own. Critic Don Dingledine emphasizes how the behavior and actions of the characters in Maggie are influenced by poverty. Maggie is subject to this environment, as it shapes the outcome of her life despite her best effort to improve her circumstances by marrying Pete. Critics debate whether Crane's use of naturalism was intended to create empathy for the characters living in the Bowery or to support the idea that there is a genetic reason why they are impoverished. Gender and sexuality During the nineteenth century, ideas of gender associated primitiveness with femininity. Jordan Von Cannon states that the idea of woman as savage contributed to the classification of women into binaries, such as "the prostitute and the mother". Von Cannon finds the defining difference between the women in these two groups to be their ability to control their sexual desires. According to Von Cannon, it was accepted socially that prostitutes became such due to an inability to control this sexual desire. However, critic Keith Gandal believes that Crane's depiction of Maggie's journey to prostitution shows that it is not her sexual desire, but her environment's influence on her, which drives her to prostitution. Gandal claims that Maggie's sexuality also reflects an alternative class-based morality that views sexuality differently from upper-class ideas of sexual morality. Social class Within the novella, Crane comments on class. The main characters of the novella live in the Bowery, whose inhabitants are poor, typically drunk and violent. Don Dingledine states that Maggie fails to understand the impact of her social class upon her. He claims that Maggie believes that she can move into a higher class, but fails to realize that she lacks the social or cultural capital to do this. In the novella, Maggie believes Pete to be a refined gentleman, when it is obvious to readers, by Crane's ironic narration, that Pete is not. Maggie attempts to dress nicer and make her home appear more beautiful, to no avail. Dingledine argues that Maggie overestimates the effects of her attempts to beautify her home on Pete and on society. After all, he says that despite her efforts, Maggie does not have the tastes or acquired skills of a middle-class woman, meaning that she would not be accepted into that class. Critic David Hunstperger points out that the use of melodramas for the entertainment of characters within the novella emphasizes a class group reaction to class