Maggie: A Girl of the Streets | Themes
Poverty
The impetus for the misery the characters endure in the novel is the abject state of poverty in which they live. Their tenement is inhabited by “true assassins” who prey on anyone in their path. Nearby “a worm of yellow convicts . . . [crawl] slowly along the river’s bank.” The Johnsons’ building “quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.” In this atmosphere, children like Maggie’s younger brother Tommie die. Family life is destroyed as Mr. And Mrs. Johnson drink themselves into oblivion to escape the reality of...
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