Document Type
Sophomore Honorable Mention
Award Date
Spring 2012
Course Name
Literary Explorations II
Teacher
Dr. Adam Kotlarczyk
Abstract
In Steven Crane’s Maggie, people survive in a downcast world, where desperate people squelch the hope of those around them. This hopeless environment reduces the characters, even the once innocent, beautiful Maggie, into a creature that is more animal than human. This situation is also seen in A Lost Lady. Instead of having happy, idealized events, both novels are realistic and often pessimistic, with characters whose descriptions and behaviors do not match up with what is expected of a human being. Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady is a naturalist text due to the dehumanization of the characters through animalistic descriptions, emphasis on the three biological needs of man, and casual announcements of life changing events as also seen in Maggie by Crane.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Judy '14, "Why A Lost Lady is Naturalist" (2012). 2012 Spring Semester. 4.
https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/spring2012/4