Painted and Tainted

Jacqueline Procter
Journal #10
February 22, 2008
Stephen Crane

Quote:
“A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street. She threw changing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations to men of rural or untaught pattern and usually seeming sedately unconscious of the men with a metropolitan seal upon their faces.”

Summary:
Maggie is a girl of the streets – working girl – prostitute, but she doesn’t feel worthy enough to flirt with men of class and instead solicits advances from uncouth men.

Response:
Maggie doesn’t feel she is worthy of upper class patronage because her potential redeemer, Pete the Schmuck, rejects her. She idolized him as he was going to be her golden ticket out of the slum and in to the good life. She doesn’t bother with the privileged class because Pete, her picture of refinement, impresses on her through his rejection, that she is unworthy. He essentially takes all hope from her as her entire self worth was wrapped up in his desire for her. She is resigned to live out her existence as a poor woman of the streets.

Young naive women fall prey to schmucks like Pete precisely because of their naivety -- Finding a mate or a date becomes the driving force as a man is supposed to define or give value to a woman’s worth. I wish I knew then…