Talk:Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): KBMathews, Mmagiera11.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Assessment 2006

I wouldn't call Maggie a novel. Its a fairly short tale, I think it closely follows Aristotles antics for what makes a tragedy. The characters, while their self-destuctive tendencies are highly developed, hardly change. Maggie sees that she must leave her family if she has any chance of survival. She makes this decision after she realizes her brother has lost faith in her. Of course her brothers insistence that Maggie had been ruined was in the same vein of his character the whole story. Maggies realization is not so much of turning point in the story, even the title says Maggie a girl of the streets, but it represents the last place her life could be saved, by her brother but he faltered in his realizations. The man who ruined Maggie, Pete, is totaly forelorn after he leaves her, being taken by the other prostitutes while declaring he's such a goo ' feller. In the end Maggie is dead and finally the raging drunk mother declares she will forgive Maggie, this is the final realization, Maggie had been an angel and her fate was brought on by the poverty, loose morals and alcoholism that was so prevalent throughout the story. Ryan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.198 (talk) (talk • contribs) 05:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean: "apparently immune to the after-effects of the negative family, prostitute"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnC (talk • contribs) 02:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Reception and revisions

This article should make more mention of how the novel was received (poorly) and how Crane released a "cleaned up" version in 1896. Also it might be worthwhile to mention the intersection with George's Mother. A number of his other works, such as The Monster and the Whilomville Stories have characters that are repeated or who show up more than once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.156.71.162 (talk) 19:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Novel vs. Short Story

I'll agree it's short. Most references I've read refer to Maggie as a novel (for example the Literature Network site), and it's generally longer than most short stories at about 63 pages and some 23,000 words. It's a little long for a novelette but it doesn't seem to meet the definition of a novella which some claim is not merely determined by size. I switched the entry back to novel simply because it seems to be generally referred to as Crane's first novel. Oswald Glinkmeyer 16:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Plan of Action and Bibliography

Plan of Action: We would like to fill in the plot section with more details and add a themes section, where we could go more in-depth into the main themes of the short story, like poverty, industrialism and family relations. We also want to add a section focused on the dialect of the characters within the story. The author's use of dialect is distinct and is part of what makes this story notable. We could add some details to the historical context section that already exists because it is very sparse now. We also could add a "Controversy" section because the story was very controversial for the time and the original manuscript was edited multiple times by editors and the author before anyone would publish it. Currently, there is a "Works of Criticism" section that only has two articles listed in it. We will look for more scholarship on this story and include it under this section, possibly using sub-headings to categorize the scholarship by topic. Finally, we could also add a "Reception" or "Influence" section to describe how this short story was received at the time of release as compared to the present day and to discuss the impact this story had on readers and the legacy it created.

Bibliography:

·Brennan, Joseph X. “Ironic and Symbolic Structure in Crane's Maggie.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 16, no. 4, 1962, pp. 303–315. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/2932407. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Cottom, Daniel. "Maggie, Not a Girl of the Streets." Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 41, no. 1, 2007, pp. 73-98, https://doi.org/10.1215/ddnov.041010073. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Cunliffe, Marcus. “Stephen Crane and the American Background of Maggie.” American Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, 1955, pp. 31–44. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/2710412. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Dingledine, Don. “’It Could Have Been Any Street’: Ann Petry, Stephen Crane, and the Fate of Naturalism.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 34, no. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 87-106. ProjectMUSE. https://doi.org/10.1353/saf.2006.0014. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Fitelson, David. “Stephen Crane's ‘Maggie’ and Darwinism.” American Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 2, 1964, pp. 182–194, https://doi.org/10.2307/2711086. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Gandal, Keith. “Stephen Crane's ‘Maggie’ and the Modern Soul.” ELH, vol. 60, no. 3, 1993, pp. 759–785, www.jstor.org/stable/2873412. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Huntsperger, David. "Populist Crane: A Reconsideration of Melodrama in "Maggie.." Texas Studies in Literature & Language, vol. 53, no. 3, Fall2011, pp. 294-319. EBSCOhost. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Irving, Katrina. "Gendered Space, Racialized Space: Nativism, the Immigrant Woman and Stephen Crane's Maggie." College Literature, vol. 20, no. 3, Oct. 1993, p. 30. EBSCOhost. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Novotny, George T. "Crane's Maggie, a Girl of the Streets." Explicator, vol. 50, no. 4, 1992, pp. 225-228, https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.1992.9935328. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Slotkin, Alan R. “You as a Multileveled Dictional Device in Stephen Crane's Representation of Bowery Dialect in ‘Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.’” South Central Review, vol. 7, no. 2, 1990, pp. 40–53. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/3189332. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Stasi, Paul. "Joycean Constellations: 'Eveline' and the Critique of Naturalist Totality." James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 1, 2008, pp. 39-53, https://doi.org/10.1353/jjq.0.0131. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Stein, William Bysshe. “New Testament Inversions in Crane's Maggie.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 73, no. 4, 1958, pp. 268–272. https://doi.org/10.2307/3043423. Accessed 19 April 2018.

·Von Cannon, Jordan L. "Prostitution, Primitivism, Performativity." Studies in American Naturalism, vol. 10, no. 1, Summer2015, pp. 41-59. EBSCOhost. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Mmagiera11 (talk) 05:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)Mmagiera11 (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Edits

User KBMathews and I edited this article for a Wikipedia assignment for a college English class. We created a Themes section focusing on the themes of alcoholism, hypocrisy, naturalism, determinism, gender and sexuality and social class within the text. We also added an image by the alcoholism section. A list of the sources we used to write these paragraphs is as follows:

Brennan, Joseph X. “Ironic and Symbolic Structure in Crane's Maggie.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 16, no. 4, 1962, pp. 303–315. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/2932407. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Dingledine, Don. “’It Could Have Been Any Street’: Ann Petry, Stephen Crane, and the Fate of Naturalism.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 34, no. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 87-106. ProjectMUSE. https://doi.org/10.1353/saf.2006.0014. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Cunliffe, Marcus. “Stephen Crane and the American Background of Maggie.” American Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, 1955, pp. 31–44. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/2710412. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Stasi, Paul. "Joycean Constellations: 'Eveline' and the Critique of Naturalist Totality." James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 1, 2008, pp. 39-53,  https://doi.org/10.1353/jjq.0.0131. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Von Cannon, Jordan L. "Prostitution, Primitivism, Performativity." Studies in American Naturalism, vol. 10, no. 1, Summer2015, pp. 41-59. EBSCOhost. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Gandal, Keith. “Stephen Crane's ‘Maggie’ and the Modern Soul.” ELH, vol. 60, no. 3, 1993, pp. 759–785, www.jstor.org/stable/2873412. Accessed 19 April 2018.

Huntsperger, David. "Populist Crane: A Reconsideration of Melodrama in "Maggie.." Texas Studies in Literature & Language, vol. 53, no. 3, Fall2011, pp. 294-319. EBSCOhost. Accessed 19 April 2018.

In addition to these sources we also used the short story itself as a source, which is now listed in the bibliography. We would be glad to hear any feedback on improvements we can make to our edits. Mmagiera11 (talk) 23:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)Mmagiera11 (talk) 23:29, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Interesting expansion that mostly follows the rules. Your use of boldface, however, is not appropriate in the Themes section for denoting references. Aside from that, it's not a referencing style that I see used on WP very often, but it looks to me like it would be unobjectionable if the boldfacing were removed. Pinging @Mmagiera11 and KBMathews: ~~ — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:19, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! We removed the boldface from the text. KBMathews (talk) 02:02, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Possible Additions

Mmagiera11 and I added several themes to this article for our college English class, but there are several areas, which we could not improve due to time restrictions, that we believe could help the overall article. We think that the plot section could be filled with more details and fixed up grammatically. We also think a section focused on dialect of the characters within the story could be important since it is a major reason the story is notable. We think expanding the historical context could help the overall article as well, since it is very sparse right now. We also think adding a section on controversy could help the overall quality of the article, since the story was very controversial for the time and the original manuscript was edited multiple times by editors and the author before anyone would publish it. The character section could also use more information under each character and needs to be checked for grammatical errors. Although there is a "Works of Criticism" section, it only has two articles listed in it, adding more articles would improve the content of this page overall. Possibly, the article could use a section on reception or influence in order to describe how the short story was received at the time of release as compared to the present day and to discuss the impact this story had on readers and scholars. We would be glad to hear any feedback or suggestions on these possible additions. KBMathews (talk) 02:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Also, KBMathews and I wanted to share the Naturalism section we created. This is the section:

Crane is known as one of the first American naturalist authors. According to the naturalistic principles, a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one's biological heredity. Additionally, the circumstances in which a person finds oneself will dominate one's behavior, depriving the individual of personal responsibility.[4]Although Stephen Crane denied any influence by Émile Zola,[5] the creator of Naturalism, examples in his novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, indicate that he was inspired by French naturalism. The characters in Maggie are stuck in their class without a way out, due to their heritage and their inability to see other perspectives besides their own.[2] Critic Don Dingledine emphasizes how the behavior and actions of the characters in Maggie are influenced by poverty. Maggie is subject to this environment, as it shapes the outcome of her life despite her best effort to improve her circumstances by marrying Pete. Critics debate whether Crane's use of naturalism was intended to create empathy for the characters living in the Bowery or to support the idea that there is a genetic reason why they are impoverished.

The bolded sentences already existed on the page under the Naturalism section which was already created. However, we realized that these sentences are plagiarized. Should this section be removed from the page? Mmagiera11 (talk) 02:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I removed the Naturalism section for now due to plagiarism. Mmagiera11 (talk) 02:54, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

@KBMathews and Mmagiera11: Thanks for being vigilant and flagging this! Wikipedia has an extremely strict policy on copyright infringement (some might argue it's too strict, and it is enforced somewhat unpredictably, but I digress…). If you find text that you are certain is copied (including close paraphrasing) from off-wiki somewhere then that should certainly be removed immediately. If the amount of text is small (think "trivial") and the nature of the plagiarism is naïve, then removing it is sufficient. However, if there are significant chunks of some other work here, or there are signs that the infringement might be deliberate, you should follow the instructions at WP:DCV.

I couldn't tell from your message here just what the problem was (provide the specific text in the article that's problematic, and the specific source from which you suspect it is copied), but I can assist with any Wikipedia-specific arcana if needed. You can use {{ping|Xover}} (produces "@Xover: ") or {{u|Xover}} (produces "Xover") anywhere in a talk page message (remember to sign, or it won't work) and I will get a notification. If you determine that you need to use one of the copyright cleanup templates ({{copypaste}} or {{copyvio}}), this article will get flagged on a list of issues that is followed up on by admins experienced in copyright problems.

Unless the plagiarism is pretty trivial, it's not enough to just remove the visible text in the article. On Wikipedia where all the old versions of an article are available, sufficiently serious copyright infringement must be purged from old versions of the page too. On the flip side, we have a lot of cases where external sources have copied text from Wikipedia without attribution (i.e. the infringement goes the other way). If at all in doubt, use the reporting mechanisms outlined in WP:DCV and let someone with experience in the area sort it out. --Xover (talk) 06:14, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

This is the specific section we believe is plagiarized.

"According to the naturalistic principles, a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one's biological heredity. Additionally, the circumstances in which a person finds oneself will dominate one's behavior, depriving the individual of personal responsibility.[4]Although Stephen Crane denied any influence by Émile Zola,[5] the creator of Naturalism, examples in his novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, indicate that he was inspired by French naturalism."

Here are some websites we found that have similar if not the same sentences, but we are not sure if these websites copied from Wikipedia or came from another source.

https://www.24symbols.com/book/english/stephen-crane/maggie-a-girl-of-the-streets-wisehouse-classics---with-original-illustrations?id=858254&locale=en

http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/handle/123456789/13360/09E01644.pdf;jsessionid=C723D7746E9A8ABF85A36CF5B0C706B4?sequence=1

http://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/Maggie/Stephen-Crane/Unabridged-Start-Publishing-LLC/9781625584526 KBMathews (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

@KBMathews and Mmagiera11: Ah, thank you. I understand now. It was the text highlighted in bold above that you suspect is plagiarized; so you had already given it, and it was just I that didn't understand. Thanks for following up.

The "Naturalism" section was added to the article on 2-3 July 2007 in this series of edits. Any instance of the text that postdates these edits is thus likely to have copied from Wikipedia. Your second link (a thesis by E.P. Saragih submitted in 2008), for instance, is a fairly certain instance of the author copying Wikipedia's text. Your first link (a modern republication of the novel by Wisehouse Classics, a publisher apparently specializing in republishing public domain works, from 2015) similarly appears to be a clear case of copying from Wikipedia. Your third link (republication by Unabridged Start Publishing in 2012) is much the same as the first.

In fact, there are a number of publishers that specialize in republishing out of copyright works in new editions, with minimal cover design, and with the jacket copy substantially cribbed from the work or author's Wikipedia article. Just to illustrate, I looked up Wisehouse Classics on the web, and they were featuring their edition of Shakespeare's sonnets so I ran it through a copyright violation detection tool that's often used on Wikipedia. You can see the results for yourself: their jacket copy is almost entirely composed of text copied from Wikipedia (I wrote some bits of that as I recall). In fact, the only bit that's different is because they used a previous version of the article, and the differing bit was changed here in the interrim.

In other words, based on these examples, it appears that the copying was the other way, and the "Naturalism" section can safely be restored. Good catch, though! Please don't hesitate to report any other instances you find: it's much better to have to investigate a few false positives than to leave copyright violations undiscovered for years (which has happened more than once). --Xover (talk) 19:31, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for checking for us! We added the naturalism section back into the article. KBMathews (talk) 17:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)