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In Stephen Crane's Blue Hotel, Crane attempts to illustrate his idea of the true human experience by critiquing and attacking the social conventions and cultural forms, which are responsible for society's distorted view and understanding of civilization and responsibility. Crane attacks the validity of society's reliance on cultural forms through the Swede's experiences at the Palace Hotel. During the Swede's stay at the hotel, he continually bursts forth with accusations that there is a conspiracy between Johnny, the cowboy, and the Easterner to kill him. The guest of the Palace Hotel continually try to assure him that he is in a civilized environment and that nobody will harm him. Through his story, Crane is able to show that society's cultural forms were useless in protecting the life of the Swede. The guests of the Palace Hotel and the saloon represent society, and Crane is able to attack the core of society by the ironic death of the Swede, despite the assurances that were made for of his personal safety through various cultural forms.
Crane believes that the idea of responsibility should not be based on society's reliance on cultural forms and compliance to them, but that humans should be empowered to take responsibility for their own actions because they recognize that it is their own personal responsibility to do so and not because the law (fear of punishment) or society expects them to. Crane was able to show that by the story's failing reliance on society's sense of responsibility, the Swede died. Crane believes that individuals can and should be responsible for their actions and inaction's. Crane waits until the end of the story to make this responsibility clear when he uses the conversations of the cowboy and Easterner. Through the Easterner, Crane show's that if the guest of the Palace Hotel had shown individual responsibility, that the Swede could have been saved. Crane shows that the idea of civilization and responsibility is only a misconception that humans have fabricated to hide the truth of the real relationship between nature and human nature.
Crane would argue that there is no difference between humans and nature because they are the same. Humans are in no way above or different than nature, but apart of it. Crane's idea of human experience is that everyone is "hot-wired" in nature and that everyone has his or her place in nature. Thus, we are just one step above animals and the way we behave is based on our natural instincts and not on society's fabricated cultural forms.
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Research essay sample on Society Reliance On Cultural Forms Reliance On Cultural Forms Crane
