Situations of Characters in Our Nig and Maggie

In both Wilson’s Our Nig and Crane’s Maggie: a Girl of the Streets, the characters face the circumstances of living in households where they are abused, and the circumstances are very difficult to escape. In Our Nig, Frado is left in the care of a family, and several members of that family believe that she should not have the same rights as them simply because of her race. She is dependent on the family for survival until she turns 18 and can freely leave, and Mrs. Bellmont, the authority of the family, overworks her, mistreats her, and for much of the book does not allow her to eat with everyone else (until the intervention of James (Wilson 38)). When Frado is finally able to leave and find work elsewhere, she is able to relatively easily find a job, but her health is so damaged from the effects of her time at the Bellmonts that she falls ill and nearly dies. However, Frado’s determination and the help of friends she made allow her to recover, and despite even more hardships involving a marriage and her husband’s disappearance, she eventually finds a way to make money for herself, allowing her to live a relatively better life. In Maggie, the main character (Maggie) lives in the slums with her brothers, (the youngest of which dies as a baby), her alcoholic mother, and her father, who also dies before she reaches adulthood. She finds a job at a collar-making factory, but dislikes it, and still has to live with her mother and violent-natured brother. She herself is rather timid, and tries to avoid conflicts if possible. She eventually tries to escape by following Pete, a young man who had befriended her brother Jimmie, and seems to be on the way to be in at least a somewhat better situation, until Pete abandons her. Her mother refuses to allow Maggie back home, and Maggie eventually wanders the streets (and is implied to have become a prostitute), and is implied to have died either by her own hands or by those of a man.

While both characters in these stories face harsh circumstances, their endings are rather different. On close inspection, one can see that the events of their stories leading to the endings differ on two main things: the character’s approach to their situation, and the availability of others to help them. While Maggie was in some cases submissive and seemingly lost if left completely on her own, Frado is very determined to not die, surviving her time with the Bellmonts as well as later conflicts she faces. However, the two also differ in their relations to other people; Maggie had only her family and Pete, and once she was rejected by both, was left quite alone. Frado had made a few friends throughout her time at the Bellmonts, as well as meeting people who would help her afterwards, and these people helped her while she was at the Bellmonts, after she fell ill, and later in her life. Looking at both stories, one can see that while there may be many situations in which a character/person faces harsh and nearly inescapable circumstances, the differences of attitude of the character and the availability of help from others can make a very large difference in the character’s ability to actually escape the situation.