Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Historical Context

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Historical Context

Naturalism

Naturalism is the name of a literary movement that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France, England, and the United States. Writers included in this group, like Stephen Crane, Emile Zola, and Theodore Dreiser, described in their works a biological and/or environmental determinism that prevented their characters from exercising their free will and thus controlling their fates. Crane often focused on the social and economic factors that overpowered his characters. Zola's and Dreiser's works include this type of environmental determinism coupled with an exploration of the influences of heredity in their portraits of the animalistic nature of men and women engaged in the endless and brutal struggle for survival.

Irish Immigration

Thousands of Irish men and women immigrated to the United States during the nineteenth century to escape the hardships of their native land. America became a dream for these people who fled poverty and disease...
(read more)