With the second play scene of the short story Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, the plot of the selected play is used ironically to provide information to the hopes and concerns of its audience. Because theater is a form of escape for Maggie and those in the Bowery tenement in particular, the characters' conflict is very reflective of their reality and elicits raw, visceral reactions – both to their "imagined" and "real" condition (31). . This is seen in the chosen melodrama in which “a heroine has been rescued from her guardian's palatial home,” which is ironic as its inevitably hopeful and happy ending simplifies and falsifies life – creating the idea that those above the public are always happy and that all those less than are innocently unhappy, until they can improve their circumstances (31). The plot also reflects audience concerns, stating that the "poor and virtuous" can "eventually overcome the rich and wicked", giving hope to those who would otherwise be desperate and exploiting their subconscious desires – while providing no real method for the ascension. nothing but random acts of heroism (32). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This unrealistic promise of heroism is also ironic, as it is what likely leads Maggie to see Pete as her only escape from predetermined reality, and gives reason for her attachment – ​​as she believes he is her “hero with beautiful feelings" (31). Crane uses this example of disillusionment as a form of commentary on the poor's distorted understanding of social mobility, which he ultimately argues perpetuates the cycle of poverty in public housing. Furthermore, the choice of diction employed by Crane in his descriptions of the audience has negative, monstrous connotations, which serve as a more basic commentary on the ironic position of power perceived by the audience when in the theater. These “shady people” are, in Maggie's view, “unmistakably evil men,” and are seen throughout the play as heaping “curses” on equally evil characters, who now represent the upper classes (31). The audience is also seen vulgarly “hissing vice” but “clapping virtue” with the intent of showing support for those “unfortunate and… oppressed” characters with whom they now identify – uncharacteristically displaying a new, “sincere admiration for virtue ” (31). This is very different from the correct etiquette of a traditional "uptown" theater, but understandable to a popular audience entranced by the theater's effect of "transcendental realism" and mesmerized by the teachings of its plot, which gives them a new, third-party perspective personal and unite them under common feelings (31). Together, they "encouraged the struggling hero with shouts... mocked the villain... [and] sought the depicted misery and embraced it as similar" (31, 32). Their reactions to the play, as well as the plot itself, reflect their desires, and it is only within the theater that they are granted the power to ensure these things and the position to "confront" and "denounce" the drama. rich - whose full advantage is not surprising (32). In Crane's narration of the scene, the reader moves between a broad, generalized perspective and a descriptive one presented through Maggie's perspective, in order to provide insight into her psychology rather than that of the larger audience. It is therefore Maggie who perceives the smallest details of the scene; the church windows as “cheerful,” the heroine's house as “sumptuous,” her guardian as “cruel,” and the hero as a man of “beautiful” (32).