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
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
The bride
Scratchy Wilson
The barkeeper
The drummer
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?
There are some actions that nowadays are clichés in a Western. Can you find some?
frame
house, keening, leaden, heinous, parade, bliss, hangdog (glance), drummer, tear,
pen, galoot, starboard