The Blue Hotel As a recently published book on the works of Stephen Crane, it is rather disappointing to see some of the key moments left out of Stanley Wertheim's review in A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia on the news. “The Blue Hotel.” Wertheim leaves out a key point in the Swede's characterization and in the plot of the story. This occurs at the point where Patrick Scully, in the story, persuades the Swede to stay in his hotel despite his fears and inhibitions about the Wild West by getting him to drink and not worry. This in itself is a climatic event as the Swede believes he is about to be killed or poisoned when Scully takes out the bottle. Another event occurs later when Wertheim merely touches on the Swede's murder. Both of these events are based on extreme emotional feelings and actions that cause the reader to question the motive for the Swede's actions as well as his characterization. Wertheim does a very good job of bringing out other points in the novel. The setting he describes is "a gloomy northern Nebraska prairie town" with the fictional appearance of a dangerous Western environment. The blizzard that occurs later in the story, Wertheim continues, represents a "hostile manifestation of nature" that ironically does not kill the Swede. As Wertheim ends his review with the final section of the story, he makes several arguments about the fault of the Swedes' deaths and the player's punishment. He puts forward the argument of “the affirmation of the Howellsian doctrine of complicity” and “the existential necessity of human fraternity in a viable society »..