Importance of Setting in The Blue Hotel by Stephen CraneIn "The Blue Hotel", Stephen Crane uses various provocative techniques to ensure that the setting adds to the richness of the 'history. “The Blue Hotel” is set in a cold Nebraska town at the Palace Hotel in the late 1800s, but there’s more to the setting than when and where a story takes place. In a written work, it is the author's responsibility to vividly describe events in order to hold the reader's attention and create colorful mental images of places, objects, or situations. The story is superbly enhanced by Crane's use of setting to develop mood, create irony, and foreshadow or mimic the nature of human actions. From the beginning, Crane creates an atmosphere of violence, strangeness and unease. He writes: “The Palace Hotel was still shouting and screaming in a way that made the dazzling Nebraska winter landscape seem only like gray, swampy silence. » When Scully, the hotel owner, greets the Cowboy, the Oriental and the Swede, the latter is seen as "trembling and bright-eyed". He is a suspicious character who acts in a completely inappropriate manner. The first people the entourage meets are card players. It is about Johnnie, who is Scully's son, and an old farmer with gray and sandy whiskers. The farmer spits tobacco juice into a sawdust box to show his contempt and anger towards Johnnie. Johnnie agitates the farmer so much that he leaves the hotel silently and explosively. At this point, a new game of High Five begins. The Cowboy immediately annoys the others with his incessant card tapping. The Swede remains silent until the game absorbs the other players. He breaks that concentration when he says, "I guess there's... middle of paper... and the player stabbed." Setting is one of the most important facets of a story. It encompasses much more than what meets the eye. A basic look at the setting of “The Blue Hotel” reveals a place and possibly a time where a story takes place. However, a deeper, more critical look shows how Crane uses a highly descriptive framework to explain the story rather than relying on the characters' thoughts and dialogue. Crane's extensive use of setting makes it easy for the reader to follow the storyline and, therefore, maximizes the experience of reading his short story. It is small details that the reader gradually becomes aware of that make “The Blue Hotel” a great literary work. Works Cited: Crane, Stephen. “The Blue Hotel.” Norton Anthology of American Literature. Fourth shorter edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. 1626-1645.