Literature overview and foundational concepts

¶ … Horse Dealer's Daughter" by DH Lawrence and "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane

The short stories by DH Lawrence and Stephen Crane, entitled "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" and "The Blue Hotel," respectively, have differing plot, character developments, settings, and style of the author, but these two short stories are a good study of literature because of one unique similarity that the short stories have regarding the plot of their story, and this is the self-fulfilling prophecies that happened in the main character's life, which resulted to grave results. What exactly is this self-fulfilling prophecy in the story? This self-fulfilling prophecy is found in the scenes wherein the main characters of the two short stories anticipated something to inevitably happen to them, even though the possibility of this event from happening is entirely remote. However, because of the actions and behavior of the characters, and the unexpected turn of events in the stories, the main character's fear turned into reality, which resulted to dangerous results, as in the example of Stephen Crane's short story, wherein the main character met death because of his self-fulfilling prophecy. This important turn of event in both short stories will be the primary focus of this paper.

The first short story, "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" by DH Lawrence, is the story of Mabel, a woman who tried to commit suicide because of poverty and depression in life. The story portrays Mabel as a quite woman, who was totally dependent in her family, especially with her brothers, since her father and mother had already died. Another reason for Mabel's descent to depression is because of the sudden poverty that their family had experienced, which happened right after their father died. Although Mabel had few companions and has been known as not sociable in their community, she was not able to accept the worsening turn of events in their life, and as Mabel and her brothers fall apart because of their poverty, Mabel is gradually sinking into depression and isolation. Because of their poverty and Mabel's depression, she becomes incommunicable even to her own siblings.

The story setting of the story is quite dull, where Mabel's life is situated in a quiet community that has a rural setting. There is also the theme of religiosity in the novel, especially in the scene wherein Mabel seeks refuge at the back of a church, wherein her mother was buried. Mabel's affinity to the church and its churchyard was the result of her deep reverence to her mother's tomb, whom she loved so much. In this setting, Mabel has found resolve to all her problems in life by committing suicide. As Mabel tries to drown herself in a pond nearby the church, Jack Ferguson, a doctor in their community and a personal friend of Mabel's siblings, managed to save Mabel from death. Things become complicated when, after being rescued, Mabel assumed that Jack Ferguson had saved her because the doctor loved her, and she repeated this important realization over and over again to the doctor. Mabel's 'prophecy' about Ferguson's feelings for her was a remote possibility prior to Mabel's insistence in it, but, as Ferguson kept thinking about the recent events that happened to Mabel, especially her suicide, the possibility that the doctor may be in love to Mabel after all becomes a big possibility. Thus, after the confrontation between Mabel and Ferguson, Ferguson becomes in love with Mabel, while Mabel tries to downplay his feelings, after realizing that she is not really in love with Ferguson after all, and her emotional 'prophecy' was only the result of loneliness and confusion that she felt a while go after the suicide incident. Thus, the result of Mabel's prophecy becomes a reality, although with a less-than-grave result, which is, that Ferguson fell in love with her (at her own insistence).