Maggie's World: A Vision of Hell
Gotham: A Hell on Earth Ch 1
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.
NY Dandies - Street Gangsters
Quote:
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.
Jewish Question Revisited
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.
The Great Rascal ~ Ned Buntline
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/R577TP/tit...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.
O Henry's "Cop and the Anthem" (1904)
The Cop and the Anthem
https://americanliterature.com/autho...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.