Journal #16

Journal 16 – Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” and London’s “To Build A Fire”

Read the following quote and discuss how it applies to the main characters in both stories. In the course of this discussion, address how each of the characters is both similar and different:

“Determinisim governs everything … The writer must study the inherited traits of individual character and the social condition of the time. Together, these elements determine the course of any action, the outcome of any life. Free will or self-determination is mostly an illusion, although chance is granted a role in human affairs. Still, even the effects of chance are obliterated in the inevitable course determined by the interaction of inherited character traits and the social environment.“

In “To Build a Fire”, the main character, the man is faced to deal with the evironement and fate. He was determined to meet up with his friends at the Lodge Cloud but he didn’t listen and pushed away fear that would kept him safe. He was too cocky in his traveling causing him to face his death. The man was warned by the old man not to go traveling alone when its below freezing but he still didn’t listen. He pushed all of these fealings of being afraid and was determined.

In Crane's "The Blue Hotel", the Swede proves that his uncomfortable feelings in a different social environment can lead to a disastrous ending. The Swede is confused with where he really is and actually thinks that he is in the Wild West where people kill each other over a silly card game. The Swede is wrong because no one has ever died in that hotel and those people are nothing like that. He becomes so socially awkward that he gets drunk and becomes a completely different person. The social environment is affected by this different person because the Swede tries to fight Johnny and beats him up. He then begins to torment a visitor who ended up stabbing him. From the beginning he thought he was going to die there and it was fate that he did end up dying.