Stephen Crane the Naturalist

Stephen Crane the Naturalist

Stephen Crane (1871-1900), the naturalism, American writer. Stephen

Crane was well known for his naturalist style during his time. Naturalism in literature was a philosophy used by writers to describe humans in regards to the influences and interactions within their own environments. The characters described in the naturalist literatures were usually in dire surroundings and often from the middle to lower classes. Despite their circumstances however, humans within the naturalist literature were able to eventually overcome their situations by some form of courage or heroism, which Crane found to be consistent in all of the cultures and settings he often studied. After schooling at Lafayette College and Syracuse University, he worked in New York as a freelance journalist. His short stories and experimental poetry, also anticipated the ironic realism of the decades ahead. In his brief and energetic life, he published fourteen books while acting out, in his personal adventures, the legend of the writer as soldier of fortune. Among one of his works include “The Blue Hotel.” “The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane is a story about three travelers passing through Fort Romper, Nebraska. Pat Scully, the owner of the Palace Hotel, draws three men, a cowboy, an easterner, and a Swede to his hotel that is near the train station. In the hotel the three

men meet Johnnie, son of Scully, and agree to play a game of cards with him. The moment that the Swede arrives at the “The Blue Hotel” it is somehow, in the Swedes mind, transformed into a wild west hotel, by the many dime novels he has read, which made him even more uneasy about staying at the hotel. In one of the initial scenes his fear is evident as the nervous Swede announces that he knows that he wont get out of there alive. The Swedes fear of dying had made him want to leave the hotel, but Pat Scully, the owner of the Blue Hotel, attempted to get him to stay by showing him around the hotel and showing him pictures of his family. Scully shows the Swede some pictures of his children “That’s a picture of my little girl that died. Her name was Carrie. She had the purtiest hair you ever you ever saw! I was fond of her, she—“(Katz 12). Stephen Crane’s use of color in the episode helps to point out a pattern of death. Scully and the Swede first walk into a dark room and while Scully speaks...

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Swede is killed in the hotel. In an interview conducted by Calvin Skaggs on April 18, 1977, Kadar says how “from a practical point of view, you cannot achieve so efficiently on film what Crane does in the story. In literature you can describe in one paragraph that these new people are in the saloon and whom the Swede is provoking. But in film you can’t bring in new exposition at the last moment.” Kadar wanted to let all of the characters witness the destruction of the Swede, since all of them are responsible for destroying him. He says that seeing the Swede die is, “dramatically and emotionally, more powerful than just hearing about it.” Also, “keeping the last scene in the hotel emphasizes the quality of fate and destiny, of inevitability. If the Swede had left one minute earlier, nothing would have happened to him. The stranger in our film, like the gambler in the saloon in Cranes story, is merely a dramatic designed to serve destiny.” Kadar was unable to capture the sense of the blizzard due to budget limitations. “A real blizzard would have added to the mood of the picture,” says Kadar. “The most important thing is the drama.”