Maggie Double Standards

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Influence of Performance on Societal Acceptance for Women The societal double standard between men and women and is a common point of discussion in literary pieces. Sometimes the author does not intend for a double standard to be present, but it is still interesting to pull that out as a discussion for events in a novel. For Maggie A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, the double standard is not one of the key points of the novel but it does add to the discussion about the views of womanhood that Crane integrates within his story. Women are characterized in Maggie by similar actions that add to the idea of a double standard. My argument is that Crane portrays women as a creature made to fulfill the female social expectations of purity and…show more content…
As soon as this dependency leads to overturning common societal principles, however, women are found culpable for the disgrace inflicted upon them. Maggie, as the central character, deals with this double standard most directly. The author describes Maggie in her first appearance as an adult as the “most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl” (Crane 31). Her character is presented as the “archetypal melodramatic heroine” (Irving). Her lovely and sweet demeanor, however, falls prey to victimization because she “[lacks] the correct environment in which she might come to embody the ideal of American womanhood” (Irving). The only hope Maggie had of leaving her stifling home was a relationship with Pete. From the moment she met him, she “perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man” (Crane 35). It looked like Pete’s aristocratic presence would lead to her escape from the Bowery. Maggie, however, was too naïve and not enough of a performer to keep her from falling too deeply under his spell. Maggie’s reaction to the disgrace created by her relationship with him was to believe “his condescension was a marvel” (Crane 75). Her dependency became so strong that “she would be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete adored her as he now said he did” (Crane 77). Pete’s eventual abandonment was the final crushing blow to her dreams. Throughout the novel, the author presents Maggie’s life as an inevitable result of living in the Bowery. The double standard behind her disgrace is hardly discussed because the moral institution present in the Bowery is the system Crane is trying to denounce. Only one scene suggests that Maggie’s shame for her lack of purity might be unfounded. After a discussion with his mother, Jimmie “wondered
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