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2012 Spring Semester

2012

Steven Crane

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Why A Lost Lady Is Naturalist, Judy Liu '14 Apr 2012

Why A Lost Lady Is Naturalist, Judy Liu '14

2012 Spring Semester

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 …