Huckleberry Finn And Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

The Good, the Bad, and the Dirty Mark Twain and Stephen Crane, the rhyming named duo, both manage to paint a picture of growth and suppression in novels that seem to be created for young adults. Throughout the stories of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a constant battle between society and the main characters shape and mold how the two go about becoming a decent person. Throughout the stories of both Huck Finn and Maggie, the settings affect how the characters tick inside. Maggie lived in urban New York, a rough place for anyone to live. Max Westbrook emphasised Crane’s portrayal of New York by saying “Life in the Bowery slums is shown to consist of fist fights, beer, sex, [and] poverty…”(Westbrook 587) Crane constantly referred to the city with negative language such as “gruesome doorways” or “the buildings quivered and creaked” like it was going to fall down at any second (4-5). But no matter in how rough of a neighborhood, when

People majorly impacted the development of both Huck Finn and Maggie. When Huck pretended to be Tom Sawyer in the Phelps household, and the real Tom arrives, “Huck has fallen almost completely under his sway once more…” (Marx). However, the river managed to keep a hold on Huck and the part of him that changed. Huck Finn started to question the reasonings behind the way that Tom wanted to do things. No matter how swaying, Huck kept a grip on the better man he turned out to be in the face of Tom Sawyer (Twain). Like Huck, Maggie is affected by the people around her. Her self reliant nature suckered onto anyone she was vaguely close with, whether it be her brother or her lover. This clingy nature of hers made it difficult to change into a morally good person because everyone she associated was not. Even though Maggie was surrounded by hate from her mother and father, she cared deeply for her brother and