Stephen Crane and His Unique Choice of Subjects

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871 in New Jersey. Crane became a writer at the age of twenty-one and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. Crane's sister, Agnes, raised him and tutored him. She eventually became a schoolteacher. His parents were very religious and his father had an essay published in an 1869 issue of Popular Amusements. Crane "felt himself unworthy of his father because he fell short of his father's moral principles and his nobility of spiritual outlook."He studied poverty, war, and life and death struggle. "Crane united from the beginning an iron self-assurance with a deep shyness."

In "The Red Badge of Courage" Crane describes the characters in depth. He chose a significant event in Americas history and wrote about it. During the Civil War while a Union regiment is based along a river, a tall soldier named Jim Conklin spreads a rumor that the army will march within a day. A new recruit, Henry Fleming, feels that if he were to see battle he would run like a coward. When the regiment marches they meet up with the enemy but Henry is unable to flee because he is surrounded. The Union regiment stops the charge of the Confederate. The next day the Confederates charge again and this time Henry is able to flee from the scene. Later he meets up with a group of wounded soldiers walking down the road and he believes that a wound is like "a red badge of courage". He meets a soldier with extremely deep wounds and then recognizes that it is Jim Conklin. While they are walking down the road Jim Conklin runs off behind the bushes and dies where the other soldiers can not see him. Henry wanders through the forest alone until he comes to a battlefield. He attempts to stop one of the soldiers to ask what is going on but he gets hit in the head with the soldier's rifle. Another soldier takes Fleming back to his regiment's camp. His friend Wilson cares for him because he thinks that Fleming has been shot in the head. The next day the regiment goes back to the battlefield and this time Henry stays and fights in Jim Conklin's honor. Wilson and Henry overhear an officer making fun of their regiment's style of fighting so they go out to prove him wrong. When their charge fails their style of fighting is further made fun of. A soldier tells Wilson and Henry that the colonel and lieutenant consider them the best fighters in the regiment. The regiment goes to battle again and Wilson captures the enemy flag along with four prisoners. This was the final battle of the Civil War and the regiment was victorious. Henry is now able to look forward to peace.

In "The Blue Hotel" the Swede accuses Johnnie of cheating in a card game. This offends Johnnie and his reaction is to challenge the Swede to a fight. The Swede beats Johnnie in the fight. The Swede feels as if he is no longer wanted at the hotel since Johnnie's father is the owner of the hotel. The Swede goes into a bar and asks some gentlemen to drink with him to celebrate his victory over Johnnie. When they refuse he becomes angry as if these men are betraying him because they will not let him buy them a drink. The Swede then threatens one of the gentlemen and the man retaliates and ends up killing the Swede. Without this betrayed feeling the Swede would have probably lived. The Easterner tells the Cowboy he saw Johnnie cheating but never spoke up.

In "The Open Boat" Crane tells what happens when a captain is injured on a boat that is lost at sea. There are four men on the boat. The four men are the captain, the cook, the oiler, and the correspondent. Their boat sinks and they are forced to abandon ship and get on their 10 foot dingey in order to survive. The crew spends two days at sea oaring towards what they hope is land. Eventually the men spot land off in the distance and begin to head towards it. They believe that the land is Mosquito Inlet. The cook says that there is a refuge house that saves shipwrecked crews. As they approach the land they don't seem to see any signs of life on the land besides abandoned houses. They don't make it to shore because the boat would fall apart if they