The Use Of Clothing In Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane employs a motif of clothing in order to portray the cultural restraints of the time in a physical sense. The most obvious way Crane displays these restraints is through Maggie’s job at the cuff and collar factory. By purposely employing her in a cuff and collar factory, Crane conjures an image of confinement to her job. Crane also uses clothing to show the self-restriction the upper class places on themselves. Their lavish wardrobes distinctly separate them from the lower class. Finally, Crane uses the prostitutes lack of clothing to show how, even though they should be free of their restrains, their fatalistic beliefs still trap them in their situation. Maggie’s job at the cuff and collar factory symbolizes how she is trapped there by her environment.

Like the upper class, the prostitutes dress extremely well; however, they do not wish to distance themselves from the lower class. Instead, they use their glamour to draw in the “men of rural or untaught pattern” (54). An illusion of freedom assisted by a flashy wardrobe prevents customers from realizing that the prostitutes are defenseless against their fate and are just trying to survive. Maggie, “several months after” she joins the “painted cohorts,” wears a “handsome cloak” and her feet are “well-shod” (54). This depiction of her wardrobe reveals that she quickly learns how to operate in her new situation since she can not change it. This fatalist belief prevents the prostitutes from changing their lives. They continuously “[return] attired in less gown” since they do not believe that they have any other options (39). In this way, the prostitutes are unable to escape their situation due to both a lack of options instilled by their society and a lack of motivation instilled by their fatalistic