"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" by Stephen Crane and "Our Nig" by Harriet Wilson contrast one another in several interesting ways. The two novels have different functions in our curriculum and feature great difference between author and context. However, the two novels also show much by way of similarity in storyline.
"Our Nig" is placed in the Uplift section of this course curriculum while Crane's novel is featured in the Critique portion. These sections "represent different purposes and contexts for documentary literature" and thus should factor into the reader's view. These two words may shed some light on author purpose for writing. Uplift can be looked at as elevation of something, be it spiritual, or social, or intellectual. Giving "Our Nig" this type of heading or context poses its audience (or this class) to view the work in, perhaps, a positive or more revolutionary light. We see the writing as something that edifies and supports.
"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" is part of the Critique section of this course. Crane's writing seems to be quite critical of the social situation that he uses as the setting for the novel. However, the inclusion of this novel in this section intrigues me because the things that take place in Wilson's and Crane's work seem to showcase similar things. Both feature female protagonists in negative environments that seem to eventually be cause for their demise. Although the ending of Wilson's novel is slightly more positive than that of Crane's, they both feature the downtrodden and highlight the horrible actions of those people who should be concerned for them.
Each protagonist seems to begin with a fair amount of strength, both Maggie and Frado show character that helps to keep them apart or emotionally above their negative settings. Both girls are submitted to much degradation and neither really overcomes it. However similar the women of the stories are, the authors of each are quite different. Perhaps Crane and Wilson provide the context that differentiates their writing. The more socially mobile Crane is able to write a novel to critique circumstance while Wilson's novel is a symbol of progress for a people, as it was the first novel written by an African American in the new Americas.
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Thank you, Cora. After reading your post, I could bring out Our Nig again and compare to Maggie with taking more understanding.
ReplyDeleteFirst, both novels depict the protagonist’s tragic life in a harsh condition. But, the viewpoint of the two novels seemed different one another. Because Our Nig specifically draws the nature of the characters around Frado, I could clearly pay attention to Frado’s condition and her life-long hard ship. Otherwise, Maggie draws the characters with a limited explanation and seems to pay attention to the each character’s environment. Hence I couldn’t 100% align to Maggie in terms of individual person like Frado in Our Nig, but instead I could see more the objects and the people around Maggie. If the author (or the narrator) revealed more her inner thought and her clear desire frankly from her heart, I may feel more strong empathy to Maggie herself.
Second, I found a similarity between the two novels about the way to call the characters around the protagonist. While Our Nig calls Mrs. Bellmont as Mrs. B, Maggie often calls Mary and Jimmie as “her mother” and “the man” respectively. I think it is related to the sarcasm. Frado is often abused by Mrs. Bellmont and ignored by her. Because Mrs. Bellmont is the main cause of her pain in the house, by calling her short, the name may describe the more evil images from the readers. Like this way, though the frank and personal information towards Jimmie and Mary lack, we are permitted to imagine Jimmie and Mary with more opened possibilities. Though I don’t know how to explain fully at this time for this effect, I guess iconic image -“amplification through simplification”- might give me some more hints to this for next blogging.