The Open Boat vs. The Blue Hotel

Steven Crane, born in 1871, was one of the American's foremost realistic writers, and his works have been credited with marking the beginning of modern American Naturalism. Crane utilized his keen observations, as well as personal experiences, to achieve a narrative vividness and sense of immediacy matched by a few American writers before him. (LRC-5) In two stories written by Crane, both objects and characters mean more than their physical name. The two stories I am …

…a fire wheel" fire. (LRC -5) He was ready to burn. Edward Garnett a literary critic stated, " Is indeed, a brilliant exploration of fear and its reaction." (LRC-6) Swede has a fear of being killed, and the reaction that took place is he was to be killed. The symbolism in this story is that of the blue hotel it can easily be summed up to Swede was a time bomb waiting to happen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**