Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

and sexual exploitation─ first to streetwalking then to suicide in the East River” (Trachtenberg 145). Even
after Maggie’s death, her hypocritical mother calls her a “disobed’ent chil’ and the other tenants remark that
“her ter’ble sins will be judged” (Crane 999). It is unfortunate that they do not realize that she has been
wrongfully judged all her life and was just searching for acceptance. Crane hints that nothing will change in
the tenement and life will go on just as it did with the deaths of Maggie’s father and brother. Similar to the
destruction of the innocent Daisy of James’s novella, Maggie is destroyed. Crane is well-known for his use of
irony, therefore, it is no surprise that Maggie is unable to truly blossom as a rare flower in the concrete
jungle.
It is apparent in Henry James’s Daisy Miller: A Study and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets that the
female characters have no chance of survival by fighting the opposing forces which are far superior in strength.
They are doomed from the beginning, and Daisy and Maggie are as helpless as flowers in environments too
harsh to live in. They lack any female support and are cruelly judged by those closest to them. Society is
indifferent to both girls. Both of their families are partially responsible for their deaths, and love interests are
also to blame. Daisy and Maggie longed for something better; they wandered life with a romantic, pure desire
of being accepted when the unkind world ruthlessly crushed them. In Daisy’s story, Winterbourne repels her
away from him because of his jealous behavior, so she refuses to follow his warnings of Roman fever. Maggie’s
rejection by Pete, the only person she thought worth living for, allowed her to move to a life in prostitution
and ridicule from her family and neighbors, and results in her suicide. The people around both the girls
continue judging them even after their untimely deaths. Readers may be left pondering the result if Daisy and
Maggie had each other to depend on; one simple friendship could have made a difference for these two
innocent flower figures.
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