Annotated Bibliography

Fultz, J. R. Literacy as Involvement : High jinks at yellow sky: James agee and stephen crane. Literature Film Quarterly, 1983. (11- 14). Print.

Born in November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, Stephen Crane was the youngest of fourteen children. The Crane family moved to Port Jervis, New York, where Crane first began his education. His father was a strict Methodist minister, who died in 1880, leaving his devout, strong mother to raise the rest of the family. Mary H. P. Crane moved her family back to New Jersey – more specifically, Asbury Park. Mrs. Crane herself was an active writer and contributed to various Methodist papers.

Petry, A. H. Crane’s ‘the bride comes to yellow sky’. Explicator, 1983. Print.

Crane’s frontier setting is essential to his theme, which concerns the conflict between the East and West and the passing of an era. While Yellow Sky is located in western Texas, it is accessible by train, which acts as a “vehicle” to bring Eastern civilization to the West. In fact, Yellow Sky has already been civilized, despite the anachronistic presence of Scratchy Wilson, who seems determined to preserve the “good old days.” Unfortunately, Scratchy’s clothes reveal the extent to which even he has been “Easternized”: He wears a “maroon-coloured flannel shirt” made by “some Jewish women on the East Side of New York,” and his red-topped boots have gilded imprints beloved by “little sledding boys on the hillsides of New England.”

Teague, D. Stephen Crane. Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 1993. (16- 19, 23-33). Print.

Crane compounds the general ignorance and its attendant uncertainty in the next two of the story’s four parts, in which he introduces a drummer (traveling salesman) from the East, who knows nothing of the wild West, and Scratchy Wilson, the drunken desperado who is in fact an old man dressed as a kid dressed as an outlaw. The actual confrontation between Wilson, hurling challenges at Potter’s empty house, and Potter, slinking along the streets, hoping no one will see him and his bride, is funnier still.

Waters, Kole. “Stephen Crane Studies.” The Stephen Crane Society. New York: Columbia University. 1994. (12-19). Print.

At the time of his death, Crane had become an important figure in American literature. He was nearly forgotten, however, until two decades later when critics revived interest in his life and work. Stylistically, Crane’s writing is characterized by descriptive vividness and intensity, as well as distinctive dialects and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crisis and social isolation. Although recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage, which has become an American classic, Crane is also known for his unconventional poetry and heralded for short stories such as “The Open Boat”, “The Blue Hotel”, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”, and The Monser. His writing made a deep impression on 20th century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists.