The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, by Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane at the Wikipedia: click here

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky at the Wikipedia: click here

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky: summary

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky: audiobook


Movie



Presentation, by Josep Guiteres

STEPHEN CRANE

Crane was one of America's leading realist writers who influenced most modern American naturalism.

Biography

He was born in 1871 in Newark (New Jersey). He was the fourteenth and last child of a married couple belonging to the Methodist church. He married Cora Taylor, owner of the so-called Hotel de Dream, a combination of a hotel and a nightclub brothel.

 In 1890, he worked as a reporter of the slums in New York. In 1893, he wrote his first novel, Maggie, where he describes the life of a girl of the streets.

In1895, he wrote a classic of American literature, The Red Badge of Courage, where he describes realistically the psychological complexity of fear and courage on the battlefield in the context of the American Civil War. This novel was made into a film by John Huston.

In 1897, he was hired as a correspondent for the Greco-Turkish war, and in 1898, for the Spanish-American War.

He wrote The Open Boat and Other Tales which narrates his experience in a shipwreck for four days. In 1900, before his death from tuberculosis in Badenweiler (Germany), he wrote his possibly most popular book, Whilomville Stories.

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

Jack Potter, sheriff of Yellow Sky, married his girlfriend in San Antonio in the morning. They are happy but nervous about their new status as a couple and uncomfortable with their clothes that attract the attention of people, but they are so in love that don't even realize it.

Now they travel in a luxurious Pullman train from San Antonio passing through the plains of Texas to Yellow Sky. Potter worries that the inhabitants of Yellow Sky will be offended because he didn't inform them of his decision to marry, therefore he wishes to get home without attracting attention.

Meanwhile, in the "Weary Gentleman" saloon, a young man enters announcing that Scratchy Wilson, the last member of a gang of criminals, is drunk and prowling around town with two loaded pistols, and the barkeeper closes the doors and windows.

Wilson walks through the town playing with his guns, but, as nobody pays attention to him, he decides to go to Potter's house, but he finds him on the street.

Wilson challenges Potter, who tells him that he is unarmed because he’s just got married. When Wilson sees the bride, changes his mood, forgets the challenge, holsters his pistols, and he leaves in a huff.

 OPINION

In my opinion this short story defines the writer as realistic and modern: When people look at them in a strange way because of their appearance they don't even realize it; when Wilson is on the street giving war and the others are calm in their houses and in the bar; when everything seems to end in a great tragedy…

No way, don't worry, nothing happens here and in the end everything is settled easily.


QUESTIONS

Say something about these characters:
 
Jack Potter
The bride
Scratchy Wilson
The barkeeper
The drummer
 
Tell us something about San Antonio.
What is a Pullman?
Describe the train.
Talk about the train workers’ behaviour.
Describe the atmosphere inside the saloon.
How do the couple feel about Yellow Sky people?
How do the couple love each other?
 
Can you find any good descriptive images?
There are some actions that nowadays are clichés in a Western. Can you find some?

VOCABULARY

frame house, keening, leaden, heinous, parade, bliss, hangdog (glance), drummer, tear, pen, galoot, starboard


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