“We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tempest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth. One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life (943).”
I chose to talk about this quote from “The Blue Hotel” because I felt that it really shows Crane’s attitude and opinions of naturalism. Just in the first sentence Crane is letting his audience know that there are big differences between what “we picture” and what he believes is true about the relationship between earth and humanity. Though we see ourselves to be the ones in power, or as Crane writes, the ones “conquering,” the presence of the storm is demonstrating the strength of nature as opposed to that of man. I doubt that there are very many terms worse than “lice” with which to describe mankind. Firstly, lice are often associated (no matter true or false) with unsanitary, substandard conditions, as Crane implies by using terms like “disease-stricken.” Secondly, lice are invaders of a place that does not belong to them and are an extreme annoyance. Lice will essentially cling somewhere they can feed and infest, and will only survive in that place until someone decides to wash them out. Just thinking logically about what lice are makes it pretty disturbing to think of ourselves this way. Comparing humans living on the earth to lice clinging to someone’s scalp is a really harsh way to express the insignificance of life when compared to the universe. The last line of this quote basically says that we have driven our lives this far only because of our own self-importance. The only reason we are significant is because we think we are significant.
Views like these could easily make the argument that nothing anyone does matters, so people should do whatever they please. Obviously this also argues against the existence of a higher power. I wonder if Crane, along with other naturalists, angered a lot of people when these very extreme views were portrayed through their writing.
I also wonder how these views affected the way Crane looked at pursuing activities in his own life. It seems to be a “Life’s a B**** and then you die” standpoint to survival.
1 comment:
Your explication of this classic naturalistic quotation really points out the host/parasite relationship between human beings and the earth, Ruchell. We didn't have a chance to discuss this story today, so perhaps you can bring this up on Tuesday when we talk about it.
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