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II INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS 

352 

 Qafqaz University                         

          18-19 April 2014, Baku, Azerbaijan 

PARENTS’ INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN IN STEPHEN CRANE’S “MAGGIE: A GIRL OF 

THE STREETS” 

 

Aytaj VALIYEVA 

Qafqaz University 

[e-mail] 

 

Stephen Crane was an outstanding American realist writer, journalist and poet whose works marked the beginning of 

American Naturalism. In American literature Naturalism is believed to have begun in 1890s and lasted until 1920s. It grows 

out of Realism. Both Naturalism and Realism describe the phenomena as they appear in society. In naturalistic works, a 

character is put in a world in which there is no way out of the situation, and the very situation will rule his or her behavior.  

Literature conveys the reality of life without neglecting the environment that impacts the writing. Besides putting his 

writing skill to use, a writer is always in contact with real life and describes what he sees in reality. That’s why literary 

works can be called as criticism of real life.  

Stephen Crane’s “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” is of this kind in which author portrayed the life style of lower class, 

immigrants living in slum areas, and how women in this environment became whores in the main woman character 

Maggie’s likeness. He elucidated how a repugnant family, a low, mean lover and penury led Maggie to indulge in 

prostitution. 

It is clear that life has issues to look into and the very issues are employed in literary works by writers to express their 

messages. One of the issues of this kind that needs to be analyzed is the problem of parents and children. Parents are usually 

considered to have an essential impact on their children in giving an education, forming good rules of conduct and of 

children’s identity at all periods. But in all probability Maggie’s parents didn’t belong to this group. Maggie was a member 

of an unhappy family – she had alcoholic parents. They drank and fought every day. Her father and mother drank to be 

away from the everyday problems and to forget their wretched life style. In fact, her mother, as well as other women, was 

supposed to take care of her family and to bring up her children. Maggie’s mother, if it is possible to call her a mother, was 

different. She had never shown a feeling of motherhood towards her children. So, Maggie had such kind of family and she 

thought that the main reason of unhappiness in her family was poverty. She felt this life style as burden; she saw no 

happiness in her family. That’s why she tried to get rid of poverty and of her parents, and even she was consented to do 

everything in order to earn money and this desire paved the way for her future tragedy. And to my mind she was right in her 

search, because the environment at home made her look for happiness not at house, but outside of the house. 

Once she got acquainted with Pete, she thought that her dream had come true – Pete would get rid her of poverty. But 

she didn’t know that their acquaintance would be the beginning of her tragic life, she didn’t know that her determined 

decision to meet her desires would lead her to prostitution. Her desire made her blind. It was the desire that pushed her from 

the sweatshop to the world of prostitution. And poverty from which she wanted to get rid of made Maggie her slave. 

Homeless and helpless Maggie became a “girl of street”. That was a forthcoming trouble from such an indigent girl deserted 

by her lover and her family. She couldn’t realize her dream, she was defeated in her struggle for tranquil and comfort life. 

So, her death at the end of the novel was not a sudden death, because such kind of life style meant a death. 

Her parents, especially her mother was responsible for this matter. By being a heavy drinker she ruined not only her 

own life, but also her daughter’s. If she had been a good mother and brought her daughter up well, Maggie wouldn’t have 

been a wanton. Besides, she ruined her daughter’s life for the second time by saying that there was no place at home for 

such a woman like her when Maggie after Pete’s rejection returned home which caused Maggie’s living on the streets as a 

“painted woman”. 

In the end, I can say that parents don’t always perform the role of their children’s protector, sometimes children have 

tragic lives through their parents’ faults, as well as Maggie’s parents had been guilty of her tragedy.