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The Unmistakable Stephen Crane
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In a letter to a friend early in his brief writing career, Stephen Crane wrote, “I always want to be unmistakable”; and, at a later date, to another friend he explained retrospectively that “My chieftest [sic] desire was to write plainly and unmistakably, so that all men (and some women) might read and understand.”There is an irony in the critical fate that has befallen Crane's writings that perhaps that master ironist himself might have appreciated. For though the best criticism of his own time reveals a careful reading and understanding of his works, most recent criticism has seen Crane through a glass darkly.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1958
References
Note 1 in page 562 Cited by John Berryman, in Stephen Crane (New York, 1950), p. 99. In all fairness, it should be noted that Crane elsewhere expressed an artistic credo to the effect that the meaning of a story should not be made too plain. (See Robert Wooster Stallman, Stephen Crane: An Omnibus, New York, 1953, p. 218.)
Note 2 in page 562 The Living Novel (New York, 1947), p. 174; American Literary Naturalism: A Divided Stream (Minneapolis, 1956), p. 81.
Note 3 in page 562 George D. Snell, Shapers of American Fiction (New York, 1947), pp. 225-226; M. Solomon, “Stephen Crane : A Critical Study,” Masses and Mainstream, ix (Jan. 1956), 38.
Note 4 in page 562 John W. Shroeder, “Stephen Crane Embattled,” UKCR, xvii (1951), 126.
Note 5 in page 562 John E. Hart, “The Red Badge of Courage as Myth and Symbol,” UKCR, xix (1953), 249.
Note 6 in page 562 See, e.g., James T. Cox, “Stephen Crane as Symbolic Naturalist: An Analysis of ‘The Blue Hotel’,” Modern Fiction Studies, iii (Summer 1957), 147-158.
Note 7 in page 563 Pages xxiv-xxv of the Modern Lib. edition.
Note 8 in page 563 All quotations from Crane are from The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Prose and Poetry, ed. William M. Gibson, Rinehart Eds. (New York, 1956).
Note 9 in page 563 A few of these will be mentioned in the course of my analysis of the novel, but I should like to mention here the lengths to which Stallman's critical method forces him. For example, when Henry, discovering that the wounded ‘spectral soldier’ is none other other than his friend, the tall soldier, exclaims, “Gawd! Jim Conklin,” Stallman comments that this “suggests an identification of Jim Conklin with God” (Omnibus, p. 282, n. 2). Must even swearing lend itself as evidence of religious symbolism?
Note 10 in page 563 Stories and Tales, p. 212.
Note 11 in page 563 Critics who follow Stallman's method—and this applies to critics in other areas than American Literature—should acknowledge that Biblical phrasing in a work is not necessarily a sign that Christian symbolism or allegory is also present in the work. The phrasing may simply be part of the language of a particular period or a particular writer, and though it may give a religious flavor to the work in question, it may have no more specific significance. Further, those who seek symbolic meanings on the strength of such phrasing are in danger of ignoring tone and context. As far as Crane's Biblical phraseology is concerned, we should remember that after all Crane was a minister's son. 12 Cf. Berryman, pp. 287-288.
Note 13 in page 566 A recent variation of the Naturalist position, in which men's failure to understand one another is emphasized as the sole cause of the Swede's death, is to be found in Joseph N. Satterwhite's article, “The Blue Hotel,” Modern Fiction Studies, II (Winter 19S6-57), 238-242.
Note 14 in page 566 Although critics have noted the “religious” description of the room and of Scully's behavior, they have failed to see the irony in Crane's handling of the scene.
Note 15 in page 568 Berryman's interpretation of Crane as a whole is vitiated by his peculiar psychoanalytical view of Crane.
Note 16 in page 568 It is interesting to observe that Stallman, after examining the earlier manuscripts of The Red Badge of Courage, seems to have had a change of mind about Henry's “salvation.” He sees the “images of tranquil skies” at the end of the novel as flatly sentimental and feels that they are given an ironic turn by the sun-through-clouds image: “[Henry] has undergone no change, no real spiritual development” (Omnibus, p. 221). I'm not sure where this “conversion” leaves the rest of Stallman's theory about Henry's rebirth when the rival colorbearer dies, but he himself has let it stand.
Note 17 in page 568 Cf. Walcutt, pp. 76-77.
Note 18 in page 569 That Crane developed and matured in his art from Maggie to “The Five White Mice” is, I think, indisputable, but a demonstration of this maturation is beyond the scope of this paper.
Note 19 in page 569 As for the hotly-debated wafer image, although it cannot be said to be cheerful, it seems to me that Scott C. Osborn is perfectly right when he suggests that it is the seal of Nature's indifference to Jim's (and man's) fate (“Stephen Crane's Imagery: Pasted like a Wafer,” AL, xxiii, 1951, 362). I believe it was to insure this meaning that Crane deleted the “fierce” from his final revision of this passage.
Note 20 in page 570 Stallman sees this shirt washing as a sign of the right way to achieve spiritual salvation, by immersion in the flux of things; but surely the context renders this interpretation invalid. Crane's ironic attitude toward Jim Conklin in the instances I have cited certainly militates against our seeing him as a Christ figure.
Note 21 in page 571 I must dispute Walcutt's interpretation of this famous passage: “With all these facts [the juxtaposition of courage, ignorance, vainglory, etc.] in mind we can examine the Henry Fleming who emerges from the battle and sets about marshaling all his acts. He is gleeful over his courage. Remembering his desertion of the wounded Jim Conklin, he is ashamed of the possible disgrace, but, as Crane tells with supreme irony, 'gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance,' and to dwell upon his 'quiet manhood'” (p. 81). The mistaken identification of character is negligible. But two points are, I think, crucial: Henry is not gleeful about his courage, but “He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised [the brass and bombast] of his earlier gospels.” And Henry doesn't dwell upon his quiet manhood (the word is, I feel, prejudicial) : “He felt a auiet manhood…”