Student Queries 2004

Queries  2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2000-2002
Student Queries 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2000-2002
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Using the Search feature to find answers to questions
Yellow silk women in Maggie
"An Illusion in Red and White"
Source of Red Badge of Courage
Crane's use of color
Crane's article on the sinking of the Commodore
"The Open Boat" and American Experience

"Opium's Varied Dreams"
"A Mystery of Heroism"

Crane as photographer
Criticism on "The Blue Hotel"
Setting of "The Blue Hotel"
"The Blue Hotel": A Dozen to 40 women?

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"
"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky": Scratchy and Wilson switch roles?
Summarize "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"
"An Episode of War": Criticism?
Stephen Crane and American Literature
Crane in 1894

Crane in 1894

QUESTION:  I would like to know where exactly Crane lived around 1894. I don't really need the exact adress but it would be nice to have that information since I have to write his resume. Thank you very much. Michelle 11/30/04
 

Using the Search feature to find answers to questions

QUESTION: I would like to know where I can find the newpaper article "Stephen Crane's Own Story" writen by Stephen Crane, after he survived a shipwreck of the Florida coast. I need to find the text for an English assignment. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Valerie 11/18/04

You can find the answers to many questions, including this one, by using the Search feature at the site. The answer can be found at the bottom of this page as a reply to a question posted in February 2004.

Here is the article online: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/lewiss/CraneStory.htm

Setting of "The Blue Hotel"

I am looking for information on the setting of the Blue Hotel for a paper. Areas of interest are the Geographical, Historical, Season and if there is a Day, date and time the story takes place. Any help will be much appreciated.

Thank You
John Mancini, jmancini1@cfl.rr.com

10-13-04

Yes, it is possible to place the setting of "The Blue Hotel" in an historical, geographical, and chronological framework. In late January of 1895 Crane embarked on a trip to the West and Mexico as a feature writer for the Bacheller newspaper syndicate. For three days in the first week of February, he was marooned by a fierce winter storm in Kearny, Nebraska, in the north central part of the state. At Kearny the temperature ranged from fourteen to eighteen degrees below zero and the wind velocity reached sixty miles an hour. Crane viewed the storm from his unheated room in Kearny's ramshackle hotel, and it was this town and its hotel that was probably the model for Fort Romper and the Palace Hotel in "The Blue Hotel."

--Stanley Wertheim, 10-20-04

"An Illusion in Red and White"

Hi!

    Do you have any information about Crane's short story "An Illusion
in Red and White"? Where can I find more information concerning this
short story?

Thanks and regards! 7/22/04

 

Source of Red Badge of Courage

QUESTION: I am writing a research paper on Steven Cranes "Red Badge of Courage" and was wondering if I could get some information on what led Crane to write this book.  Thank you

Scott Edwards scott.edwards@newpiper.com

8/3/04

Well, first of all, it's not "Steven Cranes Red Badge of Courage" but Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage," and if you are writing a research paper on what motivated Crane to write this novel, I suggest you go to a library and do some research. Perhaps you should begin with Patrick K. Dooley's Stephen Crane: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Scholarship and, for more recent information, I would suggest somewhat immodestly my books, The Crane Log and A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia. In any event, this is not a question for which you will find an answer on a web site.

--Stanley Wertheim 8/4/04

Crane as Photographer?
QUESTION: I was wondering is there any evidence that Stephen Crane tooks photographs during the time he lived in New York or travelled around the world?

6/26/04

This is really a very interesting question since Crane had a number of friends who were professional photographers, notably Jacob Riis, F. H. King, and Jimmy Hare. There is, nevertheless, not a single photograph extant that can reliably be said to have been taken by Stephen Crane.
--Stanley Wertheim 7/5/04

"The Open Boat" and American Experience

Does "The Open Boat" has anything to do with the experience of being American and/or the Amrican Dream like many other American texts do? Veerle Ultee 6/4/04

 

Criticism on "The Blue Hotel"

QUESTION: I am doing a criticism paper on the Swede in "the Blue hotel" i need to find some sources on this.. please contact me and help... thank you Trey Slimster6986@yahoo.com 4-13-04

By using the Search feature at the Crane Society site, you can locate bibliographies such as this one bhbib.html

and this one

bluehotelbib.html

"Yellow Silk Women" in Maggie

QUESTION: Crane refers to "yellow silk women" in his story "Maggie, A Girl ...".  What does he mean by this reference? Jessica Coyne 4-9-04

The three music halls to which Pete takes Maggie in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, described at the beginnings of chapters 7, 12, and 14, reflect the degenerating quality of their relationship. The first is a "green hued hall" in which an orchestra of "yellow silk women and bald-headed men" play a waltz. The formal dress of the men and women and the fact that the music they play is a waltz illustrates the elegance of this music hall. Pete treats Maggie with less respect when he takes her to "a hall of irregular shaps" which has a "submissive orchestra," and the third hall, described as "a hilarious hall," where Pete abandons Maggie to run off with Nell, has an orchestra "composed of men who looked as if they had just happened in." 

Stanley Wertheim 4-15-04

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

QUESTION: what is the theme of stephen cranes "the bride comes to yellow sky?"

Lauren Henderson

4-5-04

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" a satire of the confrontational Western that Crane himself popularized in such stories as "The Five White Mice" and "A Man and Some Others." Also satirized is the Eastern conception of the lawman and the gunfighter. Both Potter and Wilson are comic anachronisms. Scratchy is an ersatz badman whose dress and behavior are fashioned by Eastern conceptions, and Potter, by marrying, has violated the traditions of the Lone Ranger. He has "gone headlong over all the social hedges." As Scratchy leaves the scene of the failed confrontation at the conclusion of the story, his feet form "funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand." Like the sands of an hourglass, time has run out for the classic Wild West confrontation of the lawman and the gunfighter. Human efforts to impose ordered patterns on the vicissitudes of existence are merely imprints on the sands of time.   --Stanley Wertheim 4-20-04

"The Blue Hotel": A dozen to 40 women?
QUESTION: i wanted to know the signifigance of the following phrase from "the blue hotel":"usually there are from a dozen to forty women really involved in every murder....". Why does Crane pick those two particular numbers? roxanne satarzadeh

4-1-04

Critics are divided about the significance of the Easterner's assertion at the conclusion of "The Blue Hotel" that "[u]sually there are from a dozen to forty women really involved in every murder." There is no specific meaning in these numbers, but they are clearly absurd and hyperbolic and should be viewed in the light of the Easterner's previous statement that "[e]very sin is the result of a collaboration." Some critics view this as an affirmation of the necessity for brotherhood in a viable society; others find a naturalistic outlook that confirms the irresponsibility of the individual in a world he did not create and cannot control; still others see the ending as a flaw resulting from the contradiction btween the obvious culpability of the Swede in bringing about his own death and the Easterner's insistence that everyone was responsible. --Stanley Wertheim, 4-13-04

"An Episode of War": Criticism?

QUESTION: I am writing a research paper on Stephen Crane's An Episode of War. I am looking for texts with critiques and criticisms on this work. Can anyone help me? Andy Adams andyadams55@hotmail.com 3-30-04

You can check the bibliographies at this site for references to specific articles and books.

Crane's Use of Color

QUESTION: What is the point behind the use of color in Crane's stories?Angie Piliposian

3-30-04

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky": Scratchy and Wilson switch roles?

QUESTION: My question is in regards to "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky". What about the possiblity of switching the roles of Wilson and Scratchy; Wilson representing the hold out of the west and Scratchy as the eastern influence. In a broader sense could the story itself not be about the death of the old west but the preservation of it (as natural beauty and untouched land not a way of life.) If Scratchy represented industrial use of the west's natural resouces would Wilson represent Teddy Roosevelt? Yellow Stone Park was created around the time the story was written; from a historical/cultural approach would these points not be viable? Has anyone heard of an interpretation like this?

Kevin Vonk

3-2-04

 

Summarize a story, please

QUESTION: Would you summarize the story "The Bride Comes to Yello Sky", written bye Stephen Crane? babyphuong81

3-2-04

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" is summarized in The Stephen Crane Encyclopedia. In the story, the newly married Marshall Jack Potter returns to his home town of Yellow Sky, Texas, with his new bride. Scratchy Wilson, a desperado in his own mind, confronts Potter for a traditional Western showdown, but Wilson, perplexed by the fact of Potter's marriage, walks away.

QUESTION: Where can I find Crane, Stephen. "Stephen Crane's Own Story" The New York Press, January 7, 1897. online?

Jessi 3-2-04

The article is available at http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/lewiss/CraneStory.htm

"The Open Boat"

QUESTION: i am reading the open Boat and i have hard time to answer this question how the correspondent changes as a result of being shipwrecked? is that becasue i didn't belive in God or what? thank you
dave

2-23-04

 
Stephen Crane and American Literature

QUESTION: I have to write a paper about Stephen Cranes contribution to American literature, and I am haveing trouble finding web sites or recources to use. I was wondering if anyone new of any good places to look for the information I need.Jenny Wagner

2/23/04

 
"A Mystery of Heroism"

QUESTION: WHY IS CRANE'S STORY CALLED "A MYSTERY OF HEROISM"? HOW IS COLLINS PORTRAYED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY? WHAT HAPPENS TO TRANSFORM HIM DURING THE STORY? HOW DOES HE VIEW HIMSELF?ALEX

2-17-04

 

QUESTION: what r some of the critical responses that where given about this book
joshua isley

2/10/04

Which book? Do you mean The Red Badge of Courage? You can find reviews of this and other works at reviews.htm

"Opium's Varied Dreams"

QUESTION: I would like to know more critics about opium's varied dreams. Because I get a assigment on this
follomee Dieujuste

Thank You 2/5/04

 

Sinking of the Commodore

QUESTION: I am attempting to find the article written by Stephen Crane for the New York Journal about his experience with the sinking of the Commodore.  How do I get from here to there. Valerie 2/4/04

Here is the reference: Crane, Stephen. "Stephen Crane's Own Story." The New York Press, January 7, 1897.

You can find this in many collections of Crane's works, including the Library of America edition. This edition should be readily available in most public libraries.

 

 

Comments to campbelld at wsu dot edu.