CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

STEPHEN CRANE'S WESTERN TOUR A STUDY OF MAN IN HIS WORLD

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

English by

Patricia M. Kuklenski

January, 1983 The Thesis of Patricia M. Kuklenski is approved:

Charles Kaplan, Committee Member

A• .f. StatfOrd, Committee Chairman

California State University, Northridge

ii I wish to extend my gratitude to the three professors who aided in the preparation ~ of this thesis. To Dr. Charles Kaplan and Dr. Marvin Klotz goes my appreciation for the time and energy they contributed to the project by reading and advising. To Dr. John Stafford goes my special thanks for his patient guidance which I found invaluable and indispensable in bringing this work to completion.

iii For his unwavering faith in my

endeavors,

I dedicate this thesis to my husband, Joe

iv Table of Contents

Acknowledgment • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • iii

Dedication • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • iv

Abstract • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • vi Chapter:

One. The Individual in Society • • • •

Two. Hotivations and Predicaments • • • 18

Three. Nature and Man • • • • • • • • • • 35

Four. The Responses of Man • • • • • • • 51

Five. Conclusion • • • • • • • • • • • • 67

Notes • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 69

Bibliography • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 76

v ABSTRACT

STEPHEN CRA~~·s WESTERN TOUR A STUDY OF MAN IN HIS WORLD

by Patricia M. Kuklenski Master of Arts in English

Early in his college career, Stephen Crane discovered that "humanity was a more interesting study" than the "cut-and-dried curriculum." It was not that he disliked books; he preferred watching people. He would, in fact, spend the remainder of his short life doing just that. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the changes in Stephen Crane's interpretation of his favorite subject, man. His western tour provided him with the occasions which altered his viewpoint concerning man in his world. Stephen Crane's first opportunity to study man away from the confines of the city was during his tour west in 1895. While travelling alone across the prairies and deserts Crane was able to adjust his viewpoint concerning several subjects. The experiences he had altered prior convictions. Crane's early writings display an attitude towards man as being steered through his life, helpless to freely choose be-

vi cause of the oppressive nature of society. Man in his world was at the mercy of others and lived defensively. However, Crane changed this depressing outlook when he went to Mexico and lived a kind of freedom he had never known before. Chapter one, en­

titled, "The Individual in Society," traces the change in Crane and his new direction of thought. In Chapter Two the study of man in his world continues with a shift in focus from the individual in society to the predica­ ments a person willfully gets hi·mself involved in. "Motivations and Predicaments" shows that, after divorcing himself from the idea that society governed a man's life, Crane enjoyed showing the follies of man. The problems of man in his world are not brought on by society but by his own misconceptions and motiva­ tions prompted by a set of values.

Chapter Three, "Nature and Man" explores Crane's altered concept of the role nature played in influencing man in his world. Well versed in Emerson's ideas of nature as a religion, Crane, on his trip west, saw and felt another side of the ele­ ments. Man, Crane found out, is of no use to nature. In fact, if anything, he is a pest to the whole planet. In conclusion, Chapter Four, "The Responses of Man" con­ siders Crane's lifelong study of emotions. From childhood fears

Crane developed his talent for transforming fear-related sensa­ tions. In early works, terror was described in a dream-like, fantastic way. After Crane experienced genuine terror in escap­ ing from Mexican bandits, his presentation of fear found new expression.

vii Throughout his life, both before and after his western trip, Stephen Crane's foremost quest was to sharpen, to clarify his understanding of that creature, man. In November, 1895, upon his return to the East, Crane wrote that true culture was "a comprehension of the man at one's shoulder." Especially in the West, Crane had had an opportunity to study a variety of people and substantially increase his knowledge and comprehen­ sion of his favorite subject. He may even by November, 1895 have believed he had attained true culture as opposed to super­ ficial notions. For not only did Crane learn to comprehend ·man better in his world as a result of his western exposure but he could go on to present him in his various absurd or tragic or mysterious moments for his readers in the future.

viii Chapter One The Individual in Society

Before going West in 1895 Stephen Crane wrote many stories with settings in New York City's slums. To Crane, the Bowery was the "most interesting place in New York." 1 The people were unfettered by the middle class morality Crane abhorred. For Crane as a young man was out to learn about life, defiantly denouncing all he had been taught by his parents. Apparently he had no use for virtuous, self-righteous people. Sinners were more appealing. In any case, according to Harry Wickham, Crane's classmate at Claverack, the young writer felt that "in the slums or among aristocrats he could breathe." On the other hand "with the middle class he was always a little David throwing stones at the collective Goliath. 112 Stephen Crane was raised by his mother within the bounds of firm religious precepts. Adhering to very strong moral codes, Crane's mother's religion ''was evidently much narrower and more insistent than her husband's."3 When Crane's father, a Meth- odist minister, passed away, his mother lived by and for reli- gion. But Stephen, as well as his brothers, resisted her re- ligious teachings:

"Don't understand that Mother was bitter or mean," Stephen Crane said slowly to a young admirer, "but it hurt her that any of us should be slipping from 2

Grace and giving up eternal damnation or salvation or those things."

In fact, he resisted instruction at college too, skipping classes to play baseball, changing schools and experimenting in all the many sins his parents had warned him to avoid:

He treated schools very much as he did, all his life, cigarettes: he would light one after another, hold them, watch them burn, but would scarcely ever puff on them. Perhaps just lighting them was rebellion enough against his father - as not studyigg was rebellion against his mother, whom he loved.

Young Stephen Crane see·med determined to break all rules of proper Christian conduct. His quarrel was not so much with religion but how men had changed it. According to Thomas Beer, Crane felt that "men had been allowed to pervert the teachings of Christ and Buddha into formulae and there was no such thing as sin 'except in Sunday schools.'"6 The individual in society was suppressed by the silly rules

of the day. He was particularly enraged by what could be called the "American Ideal" which was being forced by society on young men and women. Cady explains it this way:

As is said of atheists - there are two kinds, those who do not believe in God and those who hate God - so Crane felt about both "Christianity as it may be seen around town" and "the society man," a fake gen­ tleman. He hat~d them passionately and strove to transcend them.

In this frame of mind, then, it is not unreasonable that the young iconoclast Crane should develop his particular atti- tude concerning the place of the individual in society. He 3 p • viewed middle class ·mores as repressive, depleting normal drive and incentive and denying one his right to exercise free will. With his first novel, Maggie, Crane set out to show what it was like in the Bowery. Along with his story he makes an effort to depict the slums of New York as accurately as pos- sible:

Long streamers of garments fluttered fro·m fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags, and bottles. In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on rail­ ings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered per­ sons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odours of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from t~e weight of hu­ manity stamping about in its bowels.

It is a heaving world of poverty-stricken humanity, ragged, noisy. and miserable. Many scenes are of fighting, described by Crane in a detached, colorful way to emphasize the routine occurrence of violence, especially in the Johnson household. After Maggie breaks a plate her mother prepares to beat her:

The mother started to her feet as if propelled. "Good Gawd!" she howled. Her glittering eyes fastened on her child with sudden hatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost to purple. The little boy ran to the hall, shrieking like a monk in an earthquake. He floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. He stumbled, panic-stricken, to the next floor.9

Amid the savage, violent behavior of her home, Maggie Johnson grows to maturity. She is seduced by a bartender, then dis- owned by her family. Left on her own, she becomes the only 4

thing she could - a girl of the streets. In a short time, a feeling of universal rejection leads her to suicide.

More than a social novel illuminating society's ills with an aim at correcting them, Crane wrote Maggie to show that "en- vironment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently shapes lives regardless." 10 Maggie's lot in life was confirmed by her slum birth and rearing by violent parents. It was Crane's belief that a girl of the streets was trapped into that profession most likely because she had no knowledge and no ex- amples of anything better. The closing scene of her life expresses the "impossible distance" between Maggie and the rest of society. In grim contrast, as she walks towards her death, "the varied sounds of life, made joyous by distance and seeming unapproachableness, came faintly and died away to a silence.1111

In another slum novel, George's Mother, the family environ- ment is less explosive but one gets the same impression: the young protagonist is uninformed and vulnerable because of his place in society and because of an extreme parent who is not a good exam~le and guide. In both stories, the parent repels her children and therefore does not aid in a realistic education about life which would help them to avoid the states both fall to. Maggie's drift into prostitution and George's drift to al- cohol and vagrancy were reasonable and plausible based upon their low social status in the slums. Stephen Crane never wanted to preach or direct. As he later wrote to a friend, "Preaching is fatal to art in litera­ ture."12 He wanted merely to give readers "a slice out of life" 5 and if there was some moral lesson to be learned he was not going to point it out. "He was convinced that if a story is transcribed in its actuality, as it appeared to occur in life, it will convey its own e·motional weight without sentimental heightening, moralizing or even interpretive comment." 13 But his feelings that society could ill afford to ignore the slum dweller much longer are bound to surface. For conditions there as related in these two tales were breeding warped individuals whose "feeling for conte·mporaneous life was one of contempt.'~ These people, apart and shunned by the moral middle class, might someday revolt:

They longed dimly for a time when they could run through decorous streets with crash and roar of war, an army of revenge for pleasures long possessed by others, a wild sweeping compensation for their years without crystal and gilt.14

Crane again exa·mines the feelings of a slum dweller and considers his mentality in "An Experiment in Misery" published in 1894. The young protagonist does not appear to be hostile but at the end of the story he feels a hopeless "outcast." He glances guiltily around himself "wearing the criminal expression that comes with certain convictions." To him "social position, comfort, the pleasures of living were unconquerable kingdoms." Eventually, this kind of person, always on the outside, will make his presence known to the rest of the world. He will not go on feeling dwarfed by the high buildings of the city signi- fying a nation "forcing its regal head into the clouds," while ''throwing no downward glances," and ignoring "the wretched who 6

may flounder at its feet." Crane here criticizes the relent- less progress of the country and hypocritical society which calls itself Christian yet allows the dismal conditions of slum dwellers. 15 Although, later, Crane co·mmented that "the root of Bowery

life is a sort of cowardice," 16 I believe, judging by his earlier writings, that he sincerely, at this time in his career, believed the opposite. The reason he identified with the slum

dweller and felt empathy was because of his own personal quar- rel with the moral codes which were so insidious to him person- ally and which he took every opportunity to break. Since he did not feel free to think as he chose he could identify with the repressed masses in the slums. However, Crane was still quite young and impressionable. In January 1895, at the age of twenty-three and on the verge of success following the publication of The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane went West. He was to write reports of what he found there for Irving Bacheller's newspaper syndicate and to gather material for stories. But exposure to this new area of the country and to Mexico would change Crane's outlook.

In a sense, he got away from himself and his former ideas:

This journey was his first away from the East, and it served him in much the same way Henry Fleming was served by his army experiences - as a rough equivalent of the grand tour, as an occasion on which the famil­ ~ar f97ced him to confront himself and his surround­ lngs.

In Mexico particularly, Crane changed, responding to a kind of freedom he had never experienced before. According to Thomas 7

Beer, Crane was amazed at the nonchalance regarding conduct and indulgence in pleasures. In fact, "Crane saw, for the first

time, the Latin consent to public pleasures. 'You can sit at a table in front of a Cafe - a real Cafe - and drink cool drinks. Nobody comes up and says, Stop!"' 18 One did as one pleased - drinking, gambling, attending

shows and circuses every day if one cared to. The "sins" of drinking and gambling were more than acceptable. Indeed, they

were quite commonplace, for carefree Americans were in great abundance in Mexico City in 1895. As Crane wrote in one of his dispatches, "(I] t is necessary merely to say that if you go out into the street and yell: 'Girnme a Manhattan!' about forty

American bartenders will appear of a sudden and say: 'Yes, sir.•" 19

To show what merry madness Americans indulged in south of the border, Crane composed "The Wise Men," a description of life in Mexico City. If any point can be derived from this sketch of Americans abroad, it is that the young protagonists, the Kids, had complete freedom to drink and to gamble with the older, wiser men. As a result, "they often had the well-in­ formed and the great talkers of the American colony engaged in reciting their misdeeds, and facts relating to their sins were usually told with a flourish of awe and fine admiration."

The Kids were gaining a kind of stature and maturity, even if there were some who pitied them for being so young and away from their mothers. Most people, however, were frankly ''trans- fixed at the splendor of the audacity and endurance of these 8

Kids." In the tale, the two Kids put their energies to work on a new scheme. They bet that an old bartender can outrun a younger one. They are ridiculed by the older, wiser men for being "foolish" and a "pair of asses." Even with high stakes and bad odds the Kids win, adding new fame and glory to their reputations. Still, they take it in stride. When asked how much they won, they modestly answer, "Oh, not so much. 1120 Crane's intent is to have the reader see the fun of gam- bling and drinking as harmless and noncorrupting to these two Kids. In fact, their "sinful" activities have given them en- viable popularity and self-confidence. Like the Kids, Crane grew in stature while in Mexico City. He was able to see people ... as individuals making decisions - even if just over bets - and as separate personalities trying their luck. The experience of mingling with a variety of Americans from prospectors to businessmen gave Crane valuable insight into the possibilities that existed for individuals thinking and acting freely without constraints of oppressive social dictates. Crane's growing up or seeing society in different terms is reflected in another Mexico City story with the two Kids. In "The Five White Mice" the New York Kid practices, then gets a lesson in the art of bluffing. First, he is at Freddie's bar at the Casa Verde presiding over "a little drama in which every man was absorbed." Calling upon the Five White Mice of Chance, the Kid bets anyone interested fifty dollars that he has thrown an ace at dice. No one accepts. The revelation that he did not after all have an ace does not diminish the fact that he had 9

bluffed his audience with his five white mice. Chided later by

the men about believing in white mice, the Kid replies that "if one was going to believe in anything at all, one might as well choose the five white mice. 1121 According to Berryman, the five white mice "are blind, that is to say indifferent.1122 They throw the responsibility of the outcome of a situation right back at the individual. A person, then, should put his faith and trust in himself, not in any out­ side powers. This self-reliance builds the confidence which will overcome adversities. Does this show a change in Crane's thinking? Berryman thinks so: "The Kid's faith, in substance - Crane's new faith - is in Circumstance as n£1 making impossible the individual's determination of his destiny." It is understandable that Crane as a young man felt the pressures to conform, and his slum writings reflect this. He knew from his parents• teaching what kind of manners and social behavior he was expected to maintain. Crane would have none of it. Later he would confess to a friend, "I could never do what I didn't feel like doing." 23 Away from confining social atmos­ pheres and living free of constraints in Mexico, Crane's view- point substantially changes. The individual will no longer be seen as suppressed by society but as a person in a predicament usually of his own making - such as that which the New York Kid finds himself in, when, later in the story, drunken companions challenge three Mexicans in a dark street.

A tense situation quickly develops. The New York Kid is sure from the menacing looks he receives and then from the 10

stance of the Mexicans that they will rip him apart. A terrible moment passes as the Kid, face to face with sure death, decides to call again upon the five white mice, this time to help him to pull his revolver. He is successful in not dropping it and immediately, upon seeing the weapon, the Mexicans back down. The game has gone too far. The New York Kid discovered the Mex- icans were exaggerating their ferocity and this "revealed some- thing of great importance" to him:

He had never dreamed that he did not have a complete monopoly of all possible trepidations. The cry of the grandee was that of a man who suddenly sees a poison­ ous snake. Thus the Kid was able to understand swiftly that they were all human beings. They w~re unanimous in not wishing for too bloody co·mbat. 24

Besides that, the Kid learns he has been outbluffed by the Mex- icans and that makes him feel tricked. Formerly frozen with fear, the New York Kid was now "bursting with rage because these men had not previously confided to him that they were vulner- able." And that meant "the whole thing had been an absurd i·m- position." The story began with a bluff and ended with one. The New York Kid has discovered how well he can perform under pressure relying on his own self-confidence supplied by invoking the in- different five white mice. The exciting encounter where a young man learns something about human behavior reveals Crane's new disposition towards showing the individual as being capable of asserting his rights. He need not be directed by society or another individual. 1 1

But if an individual asserts what he regards as his rights is he necessarily better off? Possibly not. His rights may be based upon values unacceptable to the population in general. Crane's new insight into the place of the individual in society enables him to write of the conflicts produced when there is a

communication problem between men. In 11 A Freight-Car Incident" one man is going to be killed by a gang of men and the reader is not told why. It does not seem to matter why. As the narrator of the story, the major, nonchalantly tells it, "There was a fellow around there that a good many people wanted to kill, and they said they were going to kill him that day at the sale, too." 25 The story of the major being trapped in a dark freight car with the targeted and furious man is humorously told. When both men escape unharmed, one expects to find out that the whole in- cident was a joke. However this does not occur. After we have enjoyed the comic situation and colorful language of the marked man, Crane ends the story this way:

But the men with guns remained silent and grave. The crowd for the most part gave him room enough to pitch a circus tent. When the train left he was still roaring around after the man who had slammed the door. "And so they didn't kill him after all," said some one at the end of the narrative. "Oh, yes, they got him that night," said the major. "In a saloon somewhere. They got him all right."25

Suddenly the funny story turns out to be a chilling murder. What chance does one man have against a group? None. What makes it even more frightening is the lack of conscience, the matter-of-fact tone taken by the narrator concerning the murder, 12 as if such action was an ordinary occurrence. The story does not make a lot of sense unless one considers the tale on other levels. Luke Barnham, the individual trapped in the freight car with the major, fits Crane's description of a Westerner with his bragging and his lively language. In this excerpt from one of his letters, Crane's sentiments regarding this type of individual are revealed. He writes, "I fell in love with the straight out-and-out, sometimes-hideous, often- braggart west-erners because I thought them to be the truer men. 1127 Luke Barnham, slated for death by a group of men, is an example of true man, according to Crane. Yet somehow he is not acceptable and must be removed. The problem in this story then transcends the ordinary individual and his place in society. It has to do with transition to the modern era. Luke, like the character of Scratchy Wilson in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", is a "child of the earlier plains," a living Texas legend. What he represents is the Texas of another era when prowess with a gun was top priority and violence was not unusual. Used to open spaces, it is fitting that he now be caged like an animal in the freight car while his land gets cut into lots and auctioned off. For Luke, the true man, is closer to a wild animal now. He prowls "like a cat" and roars "like a bull." As the narrator tells it, once Luke was out of the freight car:

"He went among them, bellowing in his bull fashion, and not a man moved. 'Where's all these galoots what was goin' t' shoot at me? Where be they? Let 'em come! Let 'em show theirselves! Let 'em come at me! Oh, there's them here as has got guns hangin' to 'em, 13

but let 'em pull •em!'"28

Of course the settlers will not face up to Luke when he is in such a mood and ready with his guns. Like cowards they will wait until he is offguard. This group of men represents the ex- ploiters of the land. Luke, perhaps, stands in the way of set- tlement plans so he has to go. There does not seem to be any place for Luke Barnham in the new Texas. Although brief, this story contains symbolic depth. Not only is Luke the "true" man being eliminated by a mob of men with lesser attributes, he represents the West being overrun by the East or the past being obliterated by the present. For Crane did not like the invasion of Texas by "the victorious derby hat of the North" and "the terrible and almighty trolley car." To him, the Texas of legend was callously being destroyed!

The serene Anglo-Saxon erects business blocks upon the dreams of the transient monks; he strings telegraph wires across the face of their sky of hope; and over the energy, the efforts, the accomplishments of these pious fathers of th~ early church passes the wheel, the hoof, the heel. 9

Crane did not like to see the "honest" West being taken over by the "false" East.3° Yet, one cannot prevent progress. The western lands were fast being settled and civilized. Viewed from this perspective, "A Freight-Car Incident" makes a state- ment about problems of adjustment. An individual cannot assert his rights when he is outside the mainstream of society because of failure to keep up with progress and changing conditions.

Some of Crane's other western stories contain at least a sem- 14

blance of this problem. The individual must recognize changes taking place and adjust to his new environment. Luke Barnham was a type that could not do that. Crane's emphasis then has shifted fro·m an overview of so­ ciety as suppressive to the individual to one which considers personal shortcomings. An individual's values may not coincide with those of the rest of society. In that case he excludes himself and becomes maladjusted. While a well-adjusted indi­ vidual keeps pace with the world and its changes, the mal­ adjusted individual may not accept the inexorable march of time and progress. Thus, the individual can be considered respon­ sible for his place in society. Crane's later works will show this, I believe. In "Twelve O'Clock" Crane deals again with society in flux. Change is coming to the western town in the story. At least the townspeople would like to think it is. The problem they have is the cowboys who ride into town and practice "loose-handed shoot in' • '' It is hoped that eastern capitalists will come and improve the town, but with the unrestrained cowboys in abun­ dance maybe they won't. As Ben Roddle, a man keeping up with the times put it, "I tell you, one puncher racin' his cow-pony hell-bent-fer-election down Main Street and yellin' an' shootin' an' nothin' at all done about it, would scare away a whole herd of capiterlists."

Crane describes the ordinary cowboy as a calm, reasonable type of young man who is no threat to anyone until he starts drinking. According to Ben Roddle, then, "in less'n half an 15 hour, he'll be as drunk as three bucks an' a squaw, an then •••• excuse .m.g!"3l

Ben Roddle is correct. Trouble does begin. It happens when drunken cowboys wait in a hotel lobby for the bird in a cuckoo clock to come out and sound the noon hour. Tempers flare between a simple-·minded cowboy, Jake, and a quarrelsome one, Big Watson. Very quickly, with revolvers drawn, the "two glared murder at each other, neither seeming to breathe, fixed like statues." It is bad enough that the cowboys may be a problem again with their "loose-handed shootin"' in town, but into the quarrel will step a person who is as ignorant as he is arrogant, Placer, the hotel manager. Mindlessly, he aims revolvers at the cowboys and triggers two murders:

Big Watson laughed, and, speeding up his six-shooter like a flash of blue light, he shot Placer through the throat - shot the man as he stood behind his absurd pink counter with his two aimed revolvers in his in­ competent hands. With a yell of rage and despair,· Jake smote Watson on the pate with hi~ heavy weapon, and knocked him sprawling and bloody. 2

Enraged townspeople rushing in with rifles shoot another cowboy. In the chaos that followed "it seemed for a moment as if every- body would kill everybody." Hastily, the townspeople and the cowboys establish a truce before more violence erupts. The cow- boys quickly sober up, not willing to go to war over the "dark something" that had caused death in their midst. Then, in the- atrical fashion, over the dead men, the bird in the clock comes out to tell the time. It is twelve o'clock. Crane is concerned with the West in transition. Time has 16 the same relevance in this story as in "The Bride Comes to Yel­ low Sky." Minutes and hours are bringing precision to the gen­ erally lax, unmeasured life in the plains. The cuckoo clock signifies the latest vogue in time-telling "by some wise child of civilization" back east. It is just one more indication that the East is invading the West. "Twelve O'Clock" is a great deal more contrived than other Crane stories. It does not read like "a slice of life," the sort of writing Crane was fond of presenting. Yet, the tension revealed within the society of a frontier town attempting to enter the modern era is still valid. Ben Roddle, as one type of citizen, knows it is safest "to go home an' set in th' cellar" when the cowboys come to town. He understands their careless ways with liquor and guns and is annoyed that new people from the East may not stay because of them. In contrast, Placer re- presents a condescending easterner who did stay. He does not understand the cowboy or guns but thinks he does. Compared to Ben Roddle, Placer is a maladjusted individual, one out of touch with his environment. Then there is Jake, the cowboy. He is as a child, simple and gullible, thrilled and excited over a cuckoo clock. By means of these three types of people Crane shows us a western town coping with progress on more than one level.

The story illustrates the problems of a new, unsettled so­ ciety rushing into the modern age. Life, Crane found, can be a complex matter, and man in his world is beset by a constant need to make decisions. But no matter where he is, Man must learn to adapt. As in any other society, an individual's place in west- 17 ern towns is determined by how well he deals with change. Most individuals can adapt to altered conditions. Those who cannot sooner or later find themselves out of synchronization with their surroundings. The next chapter will examine the predicaments of some of Crane's most interesting characters in his western stories. Each in his own way exercised his free will and each, save one, stood his ground. It appears that Crane, by now, has left be­ hind feelings of suppression by a moralistic middle class so­ ciety. Instead, he focuses on the individual and his self-sus­ tained follies. Whatever goes wrong, it turns out to be the individual's own fault, caused by a flaw in his particular view­ point. Chapter Two Motivations and Predicaments

While in Mexico Crane's habit of watching humans caused him to seriously contemplate the Indians. For in order to write as he did in "Above All Things" Crane had to have been somewhat shaken by what he saw. Unlike Crane's other travel sketches, ''Above All Things" is not cynical or sarcastic. It is quietly thoughtful, exhibiting the young writer's talent for discovering the subtle ironies that diminish man's self-esteem and sense of accomplishment. In this one article Crane continues to adjust his thinking concerning man in his world: evidently the exer- cising of free will only partly accounts for the behavior pat- terns of people. Before that, there is the matter of motivation to consider. When first arriving in Mexico, Crane's attitude was to con- sider the Indian as "stupid" for the things he did and the way he did them. He criticized the way he treated his animals. He looked at walls of stone built by "innumerable hands that toiled" as exposing "the most incredible and apparently stupid labor." 1 But in "Above All Things" Crane has mellowed his tone. He writes, "How futile are the lives of these people," as one chastizing himself for this prior opinion, "and what incredible ignorance that they should not be aware of their futility." He concludes, "This is the arrogance of the man who has not yet

18 19 solved himself and discovered his own actual futility."2

Crane begins to see the Indian in another way. Like other men, the Indian plays his part in the world. The young writer has learned how arrogant he was in thinking he knew everything there was to know about human beings and their lives. He could see the fallacy of his own preconceived ideas. As Katz explains it, Stephen Crane, like his character Henry Fleming, becomes

"a man who has solved himself." Moreover:

His growth to maturity involved successive stages in which his preconceptions were established, then shake~ then tested against his experiences, and finally modi­ fied to conform more closely with his insight into re­ ality. The process involved psychic and intellectual humbling: eventually Henry "discovered his own actual futility." His creator experienced much the same things during his 1895 "journalistic tare. 11 3

Crane then decided "It seems that a man must not devote himself for a time to attempts at psychological perception. He can be sure of two things, form and color."4 Of course it would be useless to attempt psychoanalysis of the Indian. But what this new attitude shows is that Crane re- alizes there is much he does not and cannot understand about humans. They, for instance, do not respond the same way.

People can "be indifferent where he expected passion, they will be passionate where he expected calm." The existence of such "subtle variations" can cause anger and frustration. 5 This ad- mission of a mystery prevailing in matters of men will enhance his later writings. Crane decided that a man, any man, rich or poor, lives for virtue. That is what motivates and propels an individual to 20 @ behave as he does. But what constitutes virtue? It can vary. Crane concludes, "A man is at liberty to be virtuous in almost any position of life."6 That being the case, the poverty of the Indian or the slum dweller is no reason for discontent if one is in a position to exercise virtue as he perceives it. Virtue, then, motivates all men at all levels of existence. "We can each give all that we possess," Crane remarks in as- sessing his virtue in relationship to that of a millionaire. He cannot therefore envy the millionaire anymore than he can pity the Indian. A relativity exists where men on their various material levels pursue - each in his own way - spiritual goals of virtue and morality. The success of his efforts has nothing to do with poverty or riches. It is "something above and be­ yond."?

The quest for virtue and morality will take differing forms and directions according to one's personal values about living. The Mexican Indian has all he needs to attain the virtue and morality he aspires to. Others may not. "If a man is not given a fair opportunity to be virtuous," Crane writes, "if his environment chokes his moral aspirations, I say that he has got the one important cause of complaint and rebellion against so­ ciety." If, on the other hand, he has the freedom to pursue his moral aspirations he should be content. As rich and poor alike can be virtuous there is no justification for an individual to rebel against society concerning his condition.8 I think this clearly marks a change of attitude for Crane. This assessment of what motivates man was arrived at by Crane's observation of 21 ~

the most poverty-stricken people he had ever seen and their astonishing contentment with their situation.

To appreciate Crane's motivational analysis of the individ­ ual in society let us look at four of his western stories. All four present men in predicaments they have helped to create. A sense of futility is present because of the lack of understand­ ing that does exist between men on various intellectual levels, shaped by their particular values. Once again the change in

Crane's viewpoint results from his stay in Mexico. An analysis of "A Man and Some Others" suggests that codes of conduct may have had something to do with the events that led to fighting. The values and aspirations of Bill, the story's protagonist, would necessarily differ fro·m those of his Mexican antagonists. In "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," Scratchy Wilson, the old gunfighter, has a code of ethics belonging to another era while Jack Potter, the town marshal, rashly over­ looks western propriety. In "The Blue Hotel" many levels of at­ titudes and values are woven into the story. With "Hoonlight on the Snow" one strong, immoral personality almost succeeds in controlling a town that wants to reform. This new complexity in handling the place of the individual seems to have had its beginnings with Crane's analysis of man, from highest state to lowest, in "Above All Things." In "A Man and Some Others" Crane begins his tale in a mood emphasizing the loneliness and sense of abandonment generated by land where ''there was no house or horseman from which a mind could evolve a city or a crowd." It seemed, "the world was de- 22

clared to be a desert and unpeopled." 9 This setting is one of empty expanses - mesquite from horizon to horizon with no one in sight. A sheepherder living in such a place saw so few people that even dust signifying movement far off caused ''intense" in- terest. One would think that the only problem a man in such an area would have was loneliness. That does not happen to be the case in this story. As with "A Freight-Car Incident" one man is singled out for death by a group. Again, there is no explanation. Bill, the individual, is condemned and ordered off the range by those who have been his friends. It is clear he is completely surprised by the decision:

"What you talking about?" said Bill. "No like what?" "We no like you here. Un'erstan'? Too mooch. You ·mus' geet out. We no like. Un'erstan? 11 "Understand? No; I don't know what the blazes you're gittin' at." Bill's eyes wavered in bewilder­ ment, and his jaw fell. "I must get out? I must get off the range? What you givin' us?"lO

Communications have somehow broken down. The Mexican is on one level while Bill is on another. Crane deliberately injects some mystery as to why the Mexicans and Bill must fight, but it ap- pears to be a difference in values. We are to see the ensuing battle as something futile and incomprehensible. Like Luke Barnham, Bill is different from the rest of the group. He is a misfit, an intruder and that seems to be enough of a reason for eliminating him. Crane gives background information that allows us a fuller picture of the protagonist. Bill has managed to get 23 into trouble everywhere he has been. He has dealt pain and death. He seems to have learned that he cannot manage anywhere else in the country and is finally trying southwestern Texas. Since Crane has filled in Bill's background we can see him for a flawed individual who has not found his place in society because of his pride. In Bill's falling from mine-owner to cow- boy "all that remained of his former splendor was his pride, or his vanity, which was one thing which need not have remained." Bill gets into one mess after another until it seemed he was always fighting:

But let a man adopt fighting as·his business, and the thought grows constantly within him that it is his business to fight. These phrases became mixed in Bill's mind precisely as they are here mixed: and let a man get this idea in his mind, and defeat begins to move toward him over the unknown ways of circumstance~

The story could simply be a tale of a ne'er-do-well who meets his end by ambush in the wilds of Texas, but we are to see in this the "inconsequence of individual tragedy." What is a man's life really worth? Bill's life was punctuated by bad judgments on his part that caused him to fight or run. With one mistake after another it is easy to see where eventually he would find himself on the outside of society, valuing only his revolver as it questioned "neither social nor moral position.1112

This individual is maladjusted to society, but still Crane insists upon his being a tragic figure, one who has done battle countless times and lost. He is worn down now at the end of a life which had little meaning. He will die and not be missed. Nothing will change in the world with his passing. Bill is 24 an inconsequential person. Bill and the Mexicans seem to be taking part in some grim shooting game. If it were not for the introduction of the stranger, the full horror of sheepherders murdering each other probably would have less impact. Although Bill has killed Miguel through a deception, the episode has touched him in no remorseful way. It is the stranger who is shocked at the first killing. He has not been in the mesquite long enough to have his sensibilities concerning manslaughter dulled as have the combatants. While Bill calmly contemplates the man he has just shot, the stranger recoils in horror:

Bill walked forward and stood looking respectfully at the body. "I know that feller; his name is Miguel. He---." The stranger's nerves might have been in that con­ dition when there is no backbone to the body, only a long groove. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, much agi­ tated; "don't speak that way!" "What way?" said Bill. "I only said his name was Miguel. 11 13

So the first casualty, Miguel, lies flung across the area of the camp and Bill is "one ahead" with seven to go. With the stran- ger from the East by his side, Bill will succeed in killing most of his Mexican sheepherding friends before he too dies. What Crane manages to do in the final rush of Bill's camp is to transcend the plight of the not-so-admirable man and give him his due as an individual drawing his last breath. The stranger saw "Bill was dying, and the dignity of last defeat, the superiority of him who stands in his grave, was in the pose of the lost sheepherder." 14 Crane has captured the essence of 25

the moment when a man dies - even one as flawed as Bill - and

given it special reverence. The stranger feels suddenly some ''deep form of idolatry" for this individual he has just met and

ended up fighting for. There is dignity in death, anyone's death. Bill has found no place in society. He is forever on the

outside. Crane sees him as causing his own difficulties by pride and by rash decisions, the result of his flawed percep­ tions resulting from ignorance. What gives the story its ten­ sion is the juxtapositioning of types of people - none of which has a good understanding of the other. They are on three rela­ tive levels of humanity - Mexican, Easterner and Bill - thrown together in conflict over use of land that stretches vast and boundless. Most of them are killed. The presence of nature, taking a strong role in this story, adds to the feeling of men killing men as something repetitive and ritualistic in time - and in all respects, a futile senseless display of man's pride.

In another western story, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," the place of the individual in society and his motivations are examined in clearer terms. The individuals, Jack Potter and Scratchy Wilson, have established themselves in Yellow Sky with contrasting reputations. The predicaments both get into have to do with their handling of change. Yellow Sky is an up and coming Texas town moving fast into the modern era. It is where the train stops; it has a telegraph and its own brass band. It is no longer a violent place. The man who has helped change its image is Jack Potter, the town 26 marshal, who makes up his mind to get married and does so quickly without telling anyone. It was a furtive move, one that left hi·m with a sense of guilt. Yellow Sky, so much a part of him, was not even consulted. But the town marshal is rushing to change from tough lawman to domesticated man in order to keep up with the changing town. He wants a new life, a "new estate." His bride will bring it to him. Jack Potter's marriage can be equated with the hasty taming of Texas. Like the landscape of Texas "pouring eastward" past the train window at the beginning of the story, Potter is "sweeping over the horizon, a precipice" towards an uncertain future. 15 Symbolic of the changing West, he wants too quickly to be settled and tamed. At the moment the change fits him as uncomfortably as his new black clothes. On the train the self-conscious newlyweds seem out of place in every way. They are awkward and amusing to the other pas­ sengers and to the Negro porters, partly because they are just married and partly because to them the train surroundings are new and extraordinary. Everything they say and do results in "stares of derisive enjoyment." In the eastern environment of the train, Jack Potter and his bride are obvious and clumsy westerners. In a comic reversal, Crane will present an easter­ ner out of place and ignorant at the saloon in town. Unlike the town marshal, Scratchy Wilson, a long time citi­ zen of Yellow Sky, does not want to change. He's one of the "old gang that used to hang out along the river." While the violent days of gunslinging have come to an end and Scratchy 27 knows it, he insists upon reliving the past. One imagines him to be a rather colorful town character, Yellow Sky's link with its past. Because he can be controlled by the town marshal, Scratchy's drinking and shooting sprees are tolerated by the citizens of the town. Like Jack Potter, Scratchy is representative of older, more exciting times. While Potter wants to leave all that behind and settle down, Wilson insists on keeping gunplay in his life. While Potter has moved into the modern era, Wilson has stayed behind. He is a man out of synchronization with his age:

Often he yelled, and these cries rang through a sem­ blance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man. It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang against walls of silence.16

Although it is comic there is also some sadness in this scene as one contemplates the old gunfighter alone and being ig- nored as he stalks someone to fight in the empty streets. He is yelling at walls, at "calm adobes" preserving their demeanor "at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street." Scratchy is futile. He and his guns are quite unnecessary now. The fateful meeting of Potter and Wilson has its impact.

Potter, facing death, sees his dreams for change, the "new estate" flash out of his mind. It is illusion; the man with the gun at his chest is reality. And Scratchy's hunt for a person to shoot at has been successful. It is the presence of the third party, the bride, that signifies to Scratchy that some- 28

thing is wrong. Having used the town as a toy in satisfying an outdated aspiration for gunfighting prowess, he suddenly sees his futility. Change comes upon him in a singular moment of sudden comprehension when Potter introduces his wife. Scratchy is shocked into realizing the gunfighting has been a game, and now, with the last of his eligible adversaries settling down to married life, Scratchy knows the game is over. He must hang up his guns. As in ''Twelve 0' Clock" Crane makes a point of emphasizing time. Beginning with the train ride we are ·made aware of daz- zling speed towards the West with everything such as land, trees and houses "sweeping into the east." 17 The train from the East appears to be gobbling up the old West. Jack Potter is one of the confined passengers on this fast-moving, modern piece of machinery which is invading Texas. It symbolizes the progress of the modern age.

Jack Potter is conscious of time. On the train he tells his bride: "We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42." She responds to him by studying the watch he gave her and then saying with the 18 same sort of exactness, "It's seventeen minutes past twelve." Thus we are made aware of the critical timing which will struc- ture the entire story. The 3:42 arrival time marks a turning point in lives. For the town marshal it is the unavoidable "hour of day­ light"l9 when he must face Yellow Sky and begin his husband role. The scene when Potter steps off the train has the aspect of a comic death and rebirth. Speaking "from a constricted 29 throat" like "one announcing death,"20 Jack Potter leaves the train to face his initiation into married life. But there is another initiation waiting to happen. Crane backtracks exactly "twenty-one minutes" 21 to set up the back­ ground for the impending showdown between Potter and Scratchy Wilson, the man who has remained in the past under an "arch of a tomb.'' The 3:42 arrival of Jack Potter and his bride brings Scratchy his "glimpse of another world1122 or confrontation with the present. And behind the conversions of Potter and Wilson has been the railroad. In a larger context concerning time, we see the train as the modern machine responsible for the rapid settling of the West, forcing both these men into synchroniza­ tion with their changing world. Continuing with his study of man in his world, Crane con­ siders the agony of a maladjusted individual. Synchronization is not the problem this time. In "The Blue Hotel" a great deal of tension is aroused when one man fails to adjust to his changed environment. As with so many of Crane's works we can­ not know what exactly caused the tragedy of the individual. From the example of Bill in "A Man and Some Others" one realizes that the character of the Swede brings with him a flawed percep­ tion. This is the basis for his unusual behavior when he steps off the train at Fort Romper. A person can cause his own prob­ lems. What a far cry from Maggie! The Swede presents himself as unusually nervous from the beginning. He is "shaky and quickeyed." Later, he remarked that "some of these Western communities were very dangerous. 1123 30

One wonders at this point why he got on the train for Nebraska in the first place. Fort Romper will not be New York City. Confined to one s·mall room with a blizzard going full fore e the Swede's nerves erode to the breaking point. He yells, "I suppose I am going to be killed before I can leave this house! I suppose I am going to be killed before I can leave this house!'' The circumstances leading to the Swede's emotional out- burst include a series of unfortunate misunderstandings with his companions at the hotel. The Swede begins:

"They say they don't know what I mean," he remarked mockingly to the Easterner. The latter answered after prolonged and cautious reflecting. "I don't understand you," he said, im­ passively. The Swede made a movement then which announced that he thought he had encountered treachery from the only quarter where he had expected sympathy if not help. 11 0h, I see you are all against me. I see --. 11 24

Incredulous, the cowboy at this point slams down the cards on the table and demands to know what the Swede means. That action causes the Swede to jump up and scream, ''I don't want to fight!" There has been nothing about fighting and killing as far as the others are concerned, but the Swede reacts to each as if his life were in danger. He, therefore, sets himself apart. The problem is that each person at the hotel will respond to this nervous Swede in a different way according to his level of perception. At the idea of a violent act Johnnie is enraged, the cowboy is stupefied, the Easterner is cautious and old

Scully is aggressive. No one reassures the frightened man that he is not going to be killed. Therefore he remains suspicious 31 of all. As Nagel explains it, Crane created "countering points of view to suggest ironically the limitation and erroneous in­

1 2 terpretations of the principal characters. ' 5 This method of presentation succeeds in generating the exasperating tension which builds with each scene. Nothing, not even whiskey, will settle the nerves of this upset man; he is sure he will die. The addition of whiskey only serves to change the Swede's fright to hate. When Scully pro­ duced a bottle of whiskey and ordered the Swede to drink, he "laughed wildly." Then, "He grabbed the bottle, put it to his mouth~ and as his lips curled absurdly around the opening and his throat worked, he kept his glance burning with hatred upon the old man's face." 26 Conditions deteriorate until the fright­ ened Swede becomes a bully and actually precipitates the vio- lence he feared. In the end, of course, he manages to get him- self killed.

We must see in this story that the frightful tension which led to death and violence was the result of individuals being close yet out of touch. Collectively they were not able to stave off the violence that came among them like the ''dark some- thing" of the cowboys in "Twelve O'Clock" because each man on his level responded according to his own values and interests - an insight Crane displays in writing "Above All Things." In another capacity, the Swede, like Bill and Scratchy, re- presents an individual who, through his own ignorance or bias, is a misfit in the group or society. The Swede, like Bill, has the pride and vanity which will overrule his better judgment 32 and get him killed. Scratchy does not go that far. Society cannot be blamed for the predicaments these characters managed to get themselves into. In "Moonlight on the Snow" Tom Larpent kills a man. As a leading citizen of War Post and a slick gambler, Larpent has probably killed many men and taken their money. It was his and the town's business to "prey upon the bands of cowboys who, when they had been paid, rode gayly into town to look for sin." But War Post had decided to reform and that caused To·m Larpent' s predicament. The townspeople were going to hang him. 27 Unlike other Crane characters, Tom Larpent is not what one would consider flawed. He has brains and confidence. In fact, he was "a chief factor in the life of the town." Having been educated "somewhere" he manipulates the ignorant and child-like sinners of War Post with his smooth talking. It seems, "men heeded him for the reason that they were not always certain as to what he was saying." Larpent is evil. He is a devil like "moonlight on the ice" - cold and attractive, but deceptively dangerous. 28 Partly through his ability to shame each hangman with a "forked-tongued remark" as to their character, Larpent is spared from immediate lynching. To add to the situation, Crane has a stagecoach arriving in town. Looking out its windows "six pale, horror-stricken faces" gazed upon the lynch scene "and the rough West stood in naked immorality before the eyes of the gentle East."29 This was not the time for newcomers to arrive in War Post. Not only is Larpent in a predicament, but the whole town is. The scene is comic, of course. Like other western tales, "Moonlight on the Snow" deals with the West in transition. War Post's standard of excellence, her evil, has become outdated. What Crane sarcastically refers to as "the serene-browed angel of peace" or real estate agent was now on the scene. This "angel was full of projects for taking comparatively useless bits of prairie and sawing them up into town lots, and making chaste and beautiful maps of his handiwork which shook the souls of people who had never been in the West."30 Crane's attitude seems to be to expose greed on several levels. Everyone swindles. Larceny is a way of life. Money is the motivating force no matter how one gets it - by selling gullible people "acres of red-hot dust" or by fleecing them at cards. The citizens of War Post do not understand their "naked immorality" in attempting to secure the future of the town by lining their pockets. Crane sees this western town as being engagingly disrepu- table. War Post cannot reform so their hopes for a land boom are futile aspirations. For humor, Crane distorts his earlier idea of virtue as motivational and "above and beyond" the pur- suit of wealth. The citizens never understand how thoroughly corrupt they are. They are small crooks trying to attract large crooks. Then there is Larpent. Since he makes his living off the stupidity of the people in and around War Post, he has no reason to want to see any change. All of them are still a long way from practicing virtue and morality.

The idea of the importance of virtue and morality is prom- 34 ~ inent in this story because the whole town, save one man, claims it wants to reform. To these simple-minded 1' thugs and thieves" a new law against killing is sufficient proof of their conver­ sion to law-abiding ways. Yet, the basis of their reforming movement is greed. "War Post resolved to be virtuous" only be­ cause they might get rich. Larpent, of course, understands better than the citizens the degree of "treachery and obscenity and merciless greed" that is rampantin War Post. Their attempt at reforming will be futile as it is only a superficial effort. The moral aspirations are false ones. The four stories show that Crane enjoyed showing men in predicaments of their own making. Motivations are based upon value systems which reflect the individual's degree of intelli­ gence or experience. The end result is always the same: there is a certain absurdity about man in his world. Chapter Three Nature and Man

In Crane's early writings, such as his Sullivan County Sketches, nature's role was one of beauty and benevolence. Na- ture had the capacity to revitalize man's senses and to fill his

~ being with the meaning of life. Nature refreshed, was something apart, a place to go. It hummed with life and activity:

The sun gleamed merrily upon the waters, the gaunt, towering tree trunks, and the stumps lying like spat­ ters of wood which had dropped from the clouds. Troops of blue and silver darning needles danced over the surface. Bees bustled about the weeds which grew in the shallow places. Butterflies flickered in the air. Down in the water, millions of fern branches quavered and hid mysteries. 1

Nature formed either a pleasant background for the antics of the four men of these stories and sketches or in the darkness it took on strange and awesome shapes. In any case, there is a fairy tale quality to the natural setting that is a large part of these stories. A metamorphosis often takes place in the na- ture of Crane's early works. One must assume that Crane read Emerson. In a letter to his friend, John Hilliard, Crane quotes Emerson as if he res- pected his views: "As Emerson said, 'There should be a long logic beneath the story, but it should be kept carefully out of sight.•rr2 It is not unlikely, then, that Crane also valued

35 36

Emerson's views on nature, for he gives the physical universe the same qualities and importance in man's life. Nature is all beauty and good; it can do no evil. Crane's feeling is "poetic," as he observes nature withal- most religious reverence. An excerpt from Emerson's "Nature" sounds like the description in Crane's "Mr. Binks' Day Off" of a New York City clerk's day in the country:

To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxi­ ous work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is ~man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself.3

This, in essence, is what will happen to Mr. Binks. The power of nature will draw him out of "the din and craft of the street" to the country where he will enjoy restoration and revitaliza- tion. The green of spring tells Mr. Binks it is time to go to the country. It is time to leave the city and breathe the air and listen to the trees, to consider one's past and one's future. For Mr. Binks, "the million leaves looked into his soul and said something sweet and pure in an unforgotten song, the melody of his past." When the Binkses reach the country, "the mighty and mystic hymn of nature, whose melody is in each landscape" will appeal to their "elemental selves."4 Nature is idyllic. Mother Earth will take care of her children. Mr. Binks and his family com- mune with nature and go back to the city strengthened. It has been a religious experience. Nature has instilled them with 37 peace, faith in the ages of man, renewal of love for each other. In The Red Badge of Courage, nature retains a soft, femi­ nine aspect like "a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy."5 She stood by, always there, as escape from the devilment of the battlefield. As Henry runs from battle, nature at first throws up obstacles in his path. It does not want him yet. He is in- vading sacred precincts. Therefore, "the swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world. He could not conciliate the forest. As he made his way, it was always call­ ing out protestations."6 Deeper into the forest Henry flees finding, to his mind, reassurances that his behavior in running from battle was cor- rect and compatible with nature's law. Nature is like a mother and, as in "Mr. Binks' Day Off," Henry is a recreant child re- turning for a renewal of spirit and strength. But Henry goes too far - trying to lose himself instead of trying to find him- self. At length he mindlessly invades nature's "chapel." It was "a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half light."?

But, in reaching this chapel, Henry is thrown by the branches into the corpse of the dead soldier. He has invaded a sacred place of the dead. Once there he cannot get out. His departure is impeded as if the place will not let him go. Na- ture's chapel is only for the dead. Henry must get back out and rejoin the living, back to his duty in the war. Like Emerson, Crane endows nature with the powers of a be- 38

nevolent deity. That being the situation, nature is always right. It supplies the needs of man in his world. It furnishes him with grace, gives him strength, helps him to refocus and to find himself. Nature, in short, is necessary to health of mind and body. Man needs nature. And for all of his life before going to the West Crane knew and considered nature in these terms. To a person from the East this is quite understandable. In the East nature was under control, relatively tame, with fields and forests delineated by man's fences. Nature was an inspiring change from closeby city environments. Emerson said, "Nature never wears a mean appearance."8 Crane seems to have believed that. Then he went west. His first stop was Nebraska. While there Crane recorded the worst devastation and ruin the farmers of the region had ever known. The drought was caused by nature's forces; nature no longer seemed a benign deity:

The farmers were helpless, with no weapon against this terrible and inscrutable wrath of nature, were specta­ tors at the strangling of their hopes, their ambitions all that they could look to from their labor. It was as if upon the massive altar of the earth, their homes and their families were being offered in sacrifice to the wrath of some blind and pitiless deity.9

Suddenly Crane was finding out that nature can be unfair. These farmers, caring people who tended the land, were being punished for their efforts. Nature was killing crops and starving out farmers:

These farmers now found themselves existing in a vir­ tual desert. The earth from which they had wrested each morsel which they had put into their mouths had 39

now abandoned them. Nature made light of her obliga­ tion under the toil of these men. This vast tract was not a fit place for the nomads of Sahara.10

Nature that killed was, no doubt, something new for Crane to consider firsthand. During his stay in Nebraska Crane also experienced a vio- lent blizzard, further evidence of nature's malignancy. This fury of nature's combined with the previous onslaughts of killer winds prompted Crane to write that "it is co·mmensurate with other things, that this tempest should come at precisely the time when it will be remarkable if certain of the people endure it."11

Crane came out of these events deeply impressed by the courage of the Nebraskans battered by these malignant forces; he would not forget their battles against nature's forces. And at the same time he could well appreciate the power of nature to humble man. He would never again see nature as a mother im- age suggesting safety and respite from the city and war. Travelling across Texas to Mexico, Crane experienced an- other kind of nature. It was a 11 sea 11 of mesquite stretching for miles uninterrupted in all directions. Travellers on the train would hunger for 11 color, form, action1112 to break the monotony. Berryman writes i~ his biography of Crane, 11 The ride from San An tonic to Mexico City i·mpressed Crane very deeply. He had known all his life Nature that delighted and moved and in darkness frightened, but not, until now, Nature that compelled while standing apart." He goes on to say that 11 Nature, Crane 40 I'

decided, was not interested in man, even as an enemy." 13 Thus, the whole picture of the relationship between man and nature was changing for Crane. The change finally allowed Crane to dis- cover a new conflict in life; the tension that exists between man and nature. According to Cady:

Nature is immutable, yet susceptible of manipulation; between man and his environment there is a natural tension with each being unable to dominate the other, except temporarily. Here is the root of the theme that runs through much of Crane's later fiction.14

The impression of the vast area in Texas, ominously still, devoid of action or color, would lead Crane to wonder about the lives of the few sheepherders that had their flocks in the mes- quite. He may have wondered then at the effect of such land on a man's mind. He watched "a dusky sheepherder in peaked som- brero and clothes the color of tanbark, standing beside the track, his inscrutable visage turned toward the train." Besides affecting man directly, this world of mesquite surrounded and overpowered the few structures men had erected. Crane watched

and saw that "occasionally a little ranch appeared half-buried in the bushes.1115 Nature had no bounds. The mesquite "see·med to heave like a sea." To the passengers "the track swung westward and ex- tended as straight as a rapier blade toward the rose-colored sky from whence the sun had vanished. 1116 Crane saw an endless, lonely, desolate land stretching away front, back, and sideways. No wonder he was i·mpressed. This kind of natural setting to an Easterner would have been overwhelming. 41

Reaching Mexico, Crane found the wide valleys and majestic mountains awesome. He wrote, "No one feels like talking in the presence of these mountains that stand like gods on the world, for fear that they might hear. 1117 Essentially dwarfed by such creations,, the young man from New Jersey could feel the power of nature to dominate and to diminish. If the plains of Nebraska seemed hostile and the mesquite of Texas appeared awesome, the land of Mexico overpowered. The brilliant Mexican sun intensified what it illuminated, devoting

"its energy to making high lights, bringing everything forward, making colors fairly volcanic." A group of men in serapes "made a chromatic delirium," 18 the colors were so vivid.

Crane will later see nature's achievements blending with man's. The Indian came to seem as an extension of the natural world amid the cactus. At one point, Crane saw where ''the brown faces of Indian women and babes peered from these masses of prickly green." And further along "in the stream that flowed near there was a multitude of heads with long black hair."l9

This was Crane's introduction to the poverty-stricken yet con- tented Indians of Nexico he would later write about in "Above

All Things•" Even then he could see the easy alliance that existed between the Indian and nature. Crane writes:

It requires wisdom to see a brown woman in one garment crouched listlessly in the door of a low adobe hut while a naked brown baby sprawls on his stomach in the dust of the roadway - it requires wisdom to see this thing and to see it a million times and yet to say: "Yes, this is important to the scheme of nature. This is part of her economy. It would not be well if it had never been."20 42

Another report from Crane in Mexico City reveals a new con­ ception of nature and man taking shape in the young writer's mind. Mesquite and mountains impressed him, and following that he had observed the quiet blend of Indian with the natural sur­ roundings of soil and stream. As a result, Crane began to de­ velop what Katz refers to as a "Naturmystik. That vision is of a universe which - as a poem in War Is Kind declares - has no sense of obligation to man." 21 Katz refers to Crane's "The Viga Canal" where Crane attains a "unifying vision" between man and nature. An easy blend took place to form one soft picture. Floating down the canal, "a wind, cool and fragrant, reminiscent of flowers and grass and lakes came from those mystic shadows - places whence the two silver peaks had vanished. The boatman held his pole under his arm while he swiftly composed a cigarette •'' Man is painted in­ to his natural backdrop without a spiritual involvement. Nature has no religious or god-like qualities; it is just there, un­ concerned with man's doings or with his mishaps: "There was a sudden shrill yell from the darkness. There had almost been a collision. In the blue velvet of the sky the stars had gathered in thousands. 1122 Crane came to see nature as neither friendly nor hostile but as something boundless and indifferent. Instead of its being a sanctuary apart, nature is a force ever-present, the disinterested bystander in the affairs of men. At this point, then, the young writer, growing in knowledge of the world around him, could no longer superimpose on his stories any preconceived 43 and amiable relationship between nature and man. Nature, like the Indian, was inscrutable and indifferent. Yet nature, always present and unchanging~ had the power to generate tension be­ tween men as it does in "A Man and Some Others." In this un- usual story, Crane used nature as backdrop, stage and player in a tragedy of man. Crane writes in the opening paragraphs that "in the silence of these plains the sudden and childish banging of a tin pan could have made an iron-nerved man leap into the air. 1123 From the beginning one cannot disregard the emphasis that Crane puts upon the incredible size, emptiness, and above all, the silence of the sea of mesquite in Texas. A man alone could find it nerve-wracking. Explaining the feeling Crane wri tea, ''At times a sheepherder could see, miles away, the long, white streamers of dust rising from the feet of another's flock, and the inter­ est became intense." Six lives will be lost in a gunfight amid the eery stillness of the plains. And beyond that furious ac­ tion will prevail the "long silence that brooded."24 As if it were necessary to break up the monotony of the location, Bill, a sheepherder, is set up as the prey in a hunt-and-kill game. Crane emphasizes the sad and mysterious misfortune of men who find they must fight. Theirs is a futile existence compared to nature's patterns of life. Book IV begins and ends with the "fire chorus." Against the silent, somber background of the dark mesquite, the flames from Bill's campfire "capered merrily" filling the silence with their "ancient melody." It is a mes­ sage telling of "the inconsequence of individual tragedy - a 44 message that is in the boom of the sea, the sliver of the wind through the grassblades, the silken clash of hemlock boughs. 1125 The message seems to be repeated in several forms. But man does not listen. He does not hear that he is inconsequential to the world. In its timeless way, the forces of nature will go on indifferently witnessing the clashes between men, their killings and their tragedies. The natural background Crane sets for the impending ambush parallels the opening sentence of Book I describing an enormous, quiet land devoid of humans. But in Book IV it is night.

Blending into the mesquite, the Mexicans move like "monster lizards" into the area of Bill's camp. This is their terrain and they are as a part of it. Bill is the intruder. Still, nature does not take sides, and the foliage which hides could just as well disclose a man's hiding place. In the case of the Mexicans, "the branches, the leaves, that are fain to cry out when death approaches in the wilds, were frustrated by these un­ canny bodies." The terrain could be useful to either side, but the Mexicans, with their capacity to become part of the land, have the edge. The white man cannot easily blend. He must use his wits against the enemy: Bill tricks the Mexicans into the light of the dying campfire. A shot rings out and one man is killed. Then to punctuate the lonely setting, "the silence re­ turned to the wilderness. 1126 Into daylight nature goes on promoting life while the men go about their killing game. Bill yells across to his enemy: 45

"Hello, Jose!" he called, amiable for satire's sake. "Got your old blunderbusses loaded up again yet?" The stillness had returned to the plain. The sun's brilliant rays swept over the sea of mesquit, paint­ ing the far mists of the west with faint rosy light, and high in the air some great bird flew toward the south.27

As in "The Viga Canal" nature is just there, unconcerned with the activities of men. Stillness covers the land giving any sounds and events greater clarity. The Mexicans, as before, have made themselves invisible in the landscape. Like lizards previously, now, yelling in return to Bill's taunts, they are likened to wildcats. Still like creatures of the wilderness, they come in "swiftly and in silence" for the kill when Bill, their prey, is wounded. 28 It seems that the Mexicans with their ability to become absorbed into the landscape give this story part of its fright- ening aspects. They are in nature while Bill and the stranger are outside. This would account for the stranger's sudden re- action of fright at the end when "all at once he made a gesture of fright and looked wildly around him." The stranger fears everything around him. He must get out quickly before another attack. Behind bushes "nodding and whispering" of the incon- sequence of individual tragedy, men lie contorted in violent death, and, once again, the "stillness and the peace of the wilderness" returns. 29 The horror and mayhem are as nothing to nature. From this story we see that Crane's trip taught him two things about man's relationship with nature. Both are funda- 46 mental changes in his outlook. First, nature is not a refuge or sanctuary; it is simply there, an indifferent force, yet one capable of influencing the minds of men. Second, man has the capacity to blend with nature losing his human characteristics. Crane could not have arrived at these conclusions in the East where denser population distorts the role of the natural envi- ronment. In Mexico Crane became a changed person, spending much of his time with the Indians and having his face "turn the color of a brick sidewalk." Emulating the natives, he had let nature take him over by living in the mountains and becoming "an out­ cast" for a time. We are to assume he was content in that role of developing "mountaineer senses" until he saw an American girl and became homesick.30

One further remark by Crane attests to his changed outlook brought about by the western tour. In a letter to Willis Brooks

Hawkins, Crane says, "Garland will wring every westerner by the hand and hail him as a frank honest man. I wont. No,sir. But what I contend for is the atmosphere of the west which really is frank and honest and is bound to make eleven honest men for one pessimistic thief."31 Considering Crane's new regard for nature and its role in men's lives, perhaps one can interpret his statement to mean that the western landscape inspires one to understand universal truths. Not all men will respond to the frank and honest atmosphere but most will. In "The Blue Hotel" the same ideas can be discerned. .Na- ture in this story is represented by the flat land of Nebraska 47 and by the blizzard. Outside becomes a howling, cold emptiness in contrast to the small, warm room at the blue hotel. Indif- ferent to the welfare of man, nature can not be ignored:

As the men trooped heavily back into the front room, the two little windows presented views of a turmoil­ ing sea of snow. The huge arms of the wind were mak­ ing attempts - mighty, circular, futile - to embrace the flakes as they sped. A gate-post like a still man with a blanched face stood aghast amid this profligate fury.32

The description of the post like a man's "blanched face" being ravaged by wind and snow evokes a feeling of the insignificance and the inconsequence of individual tragedy once again. This is Crane's comment on man in general and his futility. Man is a puny thing when set apart and contrasted to the forces of na- ture.

Like the events of "A Man and Some Others," those of "The Blue Hotel" could not have occurred without nature's help. The blizzard forced confinement upon the men, promoting a war of nerves leading to violence. In the first place, "through the windows could be seen the snow turning blue in the shadow of dusk." Like the color of the hotel, it is an unsettling shade, one that to Crane suggested "darkness and violence."33 Then, "the wind tore at the house and some loose thing beat regularly against the clap-boards like a spirit tapping. 11 34

The fight scene, necessarily outside, has the same quality of violent ritual enacted against the backdrop of a nature which neither condones nor condemns. Just the look of the men before combat suggests the grim and inevitable about to take place. 48

It was as if "the entire prelude had in it a tragedy greater than the tragedy of action, and this aspect was accentuated by the long mellow cry of the blizzard, as it sped the tumbling and wailing flakes into the black abyss of the south. 11 35

Nature is not monotonous and silent as in "A Man and Some Others" but raging, seeming to be at war with men instead of indifferent. The effect is curiously the same. Man reacts and becomes aggressive with the same results: nature does not care if men fight and kill each other. It does not care if it hin- ders or helps. Man is on his own to live or die in dealing with the elements:

The Easterner was startled to find that they were out in a wind that seemed to come direct from the shadowed arctic floes. He heard again the wail of the snow as it was flung to its grave in the south. He knew now that all this time the cold had been sinking into him deeper and deeper, and he wondered that he had not perished.36

When the Swede leaves the blue hotel he enjoys the bliz- zard. He is at one with nature in te·mperament. The Swede, it can be said, blends with nature. He is in it and it suits him:

The Swede, tightly gripping his valise, tacked across the face of the storm as if he carried sails. He was following a line of little naked gasping trees, which he knew must mark the way of the road. His face, fresh from the pounding of Johnnie's fists, felt more pleasure than pain in the wind and the driving snow.37

And when asked later about the weather, the Swede replied, "Yes, I like this weather. I like it. It suits me."3B The Swede is in harmony with the tempest. He has raged and done violence like the storm. One can see that the landscape and the storm 49

have been responsible in part for the extreme anxiety of the Swede. The area of Fort Romper is a flat, bleak, inhospitable land in turmoil. The Swede's agitation grew as the intensity of the blizzard progressed. As in "A Man and Some Others'' nature has contributed to the developing tension between the men. Here in the story Crane makes a controversial comment about man and his relationship with his world:

We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tem­ pest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth. One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life.39

Man is a parasite to the planet. None of nature's forces can com~letely eradicate this persistent pestilence. He is a pest now, a small annoyance in a big world. Yet the individual can survive nature's ravages by his sheer vanity and self-esteem, by in essence, his state of mind and will to survive. He gets no help fro·m any corner - nature or other men.

The agitated Swede's persistent conviction that he was going to die sent him out of the hotel and into the blizzard. It was the law of self-preservation at work - he must desert the dangerous hotel. It was, therefore, a relief to be in the bliz- zard, alone and seeking new refuge. Fueled by his vanity the Swede could handle nature because it was honest and comprehen- sible. Its dangerous aspects were not subversive, they were plain. "One was a coxcomb not to die in it," writes Crane. 50

But the Swede gets along fine. It is men he cannot handle. What will prove to be his destruction, and, on a higher level, the source of man's inevitable destruction is not nature but fellow man. Nature may be dangerous and violent at times but it can be understood. Man, in contrast, does not understand himself or the behavior of others. Therefore he has the poten­ tial for being much more deadly. And this the Swede will find out. The role of nature has changed considerably, then, from Crane's early nature "whose melody is in each landscape" and who is "a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy." The incon­ sequence of individual tragedy is everywhere and nature goes her own way. Nature has become an all-powerful force, indestruct­ ible, repetitious and uninterested in men except as they are merely other parasites to be tolerated. This is man's relation­ ship with nature- a far cry from Crane's original Emersonian, Eastern concepts. Chapter Four The Responses of Man

In considering man in his world, one of the most important

things to Crane was the study of emotions. Before writing~ Red Badge of Courage, Crane voiced his impatience with war

stories in a letter to his friend, Co~win Linson, which reads: "I wonder that some of these fellows don't tell how they felt in those scraps! They spout eternally of what they did, but they are as emotionless as rocks!" 1 It was not real if the ter- ror of a situation was not somehow recorded. Early in his writ- ing career Crane made a point of including many scenes of ter- ror. Crane's early fascination with the grotesque and the ter- rifying perhaps stems from his mother's insistence that little Stephen fear nothing. Anything that caused him to cry he had to face squarely and bravely. At the very young age of two or three years, for instance, ''she simply told him not to be afraid when he was held one day on the back of a white horse that he remembered long after as a savage beast.•• 2 Still, before and after that episode, little Stephen had his nightmares - of riders on black horses coming out of the sea - and he would wake up screaming. Then, when Stephen Crane's father died, there was the cold horror of death. The entire affair of the funeral shocked the small boy and scenes remained distressingly vivid

51 52

to Crane years later. As Berryman describes it, "The whisper- ing, the hymns, the heavy odors, the darkness, his tall brothers in black, were ghastly to a thin small boy, and he was terrified when one of his hands brushed a handle of the coffin, cold and silvern."3 Later, too, there was an incident at college. What hap- pened when fraternity members tried to break down Crane's door to initiate him is told by one of the sophomores that crowded into his roo·m:

Steve was petrified with fear and stood in a grotesque nightgown in one corner of the room with a revolver in his hand. His usual sallow complexion seemed to me a ghastly green. Whether he ever pointed the revolver or not, I do not know, but when I saw him, both arms were limp and the revolver was pointed to the floor. 4

Based upon these early episodes, it does not seem possible that Crane would enjoy the experience of sheer terror and yet Thomas Beer, Crane's first biographer, insists that he did. He writes, "let it be stated that the mistress of this boy's mind was fear. His search in aesthetic was governed by terror as

that of ta·mer men is governed by the desire of women. 11 5 It seems, then, that perhaps in an attempt to overcome that which was fearful, young Crane got into the habit of turning his thoughts inward to the resultant sensations. At times of ex- treme duress, he probably noticed how alert and responsive all the senses are. The excitement became a pleasure. In most of Crane's Sullivan County tales his character, the little man, gets into fearful situations. Orten he is left alone with strange and frightening people or animals. Events 53

occur frequently at night, to add to the terror of the moment.

In one story, the little man imagines that a mountain is after him trying to crush him. It is a moment of intense excitement:

The mountain was approaching. The little man scurried, sobbing, through the thick growth. He felt his brain turning to water. He van- quished brambles with mighty bounds. But after a time he came again to the foot of the mountain. "God!" he howled, "it's been follerin' me." He groveled. Casting his eyes upward made circles swirl in his blood. "I'm shackled, I guess," he moaned. As he felt the heel of the mountain about to crush his head, he sprang again to his feet. He grasped a handful of small stones and hurled them. "Damn you!" he shrieked loudly.- The pebbles rang against the face of the mountain.6

This and other situations the little man gets into seem sheer fantasy. They are highly imaginative, building up to the fear- ful encounters, then describing the reactions so we know the extreme emotional dissolution the little man is suffering. The high point of each yarn is the terror he experiences. Something important happens in each of these stories: the ordinary world changes into a nightmare place. A man can be a croaking ghoul while an angry woman can seem a giantess:

"Villain!" shrieked the giantess. The little man felt the winding fingers crush the flesh and bones of his arm. The giantess began to roar like a dragon. She bent over and braced herself. Then her iron arms forced the little man to his knees. He knew he was going to be eaten. "Gawd,'' he moaned.?

These examples of Crane's early writings show his very spirited imagination at work and his power to take the ordinary and to transform it into something monstrous. The transforma- 54

tions, however, seem only to be the descriptions of a little boy's bad dreams. In his first novel, Maggie, Crane makes further use of his penchant for imagining nightmares. The scenes of mayhem within the Johnson's apartment are beyond realism. They are gro- tesquely comic, not unlike the scenes of the little man in his terrors. They strike one as not quite genuine but instead highly unreal. The boy, Jimmie, hears his parents fighting in one characteristic scene. There are "howls and curses, groans and shrieks - a confused chorus as if a battle were raging." Then, too, there was the "crash of splintering furniture." And when he feels it is safe to go into the apartment, Jimmie sees the aftermath of his parents' confrontation:

A glow from the fire threw red hues over the bare floor, the cracked and soiled plastering, and the overturned and broken furniture. In the middle of the floor lay his mother asleep. In one corner of the room his father's limp body hung across the seat of a chair.8

This nightmare scene occurs with great regularity in the Johnson household. Crane's intent was to shock the reader with the de- tails of a hellish home life. While Maggie disgusts it enter- tains with all the color and excitement of grotesque fantasy. The young writer is still exercising his unusual power to create bizarre experience for the reader. Emphasis is on chaos, dis- turbance, danger and figHting - all vividly described. Later, in The Red Badge of Courage, the nightmare comes closer to being one person's real experience and it takes on a dreamlike quality. Henry, in battle, is as one living a night- 55 mare world:

Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets.9

Besides the feeling of being suffocated, Henry, "in his battle sleep'' hears low-toned noises, snarls, imprecations and prayers coming from the other men and sounding like a wild, barbaric song, "strange and chantlike." Crane transformed war into an- other bizarre, unreal experience. As in Maggie, the scenes which should be horrible impress one as grotesque fantasy. Still in his nightmare, Henry sees that "underfoot there were a few ghastly forms motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic contortions. Arms were bent and hea.ds were turned in incredible ways." 10 There is no feeling in the description of this scene. It is as though the protagonist were numb and walking through an emotionless, unreal world. Crane's treatment of a youth's first battle experience is to describe it as subconscious participation. When it was over, "the youth awakened slowly," having performed his role as a sol- dier like one in a trance with everything as "jolted dreams." The battle experience was something never perfect to him after- ward but remained in his mind as a ·mass of blurred shapes. 11 As in Maggie, it is the reader, not the character, who re- ceives the shock of the nightmare world. The descriptive scenes of a hellish environment have an objective quality. Although 56 pulled into the setting, we the readers do not feel the physical impact such sti·mu·lating situations would have on an individual living through them. It would take Crane's brush with death to force him into a realistic description of terror. While the early examples of Crane's nightmare moments are dream-like, grotesque fantasy, it was an experience in Mexico, a real-life nightmare, that gave Crane the chance he needed to know firsthand what a truly frightening situation was like:

Crane's own initiation into the adventures of the Wild West, according to his first biographer, Thomas Beer, occurred in the badlands south of the Valley of Mexico when Crane and his guide, Miguel Itorbide, were chased on horseback by Ramon Colorado and his bandits.12

He would get the opportunity, finally, to examine his own sensa- tiona when close to danger and possible death. Fights were nothing new to him, as Beer explains, but Crane had not felt menaced before his ordeal in Mexico:

He had watched terrific brawls while, dressed in his worst clothes, he sat in Bowery dives and lodging houses, but he had never been so closely threatened and the detail of his emotions pumps through "Horses­ One Dash" in ~ clear ripple of self-examination, sar­ donic always. 3

Some of Crane's responses and sensations, if we can trust his descriptions in "One Dash Horses," are surprising. In the first place, the moment it seems that there will be trouble, Richard- son, the protagonist, pulls his revolver closer to him and dreams "of his far and beloved north." In response to his over- hearing a Mexican say he plans to rob and kill him, the hero re- acts in this fashion: 57

Richardson felt the skin draw tight around his mouth, and his kneejoints turned to bread. He slowly came to a sitting posture, glaring at the motionless blanket at the far end of the room. This stiff and mechanical movement, accomplished entirely by the muscles of the waist, must have looked like the rising of a corpse in the wan moonlight which gave everything a hue of the grave. 14

The American then feels as Crane must have: first, that, men- tally he escaped the scene and second, that, physically, his body rose to an upright position on its own by instinct. At this point, Richardson freezes; even his mind will not work. His terror "destroyed that slow and careful process of thought by means of which he understood Mexican. 111 5 Richardson can no longer understand what is being said. He does not know, then, what the Mexicans plan to do with him.

They enter and Richardson continues to stare transfixed "not fearful, not dauntless, not anything that could be interpreted." This odd reaction prompts a delay. The Mexican intruders do not quite understand what to do next. The leader of the group "must have been disconcerted" at the lack of movement from the Ameri- can "for he continued to pose as a grandee, with more and more sublimity, until it would have been easy for him to have fallen over backward." Likewise, blinking their beady little eyes, the Mexican's "companions were swaying in a very drunken manner."

Through it all Richardson sits staring. The whole affair has become a farce. 16 Perhaps, if this is what actually did happen, Crane saved himself and his servant by not making a move. As Berryman puts it, "Crane found that he was able to feel terror and act as if 58 he did not feel terror and so survive. 111 7 In any case, what has occurred is not what one would expect to happen; yet, because it seems so improbable and unheroic, paradoxically, it could be true.

The horrible moment continues as the American stares and the Mexicans wait. Crane examines this genuine nightmare in de- tail so the reader can appreciate the tension of the situation;

To Richardson, whose nerves were tingling and twitch­ ing like live wires and whose heart jolted inside him, this pause was a long horror; and for these men who could so frighten him there began to swell in him a fierce hatred - a hatred that made him long to be ca­ pable of fighting all of them, a hatred that made him capable of fighting all of them.18

Crane gives believable, reasonable treatment to the rela- tionship of fear and hatred when one is under stress. As we saw above, Richardson's immobility frustrates the energy building up in his body. Ev~ry nerve has come to life. Because he cannot move, the fear turns to hatred and he feels very strong and ca- pable. A trapped or threatened person could experience these sensations.

In contrast, here is an earlier example of the same transi- tion from fear to hatred. He describes Henry Fleming's frus- tration:

He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered ani­ mal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to run forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast.19 59

Here he attempts to pinpoint all the youth was going through by

giving examples. In "One Dash-Horses'' Crane concentrates on describing Richardson's bodily sensations, allowing one to ex-

perience the slow, agonizing tension of the scene. While Henry's situation is metaphorically and colorfully imagined, Richardson's is felt. This adventure of Crane's provokes a change in his future representation of nightmares. First, however, Crane expands the real nightmare he endured into a study of sense perceptions and physical responses. This occurs in "The Five White Mice." For

the first time Crane uses a stream of consciousness technique that carefully selects and magnifies a terrified youth's mind.

Like Richardson, the New York Kid will, for one horrible moment, stare "transfixed" at a menacing I".exican face. Only now, the flashing images within his mind and the quick surges of emotion on his adversary's face take minute description:

The sober Kid saw this face as if he and it were alone in space - a yellow mask smiling in eager cruelty, in satisfaction, and above all it was lit with sinister decision. As for the features they were reminiscent of an unplaced, a forgotten type which really resem­ bled with precision those of a man who had shaved him three times in Boston in 1888. But the expression burned his mind as sealing-wax burns the palm and fas­ cinated, stupefied, he actually watched the progress of the man's thought toward the point where a knife would be wrenched from its sheath. The emotion, a sort of mechanical fury, a breeze made by electric fans, a rage made by vanit , smote the dark counte­ nance in wave after wave.20

This entire passage has taken an instant in time. It would seem that only from experience could the writer note "wave after wave" of emotion passing over the face of a person getting 60

ready to kill. And in the midst of the horror of that moment, Crane's mind comically associates the features of the sinister face with one of a barber in Boston. That illustrates the un- predictable nature of the mind, when, in time of terror, it can recall and compare facial characteristics. In parallel action again, the New York Kid, like Richard­ son, grips the revolver at his side. Only now the flash of split-second thought about the weapon itself comes forth as "he recalled that upon its black handle was stamped a hunting scene in which a sportsman in fine leggings and a peaked cap was tak­ ing aim at a stag less than one eighth of an inch away. 1121

Certain he is to die, the New York Kid's mind races through scenes of his family, views "perfectly stereoptican, flashing in and away" leaving "one quick dismal impression." Finally, as if to cap the wonder of all he is experiencing, the Kid smells, "the scent of newmown hay" and "he breathed it as he waited for pain and a sight of the unknown. 1122 With "The Five White Mice" Crane gives the nightmare expe­ rience one final, thorough examination. He has exhausted the effects of terror on the individual. Each vision or feeling is scrutinized for the depths it might reveal about human response. For Crane, this examination has been a working-out of his imagi­ nary fears. The analysis of his own experience has brought the nightmare into perspective. It will cease to be a nightmare. Like one initiated, Crane will leave behind his transforming of the fearful and exploration of the sensations begot.

One paragraph from "A Man and Some Others" contains the 61 last of the nightmare that possibly reflects Crane's real adven- ture:

The lightning action of the next few moments was of the fabric of dreams to the stranger. The muscular struggle ·may not be real to the drowning man. His mind may be fixed on the far, straight shadows back of the stars, and the terror of them. And so the fight, and his part in it, had to the stranger only the qual­ ity of a picture half drawn. The rush of feet, the spatter of shots, the cries, the swollen faces seen like masks on the smoke, resembled a happening of the night. 2.5

The happening of the night, the half-drawn picture could well be an accurate description of Crane's terror with the Mex- ican bandits. It is enough at this point for Crane to leave the horror of that terrible point in time to a single paragraph. He will have no need to probe his feelings again. Having met the

"phantoms" and survived the ordeal, Crane had now "named" them and could leave them behind. The nightmare of transformed shapes, phantoms, grotesque scenes began with Crane's own unex- plained fears, possibly the end of one of his childhood terrify- ing experiences that left him with bad dreams. Perhaps his own intangible fears dealt with and overcome, Crane was able to come of age. He could, for example, focus upon the unknown fears of others. Why does one man's dream be- come another man's nightmare? In his study of man in his world, the hidden fears that subconsciously direct lives fascinated Crane. While the West represented new life and opportunity to some, it could just as well mean death and violence to another. In "The Blue Hotel" three men get off the train at Fort

Romper, Nebraska, and accept the hospitality of the aggressive 62 proprietor of the Palace Hotel. While two guests nonchalantly receive what the new place has to offer, the third is immedi­ ately on his guard. Crane's study of behavior is now outside himself. The nightmare, horror and fear will be some unknown something within another's mind that causes him to behave irra­ tionally. The living nightmare, then, still exists in Crane's work. It has simply gone underground. It is seen to be an intangible state, a thing existing within a mind. Nourished by outside influences, it affects that person's behavior. We know by the Swede's actions that he is seeing and feeling warning signals of violence and death. While playing a card game with the others, the Swede begins to make strange comments and to act as though "formidably menaced" to the point where "he shivered and turned white near the corners of his mouth." 24 The reader is made aware, as are eventually all the other characters, that the Swede is i·magining terrible things, devising an internal night- mare. What exactly has caused this reaction is never completely clear as we remain aloof as spectators to the tragedy. It is not reasonable to attribute the Swede's terror solely to the myth of the Wild West. If he were so frightened he would never have gotten on the westbound train in the first place. It is more acceptable to believe that the blue hotel, "screaming and howling" against the plain winter landscape triggered a subcon­ scious, unspecified terror. That terror took over, crippling the mind of the Swede. He found himself in a nightmare of his 63

own making, "right in the middle of hell, 1126 surrounded by killers. His conscious justification for this fear could only be explained by his location - the West. People out west were strange and violent, a fact constantly being reinforced by those around him. Getting off the train at Fort Romper, the Swede with the others is met by Scully, the proprietor of the hotel, who worked "seductions" upon him and the other train passengers, making them "prisoners" in such a way that they could not "escape" him. Then, after that, once through the portals of the "enticing" blue hotel, the first sounds heard by the three travellers are of men quarreling in a little room over a card game. 27 The Swede, unlike his fellow new arrivals, responds ad- versely and perhaps realizing he cannot get back on the train feels absolutely trapped. In any case, Crane's examination of his death is complex. The Swede's private nightmare gradually becomes more intense, finally escaping his imagination into re- ality as he creates the violence he feared and, later, causes his own death.

From the beginning, the Swede, suspicious and wary, iso- lates himself and does not speak:

The Swede said nothing. He seemed to be occupied in making furtive estimates of each man in the room. One might have thought that he had the sense of silly sus­ picion which comes to guilt. He resembled a badly frightened man.2~

Although the inner turmoil of the Swede is outwardly becoming apparent, the other guests do not recognize it. Later his com- 64

ments and loud laughter surprised the group but "had no meaning" to them.

The breakdown in communication which begins here continues as the Swede's comment, "I suppose there have been a good many men killed in this roo~r 29 during a card game meets with varying degrees of hostility, from Johnnie's protests to the cowboy's insolence to the Easterner's cold passivity. These attitudes merely serve to confirm his fear that he is indanger, in fact, that all present are against him. At this point, entrenchment of the Swede's"nightmare fixa­ tion takes place. The man is seeing assassins surrounding him.

Each response, matching as it does the personality of its origi­ nator, is comprehended by the Swede as malicious and threaten­ ing. On the verge of hysteria, the Swede declares to Scully,

"These men are going to kill me. 11 30 With this statement it is clear how far the Swede has separated himself from reality. There has been nothing taking place so far that would suggest murder to the average mind. But the Swede's mind is full of nightmare death. Scully, for instance, carrying a lamp in the dark, resembles "a mur­ derer."31 Crane leaves the details of the Swede's obsession out. We do not know what is in his head. But the Swede's view- point, based upon his knowledge and experience, stimulates his

mind into conjuring up a dangerous situation. While he is in the blue hotel the Swede's impression does not change. Crane creates superb tension and mystery, not to mention frustration. In a few hours the frightened man's mind, 65 responding according to its limits, will cause the destruction of his body. And the men around this character, limited in understanding and experience, unwittingly aid in his demise be- cause they cannot stop him. Crane lets the reader know that the Swede's obsession will propel him. If a man looks for a nightmare of violence and death, he shall find it. A transformation of personalities takes place as the trembling Swede becomes the arrogant one. It is a quick one, turned on by liquor. At dinner, after having been encouraged to drink whiskey by Scully, "the Swede do·mi- neered the whole feast, and he gave it the appearance of a cruel bacchanal." Substantially changed, "he seemed to have grown taller'' and "he gazed, brutally disdainful, into every face."32 His change will be from one extreme to another. Like a diffi- cult child, the Swede continues to be a problem the others must tolerate. Now, with his fear turned to hatred, he is becoming dangerous. The Swede flares up over a game of cards, and, in contrast to his former disposition, roars like a demon, "Yes, fight! I'll show you what kind of a man I amtrr33 A complete reversal of behavior has taken place. The Swede is now out to prove his toughness. Fighting the boy, Johnnie, we see what kind of a man the Swede is. He is a brute, a fermi- dable fighter, and a lone figure:

The Swede instantly staggered to a little wind-waved tree and leaned upon it, breathing like an engine, while his savage and flamelit eyes roamed from face to face as the men bent over Johnnie. There was a splen­ dor of isolation in his situation at this time which the Easterner felt once when, lifting his eyes from 66

the man on the ground, he beheld that mysterious and lonely figure, waiting.34

The Swede's imaginings of violence so far have been fulfilled through his own doing. Crane shows the paradox of the strange man's situation. His mental fears are being forced into physi- cal reality. Without his realizing it he is bringing the night- mare he harbors to fulfillment. Conversely, when his moment of truth arrives at the saloon, the Swede is playing the role of a desperado and ruffian. Drunk and vicious, he attacks a decep- ti vely dangerous person by grabbing the_ gambler "frenziedly at the throat," and "dragging him from his chair."

In the next moment, for all the tumult he has provoked, the Swede is killed. Then, as if in payment for the chaos he has caused, the cash register records the Swede's murder thusly: "This registers the amount of your purchase.rr35 His nightmare of violent death in the West has been played out.

"The Blue Hotel" is Crane's effort to study one individual and his terror from the outside and to note the responses of others. Emotional tension is enhanced inside the hotel by the raging blizzard outside. The story is a frustrating study of how one man's imagination first disturbs all around, then man- ages to destroy its owner. Crane's association with fear has come full circle with this story. Before he could deal accu- rately with such a tale about a badly frightened person he had to be able to understand his own feelings under stress. For Crane, comprehension of real terror happened in the badlands of

Mexico in 1895 when he was chased by bandits. Chapter Five

Conclusion

During the five years in which Crane wrote the nine Western stories at the center of our attention, influences in addition to the Western tour helped to change his choice of material. To begin with, one must consider the matter of age and experience.

A young man born and raised on the populated east coast ventur­ ing for six months into comparative wilderness cannot escape being, to some degree, transformed by the journey - the clash of familiar with unfamiliar adding new dimension to his knowledge. As a hopeful young writer making the most of this significant opportunity, Stephen Crane did his best to be alert to differ­ ences he found in the West that might make interesting reports for Eastern readers.

Then, two events occurred between the spring of 1895 and the spring of 1896 that were crucial to Stephen Crane's develop­ ment as both man and writer. These events - one a catastrophe, the other a triumph -altered the direction of Crane's life and most assuredly had some influence on his work. To put this dis­ cussion of Stephen Crane's Western tour and his study of man in his world into proper perspective, these events deserve mention.

First, there was the overwhelming success of The Red Badge of Courage. While Crane travelled to the West, his Civil War story accumulated literary praise and acceptance in the East.

67 68

Upon returning to New York, Crane was to find himself, eventu­ ally, the center of attraction, thus effectively ending the quiet, Bohemian life he had grown accustomed to. His name would soon be linked to the Civil War and the depiction of man in bat­ tle. As war had made him famous, Crane, henceforth, would di­ rect his energies to producing more of the same in order to make a living.

Then, in March of 1896 Nellie Crouse with whom Crane was in love told him goodbye. Unlike other women Crane was associ­ ated with, Miss Crouse possessed aristocratic qualities. It was because of her that Crane hastily returned from Mexico and began to work on an ill-fated novel of love. Her rejection obviously damaged his aspirations for love and marriage, prompting him to write in his last letter to her his longing for the grave. So while the Western tour opened Crane's mind to new con­ cepts about humanity, the very favorable acceptance of The Red Badge of Courage, countered by the rebuff by Nellie Crouse, directed those concepts into new channels. One can only guess what course Crane's art would have taken if these significant events had not come so soon after the emotional and intellectual impact of the Western tour. Notes

Chapter One:

1 John Berryman, Stephen Crane (New York: William Sloane Association, 1950), p. 29; hereafter cited as Berryman. 2 Berryman, p. 16. 3 Berryman, p. 8. 4 Berryman, p. 14. 5 Berryman, p. 20. 6 Thomas Beer, Stephen Crane (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1926), p. 106; hereafter cited as Beer. 7 Edwin H. Cady, Stephen Crane (Boston: Twayne Pub., 1980), p. 31; hereafter cited as Cady. 8 Stephen Crane, Maggie in American Literature Survey: Nation and Region 1860 - 1900, ed. Milton R. Stern and Seymour L. Gross, 3rd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), pp.437-438. (All further references to Maggie are from this source and will hereafter be cited as Crane, Maggie.)

9 Crane, Maggie, p. 441. 10 Milton R. Stern and Seymour L. Gross, eds., American Literature Survey: Nation and Region 1860 - 1900 (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 432. 1 1 Crane, Maggie, p. 487. 12 Stephen Crane, Stephen Crane's Letters, ed. R. w. Stall­ man and Lillian Gilkes (New York: New York University Press, 1960), p. 158; hereafter cited as Crane, Letters.) 13 Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty and E. Hudson Long, eds., The American Tradition in Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1956), II, p. 941.

69 70

14 Stephen Crane, George's Mother, in Bowery Tales Vol.I of The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969), p. 163. 15 Stephen Crane, "An Experiment in Misery," in Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane, ed. Thomas A. Gullason (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 1963), p. 147. (All further references to Crane's works from this text will be cited as Gullason with story title and page number.) 16 Berryman, p. 54. l7 Joseph Katz, ed. Stephen Crane in the West and Mexico, (Kent State University Press, 1970), pp. ix-x; hereafter cited as Katz. 18 Beer, p. 119.

19 Stephen Crane, "Stephen Crane in Mexico," in The Western Writings of Stephen Crane, ed. Frank Bergon (New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1979), p. 211. (All further references to Crane's works from this text will be cited as Bergon with story title and page number.) 20 Bergon, "The Wise Men," pp. 43-54. 21 Bergon, "The Five White Mice," p. 59. 22 Berryman, p. 1 10. 23 Berryman, p. 26. 24 Bergon, "The Five White Mice," p. 66.

25 Bergon, "A Texas Legend, 11 p. 68. 26 Bergon, "A Texas Legend," p. 71. 27 Bergon, "A Letter from Stephen Crane to Willis Brooks Hawkins," p. 222. 28 Bergon, "A Texas Legend," p. 71. 29 Bergon, "Stephen Crane in Texas," p. 191. 30 Crane, Letters, p. 126.

31 Bergon, "Twelve O'Clock," p. 125.

32 Bergon, "Twelve O'Clock," p. 130.

33 Bergon, "Twelve O'Clock," p. 127. 71 ~

Chapter Two:

Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," p. 202. 2 Bergon, "Above All Things," p. 218. 3 Katz, p. xxv. 4 Bergon, ''Above All Things," p. 218. 5 Bergon, "Above All Things," p. 218. 6 Bergen, "Above All Things," pp. 219-220. 7 Bergon, "Above All Things," p. 220. 8 Bergen, "Above All Things," p. 220. 9 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 72. 10 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others, " p. 73. 11 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," pp. 74-75. 12 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 76. 13 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 81.

14 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others, 11 p. 85. 15 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 86. 16 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 93. 17 Bergen, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p.86. 18 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 87. 19 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 88. 20 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 89. 21 Bergon, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 90. 22 Bergen, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," p. 96. 23 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," pp. 98-99. 24 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 101 • 25 James Nagel, SteEhen Crane and Literar~ Impressionism (Penn. State University Press, 1980), p.84 .. 72

26 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 106. 27 Bergon, "Moonlight on the Snow," p. 139. 28 Bergon, "Moonlight on the Snow," p. 138. 29 Bergon, "Moonlight on the Snow," P• 138. 30 Bergon, "Moonlight on the Snow," p. 132.

Chapter Three:

Gullason, "The Octopush," p. 75. 2 Crane, Letters, p. 158. 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature," in Five Essays on Man and Nature, ed. Robert E. Spiller (Arlington Heights, Ill.: AHM Publishing, 1954), p. 7; hereafter cited as Emerson. 4 Gullason, "Hr. Binks' Day Off," p. 172. 5 Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, in The Red Bad~e of Courage and Four Great Stories by Stephen Crane, intro. by Ralph Ellison (New York: Dell Pub~ Co., 1960), p. 80. (All fur­ ther references to The Red Badge of Courage will be from this edition and cited as Crane, RB.) 6 Crane, RB, p. 80. 7 Crane, RB, p. 81. 8 Emerson, P• 3. 9 Bergon, "Nebraska's Bitter Fight for Life," p. 176. 10 Bergon, "Nebraska's Bitter Fight for Life," pp. 176-177. 11 Bergon, "Nebraska's Bitter Fight for Life," p. 182.

12 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," p. 201. 13 Berryman, p. 103. 14 Cady, p. xxiv. 15 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," pp. 197-198. 16 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Hesquite," p. 200. 73

l7 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," p. 204. 18 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," p. 202. l9 Bergon, "Mid Cactus and Mesquite," p. 203. 20 Bergon, "Above All Things," p. 218. 21 Katz, pp. xxi-xxii. 22 Bergon, "The Viga Canal," pp. 216-217. 23 Bergon, "A Man and So·me Others," p. 7 2. 24 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 79. 2 5 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 79. 26 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 80. 27 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 83. 28 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 84. 29 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 85. 30 Bergon, "Two Letters from Stephen Crane to Nellie Crouse," p. 223. 31 Bergon, "A Letter from Stephen Crane to Willis Brooks Hawkins," p. 222. 32 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 99. 33 Gullason, p. 37. 34 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 101. 35 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 113. 36 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 115. 37 Bergon, ''The Blue Hotel," p. 118.

38 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 119. 39 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 118. 74

Chapter Four:

Gulla son, p. 23. 2 Berryman, p. 9. 3 Berryman, p. 12. 4 Berryman, pp. 19-20. 5 Beer, p. 117. 6 Gullason, "The Mesmeric Mountain," p. 102. 7 Gullason, "An Explosion of Seven Babies," p.97. 8 Crane, Haggie, P• 443. 9 Crane, RB, pp. 66-71. 10 Crane, RB, p. 69. 1 1 Crane, RB, p. 66. 12 Bergon, p. 1 1 •

13 Beer, p. 117. 14 Bergon, "One Dash-Horses, 11 p. 33. 15 Bergon, "One Dash-Horses, " p. 33. 16 Bergon, "One Dash-Horses, 11 p. 34. 17 Berryman, p. 107. 18 Bergon, "One Dash-Horses," p. 34. 19 Crane, ,!lli, p. 66. 20 Bergon, ''The Five White Mice," p. 63. 21 Bergon, "The Five White Mic·e, " p. 63. 22 Bergon, "The Five White Mice, " p. 64. 23 Bergon, "A Man and Some Others," p. 84. 24 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 101. 25 Bergon, "The Blue Hotel," p. 97. 75

26 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 106. 27 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 98. 28 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," pp. 98-99.

29 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 100.

30 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 102. 31 Bergen, ''The Blue Hotel," p. 103.

32 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel,'' p. 108.

33 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 1 11 •

34 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 115.

35 Bergen, "The Blue Hotel," p. 122. p •

Bibliography

Beer, Thomas. Stephen Crane. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1926. Bergen, Frank. Stenhen Crane's Artistry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. ------,ed. The Western Writings of Stephen Crane. New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1979. Berryman, John. Stephen Crane. New York: William Sloane Association, 1950. Bradley, Sculley, Richmond Croom Beatty and E. Hudson Long, Eds. The American Tradition in Literature. 3rd ed. New York: w. w. Norton, 1956, Vol. II. Cady, Edwin H. Stephen Crane. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne Pub., 1980. Crane, Stephen. The Black Riders and Other Lines. 3rd ed. Boston: Copeland and Day, 1896.

------. Stephen Crane's Letters. ed. R. W. Stallman and Lillian Gilkes. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1960.

------. George's Mother. In Bowery Tales Vol. I of The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969, pp. 99-115. ------. Maggie. In American Literature Survey: Nation and Region 1860 - 1900. Ed. Milton R. Stern and Seymour L. Gross. 3rd ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1977, pp. 434-493 Davis, Richard Harding. The West From a Car Window. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1892. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." In his Five Essays on Man and Nature. ed. Robert E. Spiller. Arlington Heights, Ill.: AHM Publishing, 1954, pp. 1-40. Fussell, Edwin. Frontier: American Literature and the American West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.

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Gullason, Thomas A., ed. Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 1963.

------. Stephen Crane's Career. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1972. Holton, Milne. Cylinder of Vision. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. Katz, Joseph. The Portable Stephen Crane. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. ------,ed. Stephen Crane in the West and Mexico. Kent State University Press, 1970. Nagel, James. Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism. Penn. State University Press, 1980. Rourke, Constance. American Humor: A Study of the National Character. Garde~ City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 1953. Schneider, Robert w. Five Novelists of the Progressive Era. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965. Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. New York: Vintage Books, 1950. Solomon, Eric. Stephen Crane, From Parody to Realism. Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1969. Van Doren, Carl, ed. Twenty Stories by Stephen Crane. Cleve­ land: The World Publishing Co., 1945. Walcutt, C. c., ed. Seven Novelists in the American Naturalist Tradition. University of Minnesota Press, 1974. Ziff, Larzer. The American 1890's. New York: The Viking Press, 1966.