Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 When travelers swarm forth: antebellum urban aesthetics and the contours of the political
- 2 In “the thick of the stream”: Henry James and the public sphere
- 3 A “gorgeous neutrality”: social justice and Stephen Crane's documentary anaesthetics
- 4 Vicious gregariousness: White City, the nation form, and the souls of lynched folk
- 5 A “moving mosaic”: Harlem, primitivism, and Nella Larsen's Quicksand
- 6 Breaking the waves: mass immigration, trauma, and ethno-political consciousness in Cahan, Yezierska, and Roth
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - A “gorgeous neutrality”: social justice and Stephen Crane's documentary anaesthetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 When travelers swarm forth: antebellum urban aesthetics and the contours of the political
- 2 In “the thick of the stream”: Henry James and the public sphere
- 3 A “gorgeous neutrality”: social justice and Stephen Crane's documentary anaesthetics
- 4 Vicious gregariousness: White City, the nation form, and the souls of lynched folk
- 5 A “moving mosaic”: Harlem, primitivism, and Nella Larsen's Quicksand
- 6 Breaking the waves: mass immigration, trauma, and ethno-political consciousness in Cahan, Yezierska, and Roth
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In contrast to the Jamesian attention to urban domesticity, Stephen Crane's narratives and sketches make homelessness practically a condition of urban being. If the characters populating his cityscapes are not literally homeless, as are those seeking shelter in flophouses in “The Men in the Storm” and “An Experiment in Misery,” then they are usually depicted as psychically or physically a very long way from home, as are the urchins in “An Ominous Baby” and “A Great Mistake,” as well as the adults in “The Broken-Down Van.” Others, such as the titular character in Maggie, are driven away from home or have veritable war zones as homes, as in “A Dark Brown Dog” and George's Mother. In short, Crane's urban homes, if depicted at all, are rather ferocious than sweet.
This anti-sentimental depiction of domesticity conforms of course to the late nineteenth-century realist imperative: to expose the sordid, hellish underbelly of modern city life. Thus Crane's city streets are equally troubled. But they do, at least, seem to offer his homeless population certain attractions and pleasures. One main attraction, literally in the psycho-physiological sense, is the crowd. Crane's street people are chronically forming crowds: to battle an opposing gang of urchins, to demand charity, to eat lunch in a restaurant; to look at a burning building, a fallen man, a traffic accident, or simply at the crowd itself.
Many of Crane's crowd configurations, I want to suggest, contribute to the imagination of a kind of home away from home.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003