Todd Cecutti

Professor Gibson

ENGL 255

December 6, 2016

Cranes Versatility:

Symbolism, Impressionism, and Naturalism in Maggie

Scholars and critics of Stephen Cranes work from the time he was publishing until the

current day seem unable to disagree on where his literature fits in terms of genre or influence.

There are brief and fleeting assertions of Impressionism and Symbolism, but most stake his place

in literature in the house of Realism. Cranes novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, published in

1893 and later reissued with edits after the success of The Red Badge of Courage, is one

particular work of the author that was and is the subject of much disagreement. This essay aims

to argue that any attempt to place Maggie into any one literary genre is in vain, for Cranes

novella transcends specificity, utilizing elements of Impressionism, Symbolism, and Naturalism

to thrust the reader into the horrific reality of life in the tenements in the late nineteenth century.

Impressionism in both art and literature relies heavily upon associations that the viewer

or reader makes with particular sensory elements for example, color. According to Gaskill,

Crane participated in a proliferation of innovations in color media that took place

during his lifetime. Synthetic dyes and pigments produced by nineteenth-century

advances in organic chemistry made a wide range of vivid colors readily available and

the commercial uses of these new hues were driven by the descriptions of color
 experience offered by experimental psychology. [From] these modern technologies and

theories of color emerged a set of practices predicated on colors ability to produce direct

and manageable effects on the human sensorium. (720)

In Maggie, Crane relies heavily on color associations in order to, metaphorically, paint a picture

in the readers mind of the setting, but also of the way the setting affects the characters in the

novella and the reader psychologically. While the extreme effect of environment on characters is

a Naturalistic technique, Crane noted in letters that he admired early Impressionistic writers such

as Maupassant and Gauntier, so their influence on his literary identity cannot be denied (Perosa

83). This blending of genres or styles is what makes the classification of Cranes writing futile.

For example, there are eleven descriptions in the brief novella that use the color yellow. One

usage of yellow imagery throughout Maggie is in descriptions of the squalid, oppressive

tenements and streets in which the characters are forced to exist: A wind of early autumn raised

yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows (4), or, At the feet of the

tall buildings appeared the deathly black hue of the river. Some hidden factory sent up a yellow

glare, that lit for a moment the waters lapping oilily against timbers (50). Both of these

characterizations of the environment give the reader an uneasy feeling a feeling of sickness

likely associated with tuberculosis or yellow fever; the sickness of the environment is impressed

upon the reader, and therefore the reader understands how oppressive and influential it is to the

characters. The color yellow also signifies a patina that exists in the environment, which is full

of tired and ragged characters whose life experiences have left them with a peculiar patina of

their own. These impressions are not explicit, but psychologically and emotionally suggestive.

Cranes use of descriptive color and imagery detached from analysis are signs of his

Impressionistic mind in Maggie, and is extended to the color red.

 The color red and its shades, specifically crimson, are integral to the language and

connotation of Maggie. It is first present in the opening scene of the novella, where Crane

depicts a game of king of the hill hinting at the Social Darwinism so present in Naturalistic

works being played by the young urchins of Rum Alley and Devils Row. Jimmie stands

upon a heap of gravel delivering furious crimson oaths, or battle oaths, a phrase also used by

Crane in The Red Badge of Courage. The reader can sense the fury in Jimmies howls, as well

as his primitiveness, which is made clearer with further development of his character throughout

Maggie. The preeminent use and context of the color crimson in the opening lines of the story

establish it as the color of rage, strife, and animalism, setting a psychological marker or signal in

the readers mind. The next time it is used as a descriptor, Maggies mother is in a rage: The

woman screamed and shook her fists before her husband's eyes. The rough yellow of her face

and neck flared suddenly crimson. She began to howl (5-6). Both yellow and crimson are used

to describe the worn, maddened, and animalistic mother, who throughout Maggie is a giver of

pain.

Connotations of the color red are typically negative, from pain, to anger, to fire and

destruction, to the devil, and it is these connotations upon which Maggies fate is interpreted by

the reader. Another source of debate among readers and critics alike is the true fate of Maggie

considering that Cranes description was ambiguous, but to some, Cranes use of Impressionistic

color imagery and symbolism holds the truth, which Salemi argues is suicide by drowning after a

meeting with the devil. He suggests that the great figure that Maggie meets by the riverside

symbolizes the devil, the ultimate character of redness in Christianity. Everything about this

figure suggests an abysmal evil His depiction conveys a pighis huge size, greasy garments,

small eyes, and great rolls of red fat all mark him as an animal (59). Cranes use of color in
an Impressionistic style continues in the same paragraph as the description of the john, or the

devil, when he writes, Chuckling and leering, he followed the girl of the crimson legions (50).

The reader is again presented with the connotations of crimson that were set earlier in Maggie.

While the word crimson on its own in this context may simply refer to the painted cohorts of

prostitutes referred to earlier in the chapter, in combination with the word legion, it takes on an

entirely new meaning, prompting images of the demons of hell, as Salemi notes. Compounded

by the frequent repetition by Maggies mother and Jimmie of, Maggie's gone teh deh devil! to

express their disdain for her seeming ascension from the poverty in which they are both trapped,

the symbolism created by Cranes use of Impressionistic color imagery becomes substantive.

Along with other symbols in Maggie, the assertion that Crane was exercising elements of both

Impressionism and Symbolism in concert is legitimate.

One of the most striking and chillingly beautiful phrases in Maggie gives more substance

to the symbolic nature of Cranes imagery. The phrase gruesome doorway is used in its

entirety five times throughout the novella to describe the entrances to the tenement building in

which Maggies family lives. The phrase is a juxtaposition, blending the dramatic gruesome

with the bland doorway. This juxtaposition shocks the reader to attention and leaves a

lasting impression of the effect that life in the tenements has on the characters in Maggie, using

symbolism that lends to Cranes Naturalistic tendencies to portray a deterministic view of

characters lives. The phrase suggests, in a literal sense, that the doorways in the building are

ugly and mangled, much like the tenements themselves. Figuratively and symbolically, the

phrase suggests that they are entryways into a hellish landscape in both physical and emotional

senses; the tenement is where Maggies mother destroys what little furniture they have, where

Jimmie is bloodied by fights, and where Maggie is tormented and rejected by her family for
seeking a better life. Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careening

building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter (4).

This phrase along with the Cranes repetition of it throughout the story paints a claustrophobic

picture of tenement life full of gruesome doorways, from which there is no escape due to their

abundance and universal gruesomeness. For Maggie, these doorways represent her inability to

truly escape her determined fate of prostitution, as her name suggests another instance of

Cranes Naturalism.

Perhaps the lenses through which this essay examines Cranes Maggie are best

exemplified by returning to the opening scene when a young, bloodied Jimmie stood atop a heap

of gravel, hurling stones at the urchins from Devils Row. The Social Darwinism that is

foundational to Naturalism is played out in a game of territory king of the hill where

Jimmies goal is to maintain his honor, as well as the honor of the people of Rum Alley, by

holding onto the pile of gravel, which can be read as symbolizing the fragile, ugly, unforgiving

tenement itself. The animalistic savagery of the battling tenant is clear: 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 (1). This description seals Jimmies fate as a man determined to

live as a beast for all of his days, defending the tenement alongside his mother with his idea of

virtue, which, in a deterministic sense, seals the fate of Maggie. As noted by Pizer, Jimmie and

his mother, are victimized by their ideas of moral propriety which are so utterly inapplicable to

their lives that they constitute a social insanity (69). In this way, the Impressionistic, Symbolic,

and Naturalistic tendencies of Crane can be summed up in one image: a heap of gravel.

Despite how brief Maggie: A Girl of the Streets may be, Cranes versatility allowed him

to implement multiple elements of Symbolism, Impressionism, and Naturalism into the novella
in a way that has led to a century of scholarship and debate on the topic. The storys density and

implications on the mind and conscience of its readers have made it so. Though it may be futile

to confine any of Cranes work, especially Maggie, into a genre, his influence on literary culture

and on multiple styles of literature is clear through the seemingly endless critical and scholarly

works about his writing. And, perhaps, the ocean of thought that has been devoted to Crane

proves that a story like Maggie transcends specificity and begs to be undefined.
 Works Cited

Crane, Stephen. "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." The Open Boat and Other Stories. New York:

Dover Publications, 1993. 1-55. Print.

Gaskill, Nicholas. "Red Cars With Red Lights And Red Drivers: Color, Crane, And

Qualia." American Literature 81.4 (2009): 719-745. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7

Dec. 2016.

Perosa, Sergio. "Naturalism and Impressionism in Stephen Crane's Fiction." Stephen Crane. Ed.

Maurice Bassan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967. 80-94. Print.

Pizer, Donald. Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Carbondale:

Southern Illinois UP, 1966.

Salemi, Joseph S. "Down A Steep Place Into The Sea: Suicide In Stephen Crane's

Maggie." Anq 1.2 (1988): 58. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Dec. 2016.