4 - Doing Without: George's Mother

Summary

While it would be an exaggeration to say that Crane was in the habit of composing works in pairs, certain of his writings enjoy a conspicuously close relationship to one another. Among the New York pieces featured in this chapter, “An Experiment in Misery” and “An Experiment in Luxury” are unmistakably companion pieces. “The Veteran,” a sequel to The Red Badge of Courage, shows the now aged Henry Fleming bravely attempting to rescue colts from his burning barn, as if to remove any doubts a reader might have about its hero. In “Regulars Get No Glory,” a war dispatch, Crane develops a framework for “The Price of the Harness,” one of the better stories in Wounds in the Rain, while “The Reluctant Voyagers,” depicting the trials of two men stranded at sea, is apprentice work for “The Open Boat.” Between “The Open Boat” and “The Blue Hotel” the relation is almost dialogic. To the Nebraska story of brutal violence and brooding tragedy the saga of the sea responds with an account of quiet courage and spontaneous fraternity. A Woman without Weapons, retitled George's Mother, complements Maggie in a related but different way as Crane tempers the jarring noise of his first slum novel with a more balanced orchestration. It has been proposed that he was looking for a manner more compatible with the realism of William Dean Howells or the veritism of a Hamlin Garland, his “literary fathers,” as Crane called them.