Chap 2 - Structure of the novella Flashcards
Larzer Ziff in the preface about the structure
“brief, vivid and self-contained unit”
A structure in episodes
Maggie is a condensed piece of fiction
Maggie is made of loose episodes that are not necessarily connected
recall the cinematic technique (// Black Maria)
“Black Maria”
⇒ The “Black Maria” was a film studio created in 1893 (year Maggie was published) by Thomas Edison and is considered as “America’s First Movie Studio”.
Deliberate omissions
- Maggie’s chronology is linear but there are many ellipses. Episodes seem to be selected randomly, which reinforces distance and detachment. = part of naturalist technique
→ The author observes random moments as a scientist. There is no wish to draw conclusions nor give explanations but rather a wish to present the readers with a fragmented and condensed version of some random girl’s life.
-Omissions also contribute to a deficit of information sometimes. Crane’s style is very efficient, even laconic (using very few words).
→ . When reading the text, note that Maggie is often denied any complex psychology. We never get to know her as we never enter her mind.
Impressionism
Impressionism developed in France (Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir…) in the nineteenth century and is based on the practice of painting out of doors and spontaneously ‘on the spot’ rather than in a studio from sketches.
⇒ Impression, soleil levant (1872) by Claude Monet is the painting from which the name of the movement, « impressionism », derives.
An impressionist structure
Crane was considered as an impressionist (see next slide for a definition) writer because just as in painting, his descriptions are often made of loose touches of color and shapes.
- Maggie is not described as a person, but as a silhouette and a shape.
- Crane uses also various hues and colors which are reminiscent of painting.
- Maggie, when described as a prostitute, is referred to in those terms: “a girl of the painted cohorts” ch. 17, p. 76.
The color red
Red is a dominant color in Maggie. It is used to represent anger and violence and is often characteristic of the mother’s description:
⇒ Blood continues to recall the color red.
Symbolic of Crane’s colors : red, black, white
red for anger, white for purity and black for death.
White
→ When Jimmy dies : colour of coffin
→ Ironically Pete = immaculate
Black
“Suddenly she came upon a stout gentleman in a silk hat and a chaste black coat” ch. 16, p. 74 The man ignores her suffering and does not save her soul.
Graphic descriptions
descriptions are very graphic, explicit, pictorial.
==> As a consequence, the reader is often put in a position of spectator or even voyeur.
==> Performance : mother = showan
