A Companion to the American Short Story

by Alfred Bendixen

  interpreter of tall tales recounted to him by local residents: He is “ the unoffending

  city man ” who “ seizes his pen and with fl ashing eye and trembling, eager fi ngers,

  writes those brief but lurid sketches which fascinate and charm the reading public

  while the virtuous bushwhacker, whittling a stick near by, smiles in his own calm

  and sweet fashion ” (220 – 1). Despite being aware of the hyperbole in the tales recited

  to him as fact, he accepts that “ [i]n a shooting country, no man should tell just

  exactly what he did. He should tell what he would have liked to do or what he

  expected to do, just as if he accomplished it ” (221). Viewed differently, the statement

  is a commentary on the creative process in fi ction. A simple reporting of facts does

  not create meaning or have signifi cance. Only through the recollection of facts that

  have been shaped imaginatively does one get to some sort of truth. Given these

  observations, it is not surprising that labels such as “ story, ” “ sketch, ” and “ tale ” are

  inadequate for categorizing the Sullivan County pieces. This instability of labels is

  similar to larger attempts to categorize Crane ’ s literary technique, for he was, as

  Daniel G. Hoffman recognized, “ a literary chameleon, writing in almost every fashion

  then prevailing: naturalism, impressionism, psychological realism, local color, native

  humor ” (Hoffman 273).

  Like the Sullivan County pieces, Crane

  ’

  s New York City sketches and stories,

  written while he was living there from 1892 to 1894, also blur fact and fi ction. Rather

  than merely reporting factually his fi rst - hand exploration of slum life, he conveyed

  his experience impressionistically. In “ An Experiment in Misery ” a saloon is a monster

  with “ ravenous lips, ” and a fl ophouse has human stench “ like malignant diseases with

  wings ” and a locker with “ the ominous air of a tombstone ” ( Prose and Poetry 539, 541,

  542). In “ The Men in the Storm, ” a wealthy shop owner, smug and complacent in

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  Paul Sorrentino

  his cozy store during a blizzard, “ stood in an attitude of magnifi cent refl ection …

  slowly stroked his moustache with a certain grandeur of manner, and looked down at

  the snow - encrusted mob ” of homeless people outside his window (581). Similarly, the

  newspaper article “ When Every One is Panic Stricken ” with a sub - headline reading

  “ A Realistic Portrait of a Fire ” would seem to be an eyewitness account of an actual

  fi re in a tenement house at midnight, but it is actually an impressionistic reconstruc-

  tion of what it would be like to experience one. More clearly fi ctional are three stories

  about Tommie, Maggie ’ s baby brother who dies, in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets . Two

  of the stories deal with economic disparity. In “ A Great Mistake ” Tommie is caught

  attempting to steal a lemon from a fruit stand, and in “ An Ominous Baby ” he fi ghts

  with a wealthy child who refuses to share his toy with him. In “ A Dark - Brown Dog ”

  Tommie ’ s drunken father throws the family dog out the window. Although Crane

  empathized with social outcasts because he understood their condition fi rsthand, he

  never moralized about them. Unlike his literary mentors, Hamlin Garland and

  William Dean Howells, he never formulated convictions about the causes of social

  injustice. His aesthetic aim was to set forth reality as truthfully as possible, and he

  considered preaching “ fatal to art in literature ” ( Correspondence I. 230).

  The theme of confl ict in Crane ’ s urban fi ction gets treated comically and tragically

  in his Western stories. After the abridged version of The Red Badge of Courage appeared

  in December 1894, Irving Bacheller hired Crane as a special correspondent to travel

  to the West and Mexico and to report on his experiences. Bacheller had been impressed

  with Crane ’ s powers of observation in the novel and the positive response of readers

  to it. Crane left for four months starting in late January 1895. His literary output

  consisted of a number of stories and journalistic sketches that undercut the romanti-

  cized view of the West as depicted in dime novels popular at the time. In “ The Bride

  Comes to Yellow Sky ” (1898), Jack Potter, rather than being an adventurous hero, is

  an awkward, middle - aged marshal who suddenly decides to get married. As the train

  brings the newlyweds home, so too does it bring what marriage represents – family,

  domesticity, refi nement – everything that the once rugged West lacked. As a symbol

  of technological and cultural progress, “ [t]he great Pullman was whirling onward

  with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove

  that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast fl ats of green grass, dull - hued

  spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender

  trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice ” ( Prose

  and Poetry 787). With a primitive frontier being swept away, the environment was

  geographically and culturally at a turning point and the beginning of something new.

  Given the end of one era in American history and the dawn of another, it is appropri-

  ate that the name of the town be associated with renewal, for “ the hour of Yellow

  Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching ” (789).

  Despite the rapid advancement of civilization across the continent, Scratchy Wilson

  still believes that a gun is man ’ s best friend and disputes are settled not in court but

  on the street. In the past, Marshal Potter protected the town from Wilson ’ s games of

  comic violence, but now that Potter is married, he no longer wants to play. The

  Stephen

  Crane

  139

  potential for a shootout at the end of the story is immediately defused when Scratchy

  discovers that Potter lacks a gun. Attempting to goad him into a fi ght, Scratchy

  sneers, “ ‘ If you ain ’ t got a gun, why ain ’ t you got a gun? ’ … ‘ Been to Sunday - school? ’ ”

  (797). But when Scratchy learns that his relationship with Potter has been forever

  changed because of the marriage, this

  “

  simple child of the earlier plains

  ”

  (798)

  struggles to accept that their ritualized game is “ all off now ” (798). Scratchy drags

  his feet, creating funnel - shaped tracks in the sand that visually depict an hour glass

  recording the inevitable passing of time and an era.

  Whereas “ The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky ” treats the end of the West comically,

  “ The Blue Hotel ” (1898) dramatizes the tragic consequences of holding on to it in a

  naturalistic universe. During a raging snowstorm that symbolizes the violent nature

  of humanity, three travelers are forced to spend a night in a desolate prairie town.

  Because the Swede has come West with distorted expectations, the Easterner observes

  that “ this man has been reading dime - novels, and he thinks he ’ s right out in the

  middle of it – the shootin ’ and stabbin ’ and all ” ( Prose and Poetry 809). During a card

  game at the hotel, the Swede unexpectedly announces that someone is going to kill

  him. When he becomes drunk, he bruta
lly beats up Johnnie after accusing him of

  cheating; and when he gets into another fi ght, a gambler stabs him. Given the Swede ’ s

  boisterous behavior, it seems appropriate that his corpse, “ alone in the saloon, had its

  eyes fi xed upon a dreadful legend that dwelt a - top of the cash - machine. ‘ This registers

  the amount of your purchase ’ ” (826). Though the legend implies that the Swede got

  what he paid for, in the concluding section of the story the Easterner announces that

  the Swede was indeed correct in accusing Johnnie of cheating and not totally to blame

  for his own death.

  Although the universe is bleak in “ The Blue Hotel, ” Crane does not simply con-

  clude that humans are amoral creatures controlled by deterministic forces over which

  they have no control; instead, he is interested in what happens when people misread

  each other, when communication breaks down, and when individuals ignore the

  natural and ethical consequences of their actions. Though the Swede misreads the

  West because of his fondness for dime novels, he recognizes Johnnie ’ s deception in

  the card game, and his attempt to leave the Palace Hotel soon after arriving reveals

  that he correctly senses the potential for violence there. Other characters are no better

  at reading reality than he is. When they have trouble understanding the Swede,

  Johnnie dismisses him fl ippantly – “ I don ’ t know nothin ’ about you … and I don ’ t

  give a damn where you ’ ve been ” (803) – and the cowboy reduces him to a racist

  stereotype: “ ‘ It ’ s my opinion … he ’ s some kind of a Dutchman. ’ It was a venerable

  custom of the country to entitle as Swedes all light - haired men who spoke with a

  heavy tongue ” (809).

  Although the Swede believes that he is fated to die in the Palace Hotel, it over-

  simplifi es the matter, as the Easterner asserts, to conclude that only the gambler is

  responsible for his death. Legally, he is because he killed the Swede; but morally (as

  depicted in grammatical terms), the gambler is not “ a noun ” but “ an adverb ” : He is

  not the sole doer of the action but rather someone who modifi ed an action already

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  Paul Sorrentino

  begun by others – the “ fi ve of us ” – all of whom have contributed to the tragic

  outcome of the story (827). Though Scully appears to be a congenial host taking care

  of his customers ’ needs, his motives are purely fi nancial. To entice customers to his

  hotel, he is “ a master of strategy ” who “ work[s] his seduction ” (799) on prospective

  customers, “ practically [makes] them prisoners ” (800), and paints his hotel a garish

  blue so that it is the fi rst building seen after leaving the train station. Like his father,

  Johnnie also cares only about his own interests. His immediate reaction to charges of

  irresponsibility is denial. When his father accuses him of troubling the Swede, Johnnie

  decries defensively, “ ‘ Well, what have I done? ’ ” (806), a question that foreshadows

  the last line of the story. Before the travelers arrive at the Palace Hotel, the mood is

  already tense because of a card game between Johnnie and a farmer. Though the nar-

  rator does not mention the cause of their disagreement, the farmer ’ s “ air of great

  impatience and irritation ” (800) implies that the farmer also suspects Johnnie of

  cheating, lending credence in hindsight to the Swede ’ s charge. Similarly, though the

  cowboy denies any responsibility for his actions, he goads Johnnie a half dozen times

  during the fi ght to “ Kill him ” (817). Although the Easterner feebly tries to stop the

  fi ght, he too joins the cowboy and Scully in “ a cheer that was like a chorus of trium-

  phant soldiery ” (818) when Johnnie hits the Swede. Who, then, is responsible for the

  Swede ’ s death? Whereas the law says that the gambler must serve three years in prison

  for his crime, “ We, fi ve of us, have collaborated in the murder of this Swede ” (827).

  The Easterner ’ s sudden revelation about Johnnie ’ s cheating raises the question of

  how to interpret the ending: Should it be read as an affi rmation of the need to assume

  responsibility for one ’ s actions, is it an ironic statement about the ultimate meaning-

  lessness of any human action in an amoral universe, or is it simply a tacked - on ending

  that unnecessarily complicates what seems obvious: the Swede is responsible for his

  own death? The multitude of critical responses is a tribute to a rich, complex story

  that defi es easy categorization and that captures the modern existentialist dilemma:

  Do questions of moral responsibility have any signifi cance in an absurd, disjointed

  universe? Crane ’ s treatment of the question may at least partly explain Ernest Heming-

  way ’ s famous quotation about major infl uences on modern American literature: “ The

  good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That ’ s not the order

  they ’ re good in. There is no order for good writers. … Crane wrote two fi ne stories.

  ‘ The Open Boat ’ and ‘ The Blue Hotel. ’ The last one is the best ” ( Green Hills 22).

  Besides

  “

  The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

  ”

  and

  “

  The Blue Hotel,

  ”

  other fi ne

  Western stories explore themes of chance, primitivism vs. civilization, and misap-

  prehension of reality. In “ The Five White Mice ” (1898) – a story about a dice game,

  a circus, and a near shootout in which “ [n]othing … happened ” ( Prose and Poetry 771)

  – the New York Kid learns that chance is the controlling factor in human events. In

  “ Moonlight on the Snow ” (1900), a sequel to “ The Bride, ” Tom Larpent, a highly

  literate protagonist, exposes the greed of fellow townspeople who fear that the image

  of a Wild West town will hurt the commercial growth of their town. And in “ One

  Dash – Horses ” (1896), a blanket separating Richardson from outlaws symbolizes

  humanity ’ s limited understanding of veiled reality. Like a number of Crane ’ s other

  Stephen

  Crane

  141

  characters, including the seasoned veterans in his war stories and the men in “ The

  Open Boat ” (1897), characters in the Western stories – e.g., Larpent, the New York

  Kid, and Richardson – act with what Hemingway would later characterize as “ grace

  under pressure, ” the ability to act stoically and resolutely during times of stress.

  Though this behavior does not guarantee survival, as shown by the death of Bill in

  “ A Man and Some Others ” (1897), it is the proper conduct in a world in which indi-

  viduals have little, if any, control.

  Crane ’ s desire to transform his own experience into fi ction, as he does in his urban

  and Western stories, is nowhere more evident than in the Commodore episode in early

  January 1897. Crane dramatized his near - death experience on the fi libustering boat

  into a feature newspaper article and two short stories, “ The Open Boat ” and “ Flanagan

  and His Short Filibustering Adventure ” (1897). The article, “ Stephen Crane ’ s Own

  Story ” (1897), recounts the fateful voyage and in the last two paragraphs condenses

  a number of details pertaining to the
bravery of the captain and the oiler, the capsiz-

  ing of the dinghy in the breakers, and the oiler ’ s death; however, Crane says nothing

  in his “ own story ” about the ordeal on the dinghy after the Commodore sinks: “ The

  history of life in an open boat for thirty hours would no doubt be very instructive for

  the young, but none is to be told here now ” ( Prose and Poetry 883). Following the

  newspaper account, Crane wanted to celebrate the heroism of his fellow seamen, but

  he fi rst needed to make sense of the whole experience before he transformed it into

  fi ction, for as the subtitle of “ The Open Boat ” states, it was “ [a] Tale Intended to be

  after the Fact, Being the Experience of Four Men from the Sunk Steamer ‘ Commo-

  dore. ’ ” To insure he had captured the experience completely, he showed his manu-

  script to Edward Murphy, captain of the Commodore , because, as he told him, “ I want

  to have this right , from your point of view ” (Paine 168, 170).

  Rather than simply report factual details surrounding the experience, Crane

  explored its social and metaphysical implications. The fi rst sentence – “ None of them

  knew the color of the sky ” ( Prose and Poetry 885) – makes clear that perspective is

  central to the story. More specifi cally, the story fl uctuates between the point of view

  of four men in the boat, whose focus is strictly on the “ walls of water ” and “ barbarously

  abrupt and tall ” waves that threaten their survival, and an omniscient author, whose

  view “ from a balcony, [would make] the whole thing … weirdly picturesque ” (885,

  886). Out of necessity the men divide up their duties: the oiler and correspondent

  row, the cook bails out water from the boat, and the captain, whose arm is broken,

  controls the tiller. Their situation is made worse by an argument between the cook

  and correspondent about the likelihood of rescue, by the vulnerability of a boat that

  seems no bigger than “ a bath - tub, ” and by the “ loud swishing ” of a shark moving

  like “ a monstrous knife ” near them (885, 900, 901).

  When the men believe they will soon be rescued, they smoke cigars, drink from

  their supply of water, and relax “ with an assurance … shining in their eyes ” (892).