Stephen Crane

1871-1900

Life

Family

His father was a minister.
His mother was temperance advocate.

Homes

New York
New Jersey
England

Occupations

journalist
author

Chronology

1871: born in New Jersey
grows up in New York
attends military boarding school in Claverack, New York
drops out of Lafayette College and Syracuse University, where he played baseball and football
spends time on New York City's Bowery, a city known for houses of prostitution and gambling
works as free-lance journalist and stringer for the New York Tribune
1893: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
1894: The Red Badge of Courage (serialization)
1895: travels to South and West, where he writes articles for Irving Bacheller's newspaper syndicate and meets fellow writer Willa Cather in Nebraska
1895: Black Riders
1895: The Red Badge of Courage (book)
1896: George's Mother
1896: The Third Violet
1896: The Little Regiment
1896: meets Cora Howorth Stewart, who will be his companion until his death
1897: enroute to Cuba to witness an insurrection, he experiences a shipwreck, an incident that will provide the basis for "The Open Boat"
1897: travels to Greece to witness Greco-Turkish War
1897: meets British novelist Joseph Conrad
1898: tries to join the Navy in order to participate in the Spanish-American War, but he is rejected because of his health
1898: covers the Spanish-American War as a correspondent for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and also participates as a volunteer signalman
1898: The Open Boat and Other Stories
1899: War Is Kind
1899: Active Service
1899: The Monster and Other Stories
1899: settles in Sussex, England
1900: Wounds in the Rain
1900: Whilomville Stories
1900: dies of tuberculosis in Germany

Issues and themes

During his brief career, Stephen Crane produced several classic works of literary naturalism, a movement that emerged in France in the middle of the 19th century and flourished in America between 1890 and 1910 in the works of Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser. Naturalistic works, such as London's "To Build a Fire" and Dreiser's Sister Carrie, portray humans as helpless or nearly helpless victims of natural and social forces. Because these forces usually affect the characters negatively--freezing them to death, for example, or leading them into poor jobs and destructive relationships--naturalistic fiction and poetry tend to be dreary in tone. Naturalism is closely allied to realism, which it resembles in its attention to detail and its opposition to idealized romance.

Crane is perhaps the greatest of the naturalists, however, precisely because his works transcend their genre. While works such asThe Red Badge of Courage and "The Open Boat" depict men struggling against a natural world that is both destructive and indifferent, they also explore subjects such as fraternity, an individual's role in community, psychology, art, and initiation into manhood. What is more, unlike Dreiser and London, Crane treated his subjects in a highly lyrical style. Indeed, in addition to writing some of America's most famous stories, he produced a substantial body of poetry. A particularly noteworthy aspect of this style is Crane's use of imagery, which has earned him the title of a literary impressionist. Scholar Shelby Foote has called The Red Badge of Courage "a succession of sharply outlined pictures which pass before the reader like a panorama, having each its definite impression" (ix).

Writing possessed Crane, who told fellow author Willa Cather: "You can't do it by rule any more than you can learn to dance by rule. You have to have the itch of the thing in your fingers, and if you haven't--well, you're damned lucky, and you'll live long and prosper, that's all" (Foote xx). Dying of tuberculosis before he reached the age of 30, Crane did not live long, but he did prosper, at least in the sense of producing several literary masterpieces. The Red Badge of Courage, the British novelist H.G. Wells wrote, drew an "orgy of praise" in England (Foote xxv). Later, American writer Ernest Hemingway called the novel "one of the finest books of our literature" (Foote vii).

Work

"Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind"

Publication: 1896
What kind of picture of war does Crane draw in this poem? How does he create this picture?
Look up "irony" in a literary reference work such as A Handbook to Literature. What kind of irony does Crane use in this poem and to what effect?

"The Open Boat"

Publication: 1897
Stephen Crane mentions several details about the dinghy. What is the significance of these details?
Analyze Crane's description of the waves in paragraph 10. In what ways might we interpret these waves, as well as other objects and persons in the story, as symbols?
In paragraph 11, Crane writes: "Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtless have been weirdly picturesque." What does he mean? Who might be able to view this scene from such a perspective?
If you have read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," identify the allusion Crane makes to it in paragraph 30. What purpose does this allusion serve?
What is the nature of the "subtler brotherhood" described at the beginning of Section III? Why do the men feel this brotherhood?
What role do the elements--wind, waves, and tide--play in the story?
Analyze this line: "Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing."
Identify the point of view of the narrator and characterize Crane's style of narrating his story. In what ways are these features different from those of "To Build a Fire"? In particular, analyze paragraph 70.
Like "To Build a Fire," this story is considered a classic example of naturalistic fiction. What elements do the two stories share? In what respects are they different? What do these similarities and differences tell us about each writer's view of humanity and nature?
Why do you suppose the men in the boat direct so much animosity toward the man who waves at them from the shore?
Analyze this refrain from the story: "If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven made gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"
Interpret this line from paragraph 174: "When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples."
Characterize Crane's ideas about the purpose of fiction. In particular, consider the correspondent's thoughts about the "soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers."
Interpret this line from paragraph 228: "Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final phenomenon of nature."
Why do you suppose Crane chose to name only one of the characters?
Analyze your answers to all of these questions and identify the theme of this story.

"The Blue Hotel"

Publication

The story appeared in an 1899 collection called The Monster and Other Stories.

Summary

Scully, owner of the Palace Hotel in Nebraska, persuades a Swede, a cowboy, and an Easterner to stay at his hotel.

The Swede and three locals play cards.

The Swede acts as if he is paranoid, eventually accusing the hotel owner's son, Johnnie, of trying to kill him.

The Swede goes upstairs to pack his bags, but Scully talks him into staying.

The men begin playing cards again, but the Swede accuses Johnnie of cheating, and the two go outside in the swirling snow to fight.

The Swede wins the fight, gets drunk, and enters another saloon, where he pesters a gambler.

The gambler stabs the Swede.

One of original players explains to another that he noticed that Johnnie was cheating and failed to speak up; he takes partial responsibility for the Swede's death and explains that all of the men had a role in the tragedy.

Issues and themes
Community

Five men in the Palace Hotel constitute a small community sharing the basic needs of shelter and warmth while nature threatens them from the outside.

Although these needs are satisfied, they spiral out of control because of aspects of civilization: the quest for victory leads Johnnie to cheat, and the Swede's need for law and order drives him to challenge Johnnie.

Journalism

Easterner: "Oh, I don't know, but it seems to me this man has been reading dime novels, and he thinks he's right out in the middle of it--the shootin' and stabbin' and all" (175).

Scully tries to overcome the Swede's stereotypes by showing him pictures of his family and sharing whiskey with him (173).

Naturalism
Control by environment: Swede is victim of culture, is taken in by stereotypes.

Swede to Johnnie: "I suppose there have been a good many men killed in this room" (169).

When men become annoyed by his peculiar accusations, the Swede cries: "I don't want no fight!" (169).

Control by chemicals and our own bodies

Alcohol makes Swede brash and leads him to start a fight with the gambler.

Fragility of human body: "It shot forward, and a human body, this citadel of virtue, wisdom, power, was pierced as easily as if it had been a melon" (191).

Control by inner nature

The Swede's pride causes him to start the fight with Johnnie; he says: "Maybe you think I can't fight! Maybe you think I can't! I'll show you, you skin, you card-sharp" (180).

The Easterner's cowardice leads to fight: ". . . Johnnie was cheating. I saw him. I know it. I saw him. And I refused to stand up and be a man" (193).

Control by nature: The swirling snow and cold air create a menacing presence.

These details of nature become symbols of larger nature's control of humans in the wind's effect on the playing cards: "Some of the scarred and bedabbled cards were caught up from the floor and dashed helplessly against the farther wall" (181).

"One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smitten, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb" (188).

Control by circumstances: Characters lack individual power; nonetheless, their actions have collective effects; the Easterner tells the cowboy that the Swede's death was the apex of all five card players' actions: "Every sin is the result of a collaboration" (193).

Limits on control: the Easterner's guilt over allowing events to proceed suggests that one is not purely a victim of forces. If all truly were predetermined, why then would the Easterner feel responsible for the Swede's death?
Technique

Darkness and cold outside frame these events in the saloon: "He might have been in a deserted village. We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tempest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth" (188).

Realistic details: When the saloon door opens, the wind hurls some of the playing cards against the wall.

Study questions

Analyze the role of setting in the story. Consider, for example, this passage: "We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tempest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth" (1641).

Are the characters well-developed or are they merely types? Defend your answer.

What is a dime novel? How has it colored the Swede's ideas about the West? In what way is this detail a comment on literary realism and romance?

What is the role of women in the story? Why do you suppose they appear only once, in a brief scene after the fight between the Swede and Johnnie?

How does the Swede change over the course of the story? What is the significance of this change?

Analyze the character of the professional gambler. How do the other citizens regard him and why?

Describing the gambler's stabbing of the Swede, Crane writes: "There was a great tumult, and then was seen a long blade in the hand of the gambler. It shot forward, and a human body, this citadel of virtue, wisdom, power, was pierced as easily as if it had been a melon" (1644). What does Crane mean?

Interpret the story's conclusion. Why does the Easterner say that the gambler was "a kind of adverb"? Why does he say that he and the other bystanders collaborated in the murder of the Swede?

Identify some features of Crane's style. What do they contribute to the story's meaning or effect?

Consider the blue hotel as a symbol. What might it represent? Cite details from the story to support your interpretation.

What is naturalistic about this story?

"A man said to the universe"

Apply the theme of this poem to your interpretation of "The Blue Hotel."

Bibliography

Crane, Stephen. "The Blue Hotel." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 1626-1645.
---. Poems. Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 1648-1650.
Foote, Shelby. Introduction. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: The Modern Library, 1993. vii-li.

Quoting any of the phrases or paraphrasing any of the ideas on this site without citing this site is plagiarism, a serious form of academic misconduct that can result in failure of a course, dismissal from a university, or both.

If you use the citation style suggested by Janice R. Walker, co-author of the Columbia Guide to Online Style and author of "MLA-Style Citations of Electronic Sources" on the World Wide Web, a reference to this site on a "Works Cited" page would appear as follows:: Canada, Mark, ed. "Stephen Crane." Canada's America. 1997. http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/crane.htm (*).

*Inside the parentheses, type the date on which you are viewing this site.