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Explorations
The Blue Hotel (1898) has strong similarities to London's To
Build a Fire and to other tales from the heyday of
literary naturalism. We have protagonists (men, as usual)
in extreme or exotic conditions, making terrible and costly
discoveries about themselves and perhaps about human nature.
Fort Romper, Nebraska, does not exist, and, as in London's
story, important characters lack names. In various ways,
therefore, the tale nudges us to consider it as about something
more than one isolated incident in a supremely isolated
place -- and we have to decide if, and how, to take those
hints. 1. Read over some of the dialogue in The Blue Hotel.
One commonplace about the achievements and lasting contributions
of literary realism and naturalism is that artists in these
modes made conversations sound more real. Consider Crane's
dialogue with that observation in mind. If these characters
sound "real" to you, describe how. In what ways do they,
and don't they, listen to one another? Why is that
attentiveness, or lack of it, important to the tale?
2. Discuss ways in which The Blue Hotel is a wild-west
story about the dangers of reading wild-west stories. Is
that a clever but subordinate aspect of this tale or one
of the narrative's major themes?
3. Several tales by Wharton and James introduce
us to a modern sort of evil, an evil which grows from passivity
or negligence, from people allowing things to happen, rather
than from active, malevolent perpetration. Discuss The
Blue Hotel as a narrative exploring a similar moral
issue.
Other sites to consult:
"Imaging
the Civil War: Authenticity in Painting, Photography,
and The Red Badge of Courage". An
illustrated essay at the website for the American
Studies group at the University of Virginia.
A useful biography,
bibliography, and discussion of Crane's place in
the history of the American tragic novel. Adapted
from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
Texts
relating to the Civil War. Includes numerous
important documents such as the Constitution of the
Confederate States of America; the writings of Ulysses
S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Jefferson Davis, among
others; and links to online texts of The Red Badge
of Courage and other works by Crane.
Critical
reception of The Red Badge of Courage.
Includes an overview and links to numerous contemporary
reviews that illustrate, as Joseph Conrad later wrote,
how "Crane's work detonated on our literary sensibilities
with the impact and force of a twelve-inch shell
charged with a very high explosive. Unexpected it
fell amongst us; and its fall was followed by a great
outcry." (From the American Studies Group at the
University of Virginia.)
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/crane/:
Stephen Crane Society home page; includes online text resources
and other links.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/crane.html: A Library
of Congress page about Stephen Crane.
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