The Blue Hotel

Introduction

Stephen Crane is known for his creation of stories about regular people who experience extraordinary events for a brief time in their lives, and the Blue Hotel is an excellent example of this. One of the reasons his audience is so varied (from learned scholars to more common folk who enjoy pulp fiction) is that his characters themselves are so varied. If one picks up almost any of his stories, there is at least one character with whom they can identify.

Discussion

The blue hotel

The Blue Hotel is the story of nowhere, set anywhere, and about anyone. The characters are a group of people that have randomly met at a hotel for one night, and end up, in the end the night, one dead, one beaten, and the rest feeling guilty of murder. But are they really guilty? Do people who have simply driven a person to death really guilty of that death, if they didn't directly have a hand in it? Are they guilty of murder, if they simply set the stage but had no parts in the play? I surmise they do not.

After the Swede has left the hotel at the end of chapter VII, he makes his way into a tavern, and promptly gets into more hot water. There is no one whose fault it is, but the Swede's that he has simply not been more even tempered. Also, on page232 up until his death, the Swede should have just kept his mouth closed, but he chose to run his mouth and act like a tough guy to people that were obviously tougher. On page 236 when the Easterner states that “Every sin is the result of collaboration.” He is referring to the fact that they all had a hand in his death, from Johnny to the Gambler; they all took part in it. The Easterner infers that just because he was no longer welcome by the men, although he was told not to by the inn keeper, the Swede leaving and finding himself dead some time later that night, comes back to fall on their shoulders. (Nelson, p.100)

I state again, that they had no hand in the Swede's death, they didn't pull the trigger, the inn keeper told the Swede to stay, and he could have simply gone to his room and slept. Also, since he did decide to leave, he could have not run his mouth and talked like a big shot at the bar he ended up at. The Swede was looking for a fight that night, and he had fought and won, he should have just let it stay there, but he wouldn't or couldn't, but his personality defects have no blame when it comes to the other players in this story.

Evaluation & Analysis

Of all that Crane wrote, I subdue "The Blue Hotel", a story that is perfect and demonstrates mastery of the storyteller.

In a village inside the U.S., there is a painting of a blue hotel rabid owner, Scully; ...