Annika VanSandtRed Group

Thoreau/Crane Paper

In Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, and in Maggie: Girl Of The Streets by Stephen

Crane, the two authors share similar views on self-reliance, but contrast in their views on

philanthropy and fate versus choice in determining ones life path. Walden is an

autobiographical tale of Thoreau who chooses to live by himself in the woods. Thoreau

explains his beliefs and how effective it can be to live simply. Maggie: Girl Of The Streets is a

completely different scenario. Maggie is a girl living in a dysfunctional family in the slums

of New York. After disobeying her mother, Maggie becomes a prostitute. She later commits

suicide.

Thoreau and Crane would agree on their views of self-reliance. Thoreau was an

independent person. He believed that people should be strong enough by themselves so

they could truly control their life. He had “lived alone, in a house he had built himself,”

(Thoreau, 1) and been isolated from the world. Thoreau barely even used tools, for fear he

woud become a slave to them. He insisted that tools and help from others were

unnecessary when an individual could complete the work. “For more than five years I

maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands,” (Thoreau, 46) Thoreau said of

himself. In Stephan Crane’s novella, Maggie shows weakness when she has to live on her

own. Maggie tried to go back to her mother after she realized she could not live on her

own. Crane portrays Maggie as weak and shows that people who always rely on others will

ultimately meet their demise. “Maggie had returned home,” (Crane, 82) once she can no

longer survive by herself. She was kicked out by her mother and had to search the streets

for any possible costumers. A man was going to help Maggie but “he did not risk it to save a

soul, for how was he to know there was a soul that needed saving,” (Crane, 87). Maggie

had to rely on the help of costumers to have a place to sleep, but she was not always

successful.

While Thoreau and Crane would compare their views of self-reliance, they would

contrast on their views of philanthropy. Thoreau claimed, “Philanthropy is greatly

overrated” (Thoreau, 51). According to Thoreau, philanthropists only help the poor to feel

better about themselves. Either they do it for their own happiness, or because they have

plenty of money and are trying to create a more positive image. The public gives the

philanthropist fame and praise just for doing an act of kindness once or twice while others

devote their life to helping the less fortunate and do not get acknowledged.

“Philanthropists too often surround mankind with the remembrance of their own cast-off

griefs as an atmosphere, and call it sympathy,” (Thoreau, 52). In Maggie, there is an elder

woman who is a beggar. She leeches off of the wealthy that wander the streets to make a

living. The old woman offers Jimmy, Maggie’s brother, a place to stay while his parents

fought. “She (the old woman) said ‘if yer mudder raises ‘ell all night yehs can sleep here’”

(Crane, 43). She made this gesture of kindness, because she simply wanted to help. This

suggests Crane thinks of philanthropists as not necessarily the rich and powerful, but as

anyone willing to help. The old woman made money off of rich people who were also

philanthropists, who pitied her enough to give money. That being said, the people Maggie

encountered on the streets could not afford to pay her. They might have wanted to help,

but due to their own misfortune, the reader does not know if the “drunken man who roared

at her ‘I ain’ ga no money, dammit,” (Crane, 88) would have actually helped her. By putting

Maggie in a situation where she needs help from philanthropists, one can assume that

Crane thinks very highly of philanthropists. He wanted to show how helpful

philanthropists could be.

Thoreau and Crane also would disagree on their views of fate versus choice in

determining one’s life path. Thoreau often talks about how he chose to be isolated and how

he chose not to rely on others, acting as if anyone could easily determine their life through

the power of choice. He later says that he “would not have anyone adopt his mode of

living,” (Thoreau, 48), suggesting that someone who happens to live their life similar to

Thoreau chose to live that way. By talking about only needing four things (food, shelter,

clothing, and fuel) to survive, he makes it seem like one can choose not to need anything

else. He goes on to say that people choose to copy certain styles such as “when the head

monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same,”

(Thoreau, 17). People make choices to determine how they want to live. Contrasting with

this idea is Crane; Maggie is led by fate to her demise, not by choice. After Maggie died, one

of the women said “Deh Lord gives and deh Lord takes away,” (Crane, 94) alluding that

Maggie did not choose to kill herself. Her death was the Lord’s choice or destiny. The

ending of the story left one feeling there was nothing left for Maggie to do, that she had

tried so hard to fix her life, but “as sounds of life came faintly and died away to a silence,”

(Crane, 89) the only thing left was death.

In Walden and Maggie: Girl Of The Streets, Thoreau and Crane examined similar

topics. For the most part they disagreed, but they brought new views to the reader’s

attention. Thoreau was writing as a transcendentalist who used philosophical and spiritual

reasoning as to how and why things happened. Crane wrote from the perspective of a

naturalist. He wrote about the hardships the less fortunate faced and showed pity. They

seem to agree on the topic of self-reliance, but on philanthropy and fate versus choice they

disagreed.

Thoreau, Henry D. Walden and Civil Disobedience New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966. Print.

Crane, Stephen. Maggie: Girl Of The Streets Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. Print.