The Red Badge of Courage and The Blue Hotel: The Singular Love of Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane firmly cemented himself in the canon of American Romanticism with the success of works such as The Red Badge of Courage and "The Blue Hotel." His writing served to probe the fundamental depths of the genre while enumerating on the themes vital to the movement's aesthetic. Such topics as heartfelt reverence for the beauty and ferocity of nature, the general exaltation of emotion over reason and senses over intellect, self-examination of personality and its moods and mental possibilities, a preoccupation with genius and the heroic archetype in general, a focus on passions and inner struggles, and an emphasis on imagination as a gateway to transcendence, as well as a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, and folk culture are all characteristic of his stories.
However, the most traditionally "romantic" facets of his artifice are most fully manifested in a series of private correspondence between himself and a certain society maiden by the name of Nellie Crouse. It is these letters that serve to illustrate Crane's writing prowess as it transcends traditional Romantic genrefication. Through these letters, which serve as an informed testament to Crane's marked skill as a writer, we begin to examine Crane in the context of his own existence, devoid of the fictional trappings of his most acclaimed accomplishments.
What is most remarkable about Crane's series of letters to Mrs. Crouse is the tone of his love-stricken entreaties. He gracefully plays off of his burgeoning fame and his growing success as a published artist with good-natured self-deprecation and a propensity to undermine his own endeavours. The series of letters commences with a carefully constructed communique crafted to provoke a sympathetic response from Mrs. Crouse. Employing "inside" reactions to his celebrity to impress, he relies on an aura of exotic settings and playful humor to win a reply. Having succeeded in securing an apparently satisfactory response, he eagerly raises the temperature of the correspondence in his second letter. Without compromising further relations with Mrs. Crouse, his words adopt a more acute degree of intimacy, with Crane even going so far as to volunteer to accept her literary advice.
The third letter opens to the heart of the correspondence on Crane's side, as he begins in earnest to try and make Mrs.
Schroeder, John W. "Stephen Crane Embattled," University of Kansas City Review, XVII (Winter 1950), 119 Rpt. in
Stephen Crane and Jack London are two contrasting authors who use their own unique writing styles to create two unique genres that capture the reader’s interest. In two of Crane’s more prolific short stories “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” and “The Open Boat,” the vocabulary and use of dialogue add a sense of sophistication to his short stories while also making the stories smooth to read and eye-catching; whereas in Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire,” the protagonist in the story is used as a catalyst for character development, and as an example to the audience of the naïveté of youth. London and Crane varied immensely in their literary techniques of vocabulary, dialogue, and character development demonstrated by the use of the protagonist
Moreover, Crane’s genius as "an observer of psychological and social reality" (Baym 1608) was refined after witnessing battle sights during the late 19th century. What he saw was a stark contrast of the peacefulness and morality preached in church and this thus led him to religious rebelliousness. As a prisoner to his surroundings, man (a soldier) is physically, emotionally, and psychologically challenged by nature’s indifference to humankind. For instance, in the story, "what traps the Swede is his fixed idea of his environment," but in the end, it is the environment itself -- comprised of the Blue Hotel, Sculley, Johnnie, Cowboy Bill, the Easterner, and the saloon gambler -- that traps him (Stallman 488).
This essay considers the perspective of James Trammell Cox as presented in his essay: An Analysis of the Blue Hotel Cox begins his essay by discussing naturalism and Crane's fictional style. He suggests that Crane's technique "is that of the symbolist rather than the naturalist in that he carefully selects his details not as pieces of evidence in a one-dimensional report on man but as connotatively associated parts of an elaborately contrived symbolic structure." Basically the thrust of Cox's argument is centered around the degree to which Crane displays the characteristics of a naturalist writer.
Crane also discloses his view of the American society in a realistic light because he exhibits realism by unveiling America’s true monstrous face, and its white privilege- he same white privilege that causes blacks to conform to the standards of a white American society. In doing so, Crane compliments Emerson’s main idea of “Self-Reliance” that people should “believe [their] own thought, to believe that what is true for [themselves] in [their] private heart is true for all men.’’ Emerson’s belief that people should take heed to their own thoughts because society persuades people to conform, summarizes the idea of individuality Crane express in his story “The
The theories and explanations for battered women's behavior started in the late 1970's as a result of the oppression of women. Feminist movements in the late 1970's caused great social uproar among legal and political...
Stephen Crane's purpose in writing The Red Badge of Courage was to dictate the pressures faced by the prototypical American soldier in the Civil War. His intent was accomplished by making known the horrors and atrocities seen by Unionist Henry Fleming during the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the conflicts within himself.
Seeking and expressing the bare truth is often more difficult than writing stories of fiction. This truth can be harsher to the reader than works of fiction; it can make an author's desire to reveal the essence of society through characters the reader relates to risky and unpopular. Stephen Crane wrote of ordinary people who face difficult circumstances that his readers could relate to (Seaman 148). Crane sought to debunk the ideas that were inherent in nineteenth-century literature, which depicted life in a more favorable, but often unrealistic, light. In Crane's works, Dorothy Nyren Curley says, "There are no false steps, no excesses," (255).
Stephen Crane was a realistic author who often times wrote about the difference in ideal life versus reality. He is seen as one of the most groundbreaking writers of his time. Crane’s poetry was unique during his time period because most of his poems told a story; they were narratives. In Crane’s poem “In the Desert” he shows that a person who can overcome their mistakes and not let the negative aspects of life overwhelm the positive is a person who is human.
Domestic Violence Statistics states, “Around the world, at least one in every 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime” (1). The United States Department of Justice defines domestic violence as, “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner” (para. 1). Domestic violence is a crime that numerous citizens fall victim to in every country. Anyone can be a victim of domestic violence regardless of race, gender, sexuality or religion. Being a victim of domestic violence can affect a person’s way of life permanently and the way these victims interact with other people can become a difficult task and can eventually affect their future. Domestic violence is substantially wrong because it can cause drastic permanent effects in a person’s life, can cause physical, emotional and intellectual damage, and affects a child’s state of mind of what is normal and what is not if they are in a domestic violent atmosphere. While women are usually victims of domestic violence, men are victims of this crime as well. The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney states that, “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, men account for approximately fifteen percent of the victims of reported intimate partner crimes” (Clark County Prosecuting Attorney, par.1). Physical, emotional, economic and physiological abuses are all forms of domestic violence that many people would consider to fall under another crime. There are many crimes that many citizens commit, but domestic violence is one of many that should not be taken lightly.
The Red Badge of Courage is not a war novel. It is a novel about life. This novel illustrates the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Stephen Crane uses the war as a comparison to everyday life. He is semi-saying that life is like a war. It is a struggle of warriors—the every day people—against the odds. In these battles of everyday life, people can change. In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character, Henry Fleming, undergoes a character change that shows how people must overcome their fears and the invisible barriers that hold them back from being the best people—warriors, in the sense that life is war—they can be. Henry has a character change that represents how all humans have general sense of fear of the unknown that must be overcome.
Crane's story is about a girl named Maggie who grew up in a life that would cause any person with feelings to have the utmost sympathy for her. To explain briefly; her brother was a roughneck in the community, her mother and father were alcoholics, a younger brother died at a young age, and they lived in a tenement building. Crane is described as a "realistic" author because of the way he describes the social environment and the stress of everyday life.
The Red Badge of Courage, by it’s very title, is infested with color imagery and color symbols. While Crane uses color to describe, he also allows it to stand for whole concepts. Gray, for example, describes both the literal image of a dead soldier and Henry Fleming’s vision of the sleeping soldiers as corpses and comes to stand for the idea of death. In the same way, red describes both the soldiers’ physical wounds and Henry’s mental vision of battle. In the process, it gains a symbolic meaning which Crane will put an icon like the ‘red badge of courage’. Stephen Crane uses color in his descriptions of the physical and the non-physical and allows color to take on meanings ranging from the literal to the figurative.
If it was not for Stephen Crane and his visionary work than American Realism would not have taken hold of the United States during the eighteen hundreds. During the years following the Civil War America was a melting pot of many different writing styles. Many scholars argue that at this time there was still no definite American author or technique. Up to this point authors in the Americas simply copied techniques that were popular in regions of Europe. Stephen Crane came onto the scene with a very different approach to many of his contemporaries. He was a realist, and being such he described actions in a true, unadorned way that portrayed situations in the manner that they actually occurred (Kaplan). He had numerous admired pieces but his most famous work was the Red Badge of Courage (Bentley 103). In this novel he illustrates the accounts of a Union soldier named Henry Fleming. At first the writing was considered too graphic and many people did not buy the book. Eventually the American people changed their opinions and began to gravitate towards Crane’s work. The readers were fascinated by the realistic environment he creates even though he himself had never fought in a war (Bentley 103). By spreading the influence of realistic writing Crane has come to be known as the first American Realist.
should know they have long thin bodies, two pairs of long narrow wings, and very large eyes.