The Life of a Slum

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets portrays life of many negative characters. Most of the main characters are seen as the devil or even as a harlot. Some of the main characters that were portrayed as these were- Maggie, Jimmie, and every Mary, Maggie and Jimmie’s mother. Crane does an elaborate job at showing the negative characteristics of each of these characters. There are many things that influenced these characters to become the “Bad Guys” or even the “Bad Girls.”

Maggie, the main character, is inevitably thrown into this negative path. She grew up with bad influences all around her. Her mother and father always fought and were always drunk. This was proved in the first part of the book. These bad influences caused her to not know right from wrong. She became infatuated with Pete who ends up leaving her. She was kicked out on the streets because she was seen as a slut. Being kicked out of the house by her own family, she began to go down the road of prostitution. She went down a long, meaningless path that soon led to her death. She is portrayed throughout the whole book as a bad person who never amounted up to anyone. The town looked down upon her and never saw her as anything else besides being a prostitute. She was blessed with her good looks that eventually led to her death.

Jimmie, from the start, is described as a bad boy. The first chapter proves this to be true. The book starts off with Jimmie fighting. Throughout the entire book, he is seen as abusive and mean. He hates Pete and even his own sister Maggie. He, again, grew up with bad influences all around him, just like Maggie. His abusive parents were probably a big impact on Jimmie’s life. To begin with, Jimmie was in a boy gang and was always getting into fights with other gangs. He never cared for his sister when he found out about her and Pete. He was even a hypocrite. He slept around all the time, had children by different women, and didn’t even care for them. He was a womanizer. The author truly...