with no spirit". Mag implores Pete to take her back but he says "GO TO HELL!" Indeed, she tried to approach a preacher but he thought she was a hooker and avoided her in order to save his reputation. She walks the streets for several months barely surviving. As she walks those streets, they get darker and darker.

Pete nearly drinks himself into oblivion. Nell says Pete never betrays anyone nor go back on his word. "I'm a good f'ler" sez he in his stupor as he slurs his words. He stumbles on the floor and drops his money which Nell picks up happily and stuffs into her pocket.


Mary is told Maggie has died. Seemed like people felt more badly for Mary than for her deceased daughter. "She's gone to where her ter'ble sins will be judged". "Her life was a curse an' her days were black." All implore Mary to forgive her. I the end she shouts "I'll forgive her, I'll forgive her!"



As Sancho said above, Maggie is a "flat" or shallow character. She is weak, vulnerable, naive, and given to being overly dependent. But why? Clearly, Crane views Gotham as a HELL on earth. He repeats the word HELL so many times throughout the story and repeatedly equates the characters with animals in this sordid society. There is no real free will, all is predetermined. Death, destruction, dissipation, poverty, misery, want, are all one is fated to endure in this hellish, atavistic society. The church is no real help. People scurry to and fro. Many do work but no background information is given so that we could determine why or how they escaped these terrible conditions. For all its troubles, the Lower East Side did have many settlement houses, anti-vice organizations, and relief agencies. There were also progressive political groups which sought to reform society that the problem of prostitution would be dealt with as a health problem and not a crime. Why were these not mentioned in the book?

Gotham sure is a HELL on earth according to Crane. What's worse is that he does not appear to believe there is any hope for anyone who is in it.

As they say all throughout the story, "ah, what the HELL?" Such is fate, there is no escape.

A general question. What calls my attention is that this early days Christianism seems to have been utterly relentless. More of a punishing than a forgiving faith.

[hellsapoppin]

A general question. What calls my attention is that this early days Christianism seems to have been utterly relentless. More of a punishing than a forgiving faith.



So many claim to worship the Prince of Peace. Ironically, it is an incontrovertible fact that more people have been killed in his name than for any other reason in human history.

[Danik 2016]

THat´s true.But I wasn´t even thinking about the religious wars but how it was applied to church doctrine.

[bounty]

So many claim to worship the Prince of Peace. Ironically, it is an incontrovertible fact that more people have been killed in his name than for any other reason in human history.

its that sort of blind animus that caused me to leave the Dostoevsky thread.

there is no such "incontrovertible" fact. that bulldookie aside for a moment, the greatest cause of death throughout history has been godless dictatorships in general, and in particular, communism in the 20th century.

by contrast, the greatest contibutions to humanity have occurred through the works of the church, and capitalism.

[hellsapoppin]

its that sort of blind animus that caused me to leave the Dostoevsky thread.

there is no such "incontrovertible" fact. that bulldookie aside for a moment, the greatest cause of death throughout history has been godless dictatorships in general, and in particular, communism in the 20th century.

by contrast, the greatest contibutions to humanity have occurred through the works of the church, and capitalism.



My knowledge of history is every bit as good as my knowledge of literature but I am not going to get much into this subject as that is not the scope of this forum or of the thread. Sad that you resort to mischaracterizations and projections. But despite it all, it does remain incontrovertibly true, as Alan Watts* wrote many years ago, that the Christian Bible is the greatest source of death in human history. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of history knows the Cocoliztli epidemic and others were brought by the Spanish Conquistadors into Mexico where close to 80% of the Indigenous population was exterminated (Hernán Cortés's actions were blessed by the Church). We had similar history in North America (a subject matter disclosed in the book The Vanishing American) and in other parts of the world.

Danik raised a good point about how church doctrine was misapplied. My reply was to the proven genocidal history of the church (a subject known to and discussed by Zane Grey among many others). Interestingly, much of the Bolshevik Revolution was in response to the abuses of the Orthodox Church which so firmly supported Tsarist tyranny and depredations upon millions of people, including Jews and other minorities. Had it not been for Tsarist infamy and its church support, the Bolshevik Revolution would never have taken place with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov {Lenin} receding into the most obscure depths of history.










* http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/alan-watts-bible.html

[Danik 2016]

Hi, bounty
It was indeed me that raised the point about the sterness of the church. Poppins just answered me. It is not so clear to me what you meant with "blind animus" but it is clear that you disliked the criticism. No harm was meant. I just wanted to explore better an aspect that interests me as it appears in several works of fiction. But I didn't want to interfere with your or anyone 's beliefs or positions. In a forum where people from different places with different backgrounds meet different opinions and beliefs are natural.

[Sancho]

Yup, people have strong opinions about religion and faith. (And Sancho has a knack for stating the obvious.)

I’ve been reading Twilight Territory, which is set in the 1940s in Vietnam. I’m taking my time and enjoying the ride. Religion of course figures heavily into southeast asian cultures as well. There’s a huge statue of The Lady Buddha in modern Da Nang:

https://hoiannow.com/things-to-do-in-hoi-an/hoi-an-attractions/lady-buddha-in-da-nang/

At one point in the book one of the main characters, Tuyet, is abducted and essentially enslaved in a French garrison. Tuyet’s aunt, Coi, goes to an old Buddhist nun seeking a solution to her niece’s incarceration. She goes to the Rose Shrine of the Lady Buddha:


She mounted the three steps up to the sanctuary and stood outside the front room, which opened to the garden via three sets of removable wooden panel doors. The floor of the chamber was of blue ceramic tiles. It served as the prayer hall. The main altar, with a life-sized statue of the Lady Buddha, stood at the rear. Smaller statues representing ten deities lined the walls.

The old nun who’d built the shrine is described here:


Mother Nam had been a wealthy widow who had renounced the world after she had lost her entire family in a tragic road accident. After giving away her possessions and selling all her assets save two houses, she had donned the white robes of a Buddhist nun at the ripe old age of sixty. The abbots of the town’s two competing sects, the Brown Order and the Saffron Order, had personally invited her to their temples, but she wisely had declined. Instead, she had made equal donations to both, reasoning that it was better to have two allies than one adversary.

Smart lady.

Also, good book: Twilight Territory, by Andrew X. Pham

[Danik 2016]

Smart lady indeed.
I never knew that their was a female Buddha :).

"The Lady Buddha statue in Da Nang is a symbol of peace, joy and prosperity. It is thought to bring good luck to those who visit it. The statue represents Avalokitesvara or Guanyin, a female bodhisattva from Buddhist mythology who is believed to help all living beings with her compassion and mercy.

Lady Buddha’s left hand holds a water vase, containing the nectar of life and right hand sprinkles the nectar on those praying below. For fishermen, she also is a patron saint who bestows good fortune and saves them at sea."
https://hoiannow.com/things-to-do-in-hoi-an/hoi-an-attractions/lady-buddha-in-da-nang/