The Humanity And Issues Related To It In Literature - Essay Example

The Humanity And Issues Related To It In Literature “The Blue Hotel” by Stephen Crane, is the story of some men, from different backgrounds, who meet at the Palace Hotel. The owner of the hotel, Scully, brings in some guests. One of them is The Swede; one is The Easterner; and, the third one is The Cowboy. Out of these three, The Swede, has acted strange throughout the play. He acts like a madman. When the owner brings him into the hotel, he acts like a coward. He says that everyone is trying to kill him. He thinks that the owner’s son, Johnny, is also trying to kill him. But soon after, he acts more strangely when he gets drunk, and gets into a fight with Johnny. Then, he leaves the hotel, and meets a gambler. He gets into a fight with the gambler, and gets killed. Back there, the men at the hotel are wondering if they have also played some part in The Swede’s death. This paper criticizes two important quotations from the story, which I will connect to how I see humankind, and how I view the world. First, I will go into the detail of the quotation, “Every sin is a result of collaboration” (Crane). Crane has talked about collaboration in a sense that the characters of the story are interacting with each other. They talk to each other, and get into fights, due to which they hurt and kill each other. This is how sin is produced. However, I think that here, collaboration means that the society and the sinner are interacting with each other, where both are opposite to each other and are necessary for each other’s survival. If there is virtue, there is sin. If there is good, there is bad. If there are thieves, there are priests. If there are angels, there is Satan. So, both the opposite extremes exist, and become recognition for the opposite. So, when there is collaboration between man and others are around him, there is either virtue or sin that is produced. This is how society will go on till the end of the world. Collaboration may also mean here that sin is produced with mutual agreement between two people, as Crane has shown the men at the hotel talking about how they had all taken part in killing Swede. Although many sins can be committed without the involvement of a second person; yet, here collaboration means sin committed with the help of two or more persons, who have interacted with each other, and have planned to commit the sin. We know it because the Easterner explains it by saying, “We, five of us, have collaborated in the murder of this Swede. Usually there are from a dozen to forty women really involved in every murder, but in this case it seems to be only five men -- you, I, Johnnie, old Scully, and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came merely as a culmination, the apex of a human movement, and gets all the punishment” (Crane, section 9). I think that sin, actually, is a production of collaboration between human and devil. When the devil tells a human to do an act, he agrees forgetting what God has told him to do and not to do, and so, he becomes a friend of the devil. He gets into collaboration with the devil, and commits sin. So, collaboration may also means interaction between human and devil, or between natural and anti-natural forces. But, I disagree with Crane if he means that no sin can be committed without collaboration. Most of the sins are committed alone, although I do agree that it becomes easier to commit sin when there are two or more persons involved in it. Now, we go toward the second quotation, “One viewed the existence of man then as marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smitten, ice-locked, disease-stricker, space-lost bulb" (Crane). Crane refers to the different men at the hotel, who are supposed to live with each other with peace, but they start fighting with each other, and do not listen to each other. They yell and fight, and get involved in sin. As the Easterner is shown saying, “"The Swede might not have been killed if everything had been square” (Crane, section 8), which means that the men were also regretting upon their fights, and were admitting that things would have been alright, and Swede would have been alive with them, if they had not fought. Crane means that instead of staying happily with each other while taking refuge in the hotel, they do not tolerate each other and start fighting, canceling all chances of staying with comfort at the hotel. This is how man is. He gets into quarrels, and fights for no reason. He thinks that he is right, and all the others are wrong. Men in the world have been forced to live with each other, and they do not bear faults and errors. They get into rage. Sentences like: “Scully's voice was dominating the yells” (Crane, section 5), and “The screams of the Swede never ceased” (Crane, section 5) show how they were quarreling and turning the hotel into a fighting place. In the story, Johnny and Swede fight; Scully yells at Swede; and, the gambler kills Swede. All are acts full of anger and frustration. Although these are natural feelings, but man is supposed to control them, but he does not. Still, they stay with each other, fighting and yelling, like lice stick with the bulb. Crane (section 5) talks about how they made the hotel into a hell by saying, “…his little den was now hideous as a torture-chamber. The new faces of the men themselves had changed it upon the instant.” Crane called the hotel a hideous torture-chamber, which shows how ugly a place can get when men do not stay with each other with peace. If men stay happily, the place can turn into a heaven instead of turning into a hell. To conclude, the two quotations hold a very important place in literature, and many scholars and literature experts have talked about what these quotations mean. Crane has called sin a result of collaboration; but, I do not agree when he says that every sin is a result of collaboration, because most of the sins are committed alone. Sin does not need involvement of a second person. Sin is something that is collaboration between the sinner and the society; or, between the sinner and the devil. As far as the second quotation is concerned, I totally agree that men keep on fighting with each other over little things, when they are meant to live on the earth peacefully. The men at the hotel got into fights, which resulted in the murder of Swede. If they had lived peacefully and had not fought with each other, they must have passed their time with fun and happiness. But, the devil forced them to commit sin, and they fought. I think that men should live with each other happily, so that they find peace on the earth. They should not be the companions of the devil, but should follow what God has told them to do. They should love each other, and should be on side of each other in difficult times. We should promote humanity, and should be against quarrels. Humanity is the beauty of life, and this is what God has made man for. Works Cited Crane, Stephen. The Blue Hotel. N.p., 1899. Web. 16 Sep 2012. . Read More