It is often stated that people are a product of the environment they grow up in. Where one spends the beginning of their life and shapes an identity can play a key role in the discover of self. People interpret their surroundings differently, and while many are shaped into a person who looks and sounds like where they are from, others may deviate, and attempt to find a home elsewhere. In their novels The Scarlet Letter and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Hawthorne and Crane’s both depict characters that are walking embodiments of their surroundings, and characters who are the opposite, and through the struggle of the latter character they illustrate how difficult it is for one to form an identity and become more than their roots in a constraining
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Religious morality is a top priority, and many people hide behind this outspoken religion as they let it become their identity. This is not so much the same for Crane’s Maggie of the Streets. In the short story, Crane utilizes the setting of late 19th century New York City to tell Maggie’s narrative, describing the environment as a “dark region [with] a dozen gruesome doorways . . . Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. . . Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, . . . [and] withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners” (Crane 3). The people in Crane’s writing are also portrayed as similar, but not so much that they all hold the same beliefs as much as that they are all stuck in the same situation. There are all kinds of people in Maggie, but they are reduced to one due to the harsh living conditions in the New York City slums that erases any sort of identity and replaces it with the outward image of poverty and despair. Hawthorne and Crane utilize environments in which it is hard to forge an individual identity, setting the tone for the characters that they use to illustrate the struggle within these constricting …show more content…
In The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale represents the Puritan landscape both in his positive attributes as well as his flaws. It is said that Dimmesdale was “ a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into the wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the highest eminence in his profession”(Hawthorne 55). Dimmesdale represents many aspects of his Puritan town. For starters, he is a minister, a man whose existence is devoted to the serving of God, much like the ideals of his community. He is also young and intelligent, so his residence in a newly settled colonial town that considers itself an envy of the world is not at all surprising. When Dimmesdale commits a sin, that sin ultimately destroys him, proving that he and the village are very much alike, for sin would tarnish the name of an idealistic Puritan town. Dimmesdale is the manifestation of his Puritan landscape, and therefor is embraced and adored by everybody who is a part of it. Jimmie is another character who manages to thrive in an environment that he embraces. Jimmie is Maggie’s brother, and he can be found seeking trouble in the mud-slung streets and doing whatever he can to land an extra cent. Jimmie is a lot of trouble, and “If in the front
Religious morality is a top priority, and many people hide behind this outspoken religion as they let it become their identity. This is not so much the same for Crane’s Maggie of the Streets. In the short story, Crane utilizes the setting of late 19th century New York City to tell Maggie’s narrative, describing the environment as a “dark region [with] a dozen gruesome doorways . . . Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. . . Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, . . . [and] withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners” (Crane 3). The people in Crane’s writing are also portrayed as similar, but not so much that they all hold the same beliefs as much as that they are all stuck in the same situation. There are all kinds of people in Maggie, but they are reduced to one due to the harsh living conditions in the New York City slums that erases any sort of identity and replaces it with the outward image of poverty and despair. Hawthorne and Crane utilize environments in which it is hard to forge an individual identity, setting the tone for the characters that they use to illustrate the struggle within these constricting …show more content…
In The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale represents the Puritan landscape both in his positive attributes as well as his flaws. It is said that Dimmesdale was “ a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into the wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the highest eminence in his profession”(Hawthorne 55). Dimmesdale represents many aspects of his Puritan town. For starters, he is a minister, a man whose existence is devoted to the serving of God, much like the ideals of his community. He is also young and intelligent, so his residence in a newly settled colonial town that considers itself an envy of the world is not at all surprising. When Dimmesdale commits a sin, that sin ultimately destroys him, proving that he and the village are very much alike, for sin would tarnish the name of an idealistic Puritan town. Dimmesdale is the manifestation of his Puritan landscape, and therefor is embraced and adored by everybody who is a part of it. Jimmie is another character who manages to thrive in an environment that he embraces. Jimmie is Maggie’s brother, and he can be found seeking trouble in the mud-slung streets and doing whatever he can to land an extra cent. Jimmie is a lot of trouble, and “If in the front