Stephen Crane's Short Story, "The

Stephen Crane's short story, "The Blue Hotel," first appeared in the collection entitled the Monster and Other Stories, which was published in 1899. At first glance it may seem to be a simple and straightforward story about a traveler who finds himself in more trouble than he can handle at a stopover in Fort Romper, Nebraska. The traveler, known only as "the Swede," is one of three who get off the train looking for a place to spend the night and end up at the Palace Hotel.

He is from New York and has spent the past decade working as a tailor. The other travelers -- a cowboy and "the Easterner" -- exit the train with the Swede, but they are far from congenial companions. As the story unfolds, the characters find themselves in an ever more dangerous and hostile environment. At the end of the tale, the Swede is murdered and the Easterner, in a grand moral speech, holds all of the men responsible.

The action of "the Blue Hotel" develops ad ends quickly, taking up perhaps just a couple of hours in the lives of the men. There are five main characters; the three travelers previously mentioned, Pat Scully, the owner of the Palace Hotel and his son, Johnnie. Scully is the driving force that brings all of the men together. Whenever a passenger train pulls into Fort Romper, he greets the weary travelers and offers them comfort and respite at his hotel.

The hotel's unique color, "a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron," made it impossible to miss, and Scully "proved himself a master of strategy when he chose his paints." This day, Scully has convinced three men, the Swede, the Easterner and the cowboy, to be his guests. Crane portrays the Swede as riding the thin line between sane and insane.

From the first description of him, in which he's portrayed as "shaky and quick-eyed," to his strange behavior at dinner, where his eyes roam from man to man and he announces how dangerous some of these Western towns can be.

During a quiet moment in the hotel's front room, the Swede, seemingly from nowhere, says, "I suppose there have been a good many men killed in this room." None of the other men quite understand what he means, and they call challenge him, which only seems to push him more into his insanity. "Oh, I see you are all against me," he raves when even the Easterner, from whom he seemed to expect sympathy and support, turns on him.

"I suppose I am going to be killed before I can leave this house!" The Swede raves. The proprietor, Scully, is unable to calm the Swede down, unsuccessfully, and the Swede makes an ominous prediction. "I know I won't get out of here alive," he says. Scully attempts to lay the blame at his son Johnnie's feet, but the Swede will not be swayed. "I will leave this house. I will go away, because I do not wish to be killed.

Yes, of course, I am crazy -- yes." The Swede goes upstairs to retrieve his luggage and the men pondered the situation. Johnnie insists, correctly, that the men didn't do anything to provoke the Swede. The Easterner supports the boy, saying, "I didn't see anything at all." Scully follows the Swede upstairs in an attempt to get him to stay, and succeeds. They share a drink and return downstairs.

They sit by the stove, ate dinner together and, despite the Swede's increasingly bizarre behavior, end up playing a game of cards. Then the Swede accuses Johnnie of cheating. "Such scenes often prove that there can be little of dramatic import in environment," Crane writes. "Any room can present a tragic front. & #8230;This little den was now hideous as a torture-chamber." Things go downhill from here. Violence erupts in the room and Johnnie insists on fighting the Swede.

For him, it is a matter of pride, "I'll fight any man what says I cheat," he throws at the Swede. At first, the other men try to stop the fight, but the Swede will.