ed in a mud puddle” (802), thinks Pete is like a knight in shining armor. Finally, Pete takes notice of Maggie and says, “Say, Mag, I’m stuck on yer shape. It’s outa sight” (803). Needless to say, Maggie was taken by this worldly man. Maggie goes out with Pete and eventually loses her virginity to him. When her mother catches her with Pete she kicks her out of the house forcing Maggie to depend on Pete. When Pete is tired of Maggie and moves on to a former love interest, this took all of Maggie’s options away, except one. She became a prostitute. This is a true case of the whore with a heart of gold. Suicide is the choice that Maggie eventually took to escape her horrible circumstances. In this story there is no true “bad guy”, each is a victim of circumstance. To get ahead you had to make sacrifices and if they hurt someone else, well that was a part of life. So, who are we to blame for such a tragic death of a promising young woman? Society was at fault, which can be much more cruel than one person ever thought of being. It is with in the structure of this inner city society, and all other societies, that create these harsh realities of the world. Each of these stories has its own story line, but one thing that they all have in common is that the vernacular of the characters unjustly labels them. It is a fact that status, class, and prejudices have nothing to do with the good, the bad, or the ugly of humankind. The writers of these stories were trying to make people look into their own lives and realize that they to often judged people by their outside appearance and the way that they spoke. A person’s true character is shown through their actions not their words....
