Sonic Imagery in Stephen Crane’s Work Anonymous College

Stephen Crane, one of America's foremost writers of the realist genre, frequently used a sonic aesthetic to breathe life into his descriptions of poor urban environments. In both Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Experiment in Misery, Crane associates loud and chaotic dissonance with the poor urban community. The shared experience of loud, dissonant sounds identifies and strengthens the community within these poor urban spaces. On the other side, Crane typifies the wealthier with low volumes and pleasant music. The middle and high classes are able to escape such cacophony, and are afforded the luxury of soft, low and indistinct sound and music. Crane also highlights sound when penniless characters are reminded of their inability to elevate their own status, again portraying sound as a representational form to convey social standings. Crane’s illustrations of sound essentially give representational form to the social phenomenon of inequality.

Crane’s descriptions of sound as disorderly and inharmonious amplify the chaos and suffering within the cramped confines of poor communities; this sonic discord marks and strengthens the destitute as a solidified social group. As Mary beats Maggie for breaking a plate, Jimmie listens to the...