Self and the other: mimetic desire and violence in Stephen crane’s “maggie: a girl of the streets” and D. H. Lawrence’s “the prussian officer”

Abstract

This essay examines Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and D. H. Lawrence’s short story “The Prussian Officer”, in light of Rene Girard’s notion of mimetic desire. Girard argues that at the heart of interpersonal relationships is the desire for that which makes the Other being. In possession of this being, the Other becomes at first the model the subject reveres, and later,
the rival the subject detests. For Girard, this is what stands at the heart of violence and disharmony in human societies. Violence or ritual sacrifice become the mechanisms capable of halting mimetic desire and bring back social order. In the two narratives analyzed, mimetic desire stands at the center of the protagonists’ existential crises and violent deaths.