The Age Of Innocence And Maggie Analysis

The Compare and Contrast on The Age of Innocence and Maggie: A Girl on the Street

The Age of Innocence is written by Edith Wharton. It is about the New York City’s best families. Its three protagonists, Newland, Ellen and May, are from those families. The fiction mainly records a love story with no perfect ending between Newland and Ellen and the dirty parts of the best families.

Maggie: A Girl on the Street is written by Stephen Crane. It is about the New York City’s poor families. Its three protagonist, Jimmie, Maggie and Pete, are from those families. The fiction intends to record the family life in the poor’s family and the pity love story happened on Maggie and Pete.

Social Influences

Both fictions’ settings are in the time period

The rising of new capitalists, like the banker Julius Beaufort, starts to influence the stability and conventions of the upper class. He is rich but without noble family background. After he marries a girl from the upper class named Regina, he becomes a member of the upper class and succeeds in attracting the upper class people to attend his ball. He breaks some moral rules of the upper class, especially for the marriage and relationship between men and women. The publishing of Darwin’s “The Descent of Man” in 1871 mentions about the principle of group life and activities. The principle is “the individuals who absolutely subdue to rules and moralities of the group is fitting to the society with low reproduction.” However, developments of industry and the push during and after the Civil War improve the reproduction of the society. That indicates the stable structure of the upper class would be influenced and even broken. The stable structure is kept by the complicated rules and lots of limitations. The newly entering people break the rules and limitations and bring the old upper class some inspirations and influence. Some old upper class people change to disobey the rules of the morality as new upper class people to get more personal benefits.

Characters’ Analysis

People’s mind was going through “a moral crisis with confusion, loss and skepticism.” Just as Keith noted in his “Stephen

He fights for his benefits even with the same and the old generation. From the beginning of the book, “the little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat has been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat is gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood is dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wear a look of a tiny, insane demon.” Jimmie wants to control not only his life but also Maggie’s. He always tries to help her make decisions and tell her how to do. However, he delves deep into Maggie’s tragedy because he wants to get too many benefits from