Maggie: A Street Girl illustrates the harshness and dark life that the lower class of Americans experienced during the Industrial Revolution. Those who did not have jobs in factories often turned to alcohol and did not live long, healthy lives. Many men ended up like Maggie's father, a shell of a human being willing to do anything for another drink. Others relied on God and the notion of a reward in the afterlife to maintain their sanity in their hard and dreary lives. In his novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane depicts the state of American slums in the 1990s, believing, like Darwin, that disadvantaged workers will never be able to escape their socio-economic class. about the life of the lower class in America is very similar to the views of hard-core determinists. In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, the protagonist, Maggie, is born into poverty that she will have to live with for the rest of her life. Even though she grew up in a wilderness environment, Maggie believes she can change her future. Maggie's beauty works to her advantage, but she has no real education in how the world works other than the dramas she has witnessed where the poor and virtuous always triumph over the rich and cruel. The truth about her unfortunate situation is that she never had the chance to succeed in life. Crane shows that his many misfortunes during his short life prove this point. An example is Maggie's first meeting with Nell. Her silence during this meeting is a key part of why Pete left Maggie for the more open Nell. However, if Maggie had spoken, she would have been ridiculed for her ignorance and accent, thus leaving the lesser of two bad choices, to remain...... middle of paper...... drunken insults. Maggie can no longer integrate into the lowest social classes and ends up committing suicide. This was brought on by Maggie believing she could escape her original family and social status, but Crane makes her hopes and dreams come true by having everyone close to her betray her. Stephen Crane, an upper-class man in the late 1800s, sends a message to the American people through his novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, about "the destructive nature of urban life in the 1890s to Bowery” (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Bloom's Guides.) He witnessed with bitter cynicism that there was no hope for millions of people who lived lives of barren cruelty in tenements and slums American cities. One hundred and twenty-one years later, there is no obvious solution to multigenerational poverty..