Blue Hotel :: essays research papers

It is not impress for an authors background and surroundings to profoundly affect his writing. Having add from a Methodist lineage and living at a sentence when the church was still an influential facet in peoples daily lives, Stephen put out was deeply instilled with ghostly dogmas. However, fear of retribution shortly turned to cynicism and criticism of his idealistic parents God, "the wrathful Jehovah of the Old volition" (Stallman 16), as he was confronted with the harsh realities of war as a journalistic correspondent. Making extensive use of religious metaphors and allusions in The Blue Hotel (1898), Crane gum olibanum explores the interlaced themes of the sin and virtue. Ironically, although "he disbelieved it and hated it," Crane scarce "could not free himself from" the religious background that haunted his entire bearing (Stallman 5). His father, a well-respected reverend in New Jersey, advocated Bible reading and preached "the near wa y." Similarly, his mother, who "lived in and for religion," was influential in Methodist church affairs as a speaker and a journalist in her crusade against the vices of her loathsome times (Stallman 5). This emotional frenzy of revival Methodism had a strong concern on young Stephen. Nonetheless, he -- falling short of his parents expectations on clean-living principles and spiritual outlook -- chose to reject and defy all those abstract religious notions and sought to probe instead into lifes realities. Moreover, Cranes genius as "an observer of psychological and social reality" (Baym 1608) was orderly 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 natures indifference to humankind. For instance, in the story, "what traps the Swede is his resolved 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 gin mill gambler -- that traps him (Stallman 488). To further illustrate how religion permeated into Cranes writing, many another(prenominal) scenes from The Blue Hotel can be cited. Similar to the biblical Three unused Men (Stallman 487), three individuals out of the East came traveling to Palace Hotel at Fort Romper. The issue explored is the search for identity and the desire of an outsider (the Swede) to repair himself through conflict with a society.