STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY CRISIS: ANALYZING MAGGIE JOHNSON’S SUICIDE IN STEPHEN CRANE’S MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS THROUGH THE LENS OF AMERICAN NATURALIST LITERATURE
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Abstract
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane depicts the tragic downfall of a young woman trapped in the oppressive society of nineteenth-century urban America. This study investigates Maggie Johnson's identity crisis through her interactions with three urban environments: the tenement house, the saloons, and the streets, with each representing a factor that fragments her existence. Throughout the book, violence, exploitation, and social exclusion gradually erase her identity, transforming her into a transparent being whose existence is not acknowledged. The study uses close reading to explore Crane’s narrative techniques and symbolism to reveal how space and society force Maggie to be victim. It also emphasizes the poverty and fragility that offers no space for the poor, innocent girl to survive in a harsh environment. The analysis suggests that Maggie’s unconscious suicide was caused by external forces rather than her own actions. Her path exemplifies the deterministic structures of American naturalism, in which the environment determines destiny. Finally, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets criticizes a society that not only fails to protect its most vulnerable members but also actively contributes to their demise, leaving them with no refuge but oblivion. It stands as a significant lesson in the historical record that Crane conveys: structural violence can occur to anyone, not only to Maggie and not only in her time.
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