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American Naturalism In Stephen Crane's The Blue Hotel

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"In these short stories, as in most of his work, Crane is a consummate ironist, employing a technique that most critics find consistently suggests the disparity between an individual 's perception of reality and reality as it actually exists." This quote is written by poetryfoundation.org and applies to Stephen Crane 's "The Blue Hotel" as the entire story exists in the irony of one of the few characters introduced, the Swede. Being a consummate ironist means Stephen Crane is very skilled in the forming of his irony 's which can make it sometimes difficult to recognize all of them throughout his works. Other ironic situations occur throughout the story which will be explained in detail. American Naturalism is a form of literary genre that first originated as an art movement …show more content…

The Swede believes he is going to be killed while staying in the hotel. This itself is ironic as the hotel has a very comfortable feeling with an eager host located outside the town that Scully, the hotel proprietor, says is going to be state of the art in a few years. However, throughout the story his paranoia causes him to sink deeper and deeper into the belief he is going to be killed. Eventually his prior actions do lead him to be killed. The Swede grew too comfortable after needing to be calmed down by Scully that he forces upon himself the idea he is better or greater than the rest. After finally leaving the hotel he heads to a saloon in the town behind the hotel, Romper, where he is stabbed by the Gambler and meets his final resting place. This whole situation is ironic as if he was not paranoid of being killed nothing after would have occurred and there could have been a good chance the Swede was not going to be killed. This situation helps support the idea that the quote describing Stephen Crane applies to the story as it shows how the story itself is an

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