Stephen Crane Research Paper

American journalist, author, and poet, Stephen Crane utilized the standard fiction writing style of the late 1800s: realism. He grew up in an atmosphere where literacy was not only a common-day skill, but also a career focus for many in his family of eleven. Crane made his fame and fortune as the author of the Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, in 1893. Two years later, he went on to write a book of poetry entitled The Black Riders and Other Lines. His modern, stylish approach to creating vivid and penetrating scenes confused readers who preferred more traditional structure. Critics did not immediately praise Crane’s works, and as a result, he struggled financially for most of his life. Stephen Crane left a lasting mark on history, …show more content…
Due to his parents’ heavy involvement as Methodists, religion became an ingrained factor in Crane’s psyche. Additionally, Agnes’s abrupt death, when Crane was twelve, greatly impacted his life as she had been his closest friend, mentor, and surrogate mother all in one. In college, Crane was described as a deliberately scandalous, social bully with a hard, Bohemian heart, who struggled deeply with contradictory feelings of conventionalism beneath the surface (Blair). Despite not graduating from college, perhaps due to the fact that he preferred playing baseball to studying, he occupied numerous jobs throughout his life. An overview of Crane’s occupations includes newspaperman, short story and novel author, poet, and even war correspondent and reporter for the Greco-Turkish War and Spanish-American War, respectively. In 1897 Crane entered a common-law marriage with Cora Taylor, the owner of Hotel de Dream which was a combination of a hotel, nightclub, and …show more content…
The setting was influenced by a maternal ancestor, Henry Peck, who was the founder of New Haven, Connecticut. Many of the Peck family served in and supported the American Revolution. This military background ingrained Crane with pride and an inherently strong sense of war, which became a major theme in his writings. This drive also led him to attend Claverack College, a quasi-military school, before his family persuaded him to forego a military career. Crane was inspired to write a war novel after reading a trite war article which portrayed Civil War stories. He thought the narratives were frustratingly dry and believed he could offer a more realistic picture of what it felt like to be part of a war by adding deeper, emotional content (Sorrentino 118). With this in mind, Crane created the character Henry Fleming, who was initially filled with naivety, dreams of war glory, but then quickly became disillusioned by war’s reality. Fleming was hugely relatable and represented the everyman of war. Crane’s shrewd and introspective exploration offered a distinctive viewpoint of war that audiences recognized and