The Blue Hotel

Take the Easterner’s theory that “every sin is the result of a collaboration” (393). Does the story agree with this claim? Use supporting evidence from the text.

While this story criticizes certain ways of mythologizing the West, it also offers its own mythology of the American West, emphasizing its vastness and isolation (in implied contrast to the East). How is this depiction like or dislike other contemporary descriptions of the West that you’ve encountered? (Consider authors like Jack London, Mark Twain, or William Dean Howells.)

Crane wrote that Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, “tries to show that environment is a tremendous thing in the world and frequently shapes lives regardless” (“Stephen Crane.” Poetry Foundation, 2023). How does this quote apply to “The Blue Hotel?”

Crane’s most famous work, The Red Badge of Courage, is praised for making its main character, Fleming, an “everyman” of the war. Is that true of the characters in “The Blue Hotel”?

Crane is often discussed alongside Ernest Hemingway, who would famously use the kind of short, terse sentences seen throughout “The Blue Hotel.” Look at some of the short sentences from this story and discuss their effect. Compare the effect in this story to how short sentences create tone, atmosphere, contrast, etc. in one of Hemingway’s short stories.

In his twenties, Crane was a reporter. Analyze how this experience might have affected Crane’s prose style. In what ways does his fiction contrast with journalistic writing?

A 2021 profile on Crane from the New Yorker says of Crane’s writing, “The result is almost mythological in feeling, and mythological in the strict Greek sense that everything seems foreordained, with no one ever master of his fate. We live and die by chance and fortune” (Gopnik, Adam. “The Miracle of Stephen Crane.” The New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2021). Are the events in “The Blue Hotel” foreordained and inevitable, or are they the random happenings of chance? Use specific language from the story to support your argument.

Crane grew up in a family that was deeply involved in the women’s suffrage movement, but “The Blue Hotel” is virtually devoid of women. Does this influence the story’s overall meaning?