Fear in Crane's The Blue Hotel
Stephen Crane's "The Blue Hotel" is, according to Daniel Weiss, "an intensive study of fear." The story uses a game to show how fear unravels itself. He also discusses inner fears as opposed to fears existing in reality, and the ways that they bring each other about in this short story.
Weiss begins by pointing out how Crane used the stereotypical 1890's American West as his setting. The Swede comes to the Blues Hotel with the assumption that he will witness, if not be involved in, robberies and murders. The Swede was already experiencing inner fears about the West and when he was invited to join a friendly card game with Johnnie and the other customers of the Blue Hotel, his fears were heightened. When Scully calmed the Swede's nerves by giving him something to drink, the Swede undergoes a complete transformation and becomes what he considers to be a Westerner. The drinking, according to Weiss, returns the Swede to his original fears, but this time he isn't afraid, he is "cannibalistic", devouring his opponents and becoming very aggressive. He began "board-whacking" and eventually accused Johnnie of cheating. Weiss states that the card game was a "benign way for him to work off his aggressions harmlessly." However when Johnnie started cheating, the reality of crime and gambling set in and "the cheating restore[d] the game to the world of outlaws, professional gamblers, and gunmen." After the two fought and the Swede was triumphant, the Swede went on to the local saloon where he picked a fight and was killed by a professional gambler. The Swede was experiencing a high on power and liberation when he ordered the other men in the bar to drink with him. When he is stabbed, the Swede returns to his earlier disposition as a victim of the West.
Concerning "fear" in the story, Weiss says that "The Blue Hotel" deals with paranoid delusions. The Swede moves from "wary apprehension" to panic and "passive acceptance of annihilation", to becoming the aggressor and pursuer, then he regresses to being the pursued once again. He moves through these stages throughout the story and within the framework of the "game." Weiss writes that in order to avoid being hurt by his "pursuer", the Swede transforms himself into the pursuer. By moving from a panicked to a manic state, the Swede masters his feelings of self-esteem, alienation, and death.
I have always wondered about the history and surrounding factors of the Bay of Pigs
At this time the US Government became more worried that a communist superpower had ventured so close to her borders. By authority of Eisenhower, Cuban Exiles that were in the US at the time were given aid. At the same time the CIA began to train selected groups of the exiles to re - enter their homeland and over - throw Castro's Government.
These include things such as dislike of strangers, animals, drugs, and being humiliated. Regarding the subject of animals, there is an entire chapter in the text called Pet Problems that delves into this topic and some of the other fears. The story known as “The Bump in the Rug” shows the fear of being caught and animals, respectively. For in this story, a man who is installing carpeting discovers a bump under a section of the material. Thinking that it is his misplaced package of cigarettes, he simply hammers it until it is flat. However, unfortunately, the owner of the house had a parakeet which lodged itself under the carpeting (Harold, 358). A tale that focuses on the fear of drugs, in “The Stuffed Baby” from the Bringing Up Baby chapter of the text. This grotesque tale centers around a young couple who have a dead baby which they have hollowed out and filled with marijuana (Harold, 225). The fears of this one are the influence of drugs and how they could hypothetically cause people to act in an abhorrent
Karl Albrecht, Ph.D. "The (Only) Five Basic Fears We All Live By." Psychology Today (2012).
During the confrontation during the poker game, which immediately ends it, readers are exposed to the reality of Stella and Stanley’s
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Brown, Kyle. ?Pros and Cons of Lowering the Drinking Age to 18? The Odyssey. Olympia
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