Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Tenement Life and the Effects on the Family

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, by Stephen Crane, gives us a synopsis of life in the tenements and the relationship people had with others. Maggie’s family was one of the many families during the 1890s that went through crisis. The thesis of my paper is that tenement living deprived people of closed relationships. First by alcoholism, second by abuse, and third by denial.
The children (including Maggie and Jimmie) had easy access to alcohol. Each tenement contained a saloon on the ground level, making the availability to alcohol easy for children. The old woman downstairs states to Jimmie, “Go, now, like a dear an’ buy me a can” (Crane 43). In return for buying the “can,” Jimmie receives a place to stay for the night. The father assaults Jimmie, stealing his can and taking it for his own. “You’ve been drinkin’, Mary,” he said. “You’d better let up on the bot’, ol’ woman, or you’ll git done” (41...