Naturalism made his introduction in American literature in the nineteenth century. In 1878, Henry James published a story, Daisy Miller, that made his reputation. A romantic tale of a beautiful American girl and her adventures in Europe. Oppose to Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) by Stephen Crane was about the story of Maggie and her family, who lived in the Bowery district in New York, which is a rough neighborhood. Both authors were a famous in their own style.
They both had a different style of writing and social issues that they represented in those two books. In Daisy Miller, Henry James was more about American versus European society, wherein Maggie Crane was emphasizing on the harsh live people were living in. The point of view from James in his book was first person peripheral, but the narrator talks in the first around five times in the book. When he does it, it is to tell us something saucy. For example, at the beginning of the book about Winterbourne’s lover in Geneva.
What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons spoke of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a woman who lived there a foreign lady a person older than himself”. Not like other first person peripheral narrators, we know nothing about him. To make things even more complicating, though the book is about Daisy, we only see Daisy through Winterbourne’s eyes. All his opinions cloud every aspect of the book, so the narrator’s judgment is hardly an objective one, but instead a means of recounting Winterbourne’s impressions of the other characters.
The setting in the book was in the 1870’s few years before the telling of the story. At first, the story started in Vevey, Switzerland, which is described to be astonishing and very intricate, such as the Chateau de Chillon, the second half occurred in Rome, Italy, which is filled with old museums, nice arts and amazing tourist sites like the Coliseum. The setting is extremely important because Daisy Miller is a complicated love story, and Europe is known to be a place of romance and love. Throughout Daisy Miller, Henry James was telling us some social issues that were occurring in the book.
The major one that I noticed was the difference in American and European society. The Americans spontaneity against the European’s insistence upon form and ceremony. Daisy was the representation of America, where Mrs. Costello, Mrs. Walker and Winterbourne represented Europe. Even though they were Americans, they have lived their entire life in Europe and have adopted their mode of life. Daisy loves to do what she wants. Although according to the European way, those things are improper.
For example, when Daisy was walking in Rome with Winterbourne and Mr. Giovanelli late at night, Mrs. Walker wanted to help Daisy to keep up her reputation. “That must not do this sort of thing. She must not walk here with you two. Fifty people have noticed her. ” Winterbourne raised his eyebrows “ I think it’s a pity to make too much fuss about it. ” It’s a pity to let the girl ruin herself! “” She is very innocent,”said Winterbourne. “She’s very crazy! ” cried Mrs. Walker. “Did you ever see anything so imbecile as her mother? After you had all left me just now, I could not sit still for thinking of it.
It seemed too pitiful, not even to attempt to save her. I ordered the carriage and put on my bonnet, and came here as quickly as possible. Thank Heaven I have found you! ” This excerpt shows that according to European society that kind of action is unsuitable for a woman. Mrs. Walker worries about her reputation especially when she says: “Fifty people have noticed her” and “ Thank Heaven I have found you! ”. In Europe, the formal way for a man to meet women is that he must introduce himself to the girl in front of her parents with their approval if not it is considered a huge crime.
However, in America, their way are completely different. As Daisy said “ Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them were by gentlemen,” added Daisy Miller. “I have more friends in New York than in Schenectady—more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends too. ” In America, it is less strict for women being seen with gentlemen without the girl’s parents. The way they have been educated are totally different from Europe.
Since Daisy does not know those rules because Mrs. Miller did not tell her the proper ways in Europe high society, so her reputation is being affected. In Maggie: A Girl of the Street, the point of view of the narrator was a third person omniscient. He is showing us the characters from the book are in a bad way, and our narrator does not seem to care. Their life is extremely rough for them, but the story goes on, it is not the narrator’s problem. This is a classical naturalist narrator. They are giving us facts. Also, because the narrator is not involved in the story; the rough conditions they are going through do not directly affect him.
However, with this kind of narrator we are able to go insights into each character as the story goes, so we get an up-close and personal picture of how hard are their lives, which is the aim of a naturalist narrator. The setting of the book was in Bowery in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century. “Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against a hundred windows.
Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places, there were buckets, brooms, rags, and bottles. […] A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels. ” Crane is showing how hard the life was in the lower class of society. It was the survival of the fittest. Death was a common thing where they lived. For example, the death of Tommy and Maggie’s father. Their death was barely talked in the book as if their death were meaningless to what was happening in the story.
Crane talked about some social issues that were occurring at this time. The conditions in which Maggie and Jimmy lived was hard because, since a young age, their mother was an alcoholic with uncontrollable rages, which sometimes led to destroy some furniture or object in the house. Their father who seems to casually brutal his own children, and was also an alcoholic by going to the bars to escape the “livin hell” of his home. For example, in Chapter 2 an old woman ask Jimmy “ Eh, Gawd, child, what is it dis time? Is yer father beatin’ yer mudder or yer mudder beatin ‘ yer fader? This shows how hard it must have been for them to live in those conditions.
As result, Jimmy became violent and combative, so he would be able to survive in the rough world of Bowery. Maggie, however, she became naive hoping to find a man, who will be able to rescue her from this life. As the story goes on, she became interested in Pete because she believes he is a rich man and will be able to save her from the conditions she lived in. She refuses to accept the idea that she will be stuck where she is forever, even decides to leave her family to go live with Pete as her only way to escape.
However, later in the book, Maggie realizes that Pete was not interested in her when he left with Nellie, leaving her by herself and Maggie go see him again asking for help and he said: “ Oh, go teh hell. ” At the end of the book, Maggie was mentioned as a girl and not as Maggie, showing that she became like any other girl in the neighborhood. She became a prostitute and by an unknown died, but we believe she committed suicide. When an author writes a novel, they often put some of their opinions about things in their life. They do not say it explicitly, but the words they used and their style of writing.
We can imagine what they were trying to tell us. Henry James, in Daisy Miller, was talking about the differences in American and European society and they had different views about formality and what is considered improper or not. In contrast to Stephen Crane in Maggie wrote how harsh the life conditions for people living in poverty in New York City. It was the survival of the fittest not everyone was able to live in those conditions and death was seen as a common thing. Stephen Crane and Henry James were both to extraordinary writers, who both influenced American Literature.