Fortitude

The Blue Hotel illustrates a pair of simple lessons on the subject of fortitude. Essentially, the Swede has the fortitude to stand against the cheater even though he is afforded essentially no protection. In the second bar he oversteps his bounds and ends up killed, but the chain of events that precipitated the entire sequence stemmed from Johnnie cheating.

In that case, both the Easterner and Johnnie lacked fortitude to do the right thing. Either could have admitted the cheating, but neither wished to face the consequences. Johnnie got beaten for his trouble but the Easterner suffered no consequence, save that on his conscience. The lesson of fortitude is most important with respect to the Easterner. In his case, he had little consequence to pay when faced with the ethical dilemma. Without consequence, he chose the path of least resistance. However, there were consequences for this choice. The Easterner, however, did not need to pay these consequences.

That at the end of the story, several months later, he is still wracked with guilt demonstrates that if one knows that he is making the wrong choice from an ethical perspective, even if the consequences of that decision are not direct, the indirect consequences could make life difficult later. The dilemma then needs to be resolved with an element of fortitude, at least as much as the person can live with. The cowboy, for example, may or may not have known about the cheating but feels no guilt about his role in the Swede's death. In his case, he seems unaware that there was any dilemma at all. His role in the events was minor and as such he can easily pass the bulk of the blame onto somebody else. However, this does not mean he has no blame. The point is that the cowboy has contributed to the problem and should feel something, but he does not. Sometimes fortitude involves accepting responsibility even if others are more responsible. Or, in the case of the Easterner, doing the right thing even if it is the choice that causes you the most trouble in the short run. In the long run the trouble may be greater, should the path of least resistance lead to the worst outcome.