3 - A “gorgeous neutrality”: social justice and Stephen Crane's documentary anaesthetics

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.