The Monster (novella)
Encyclopedia
The Monster is an 1898 novella by American author Stephen Crane
(1871–1900). Taking place in the small, fictional town of Whilomville, New York, the novella tells the story of Henry Johnson, an African American
coachman employed by the town's physician, Dr. Trescott, whose face becomes horribly disfigured after he saves his employer's son from a fire. Despite being branded a "monster" by the town's residents, Trescott vows to shelter and care for Henry, resulting in his family's exclusion from the community.
The town of Whilomville was based upon Port Jervis, New York
, where Crane lived with his family for a few years during his youth. It is thought that he took inspiration from several local men who were similarly disfigured, although modern critics have made numerous connections between the story and the 1892 lynching
in Port Jervis of an African American man named Robert Lewis. A study of prejudice, fear and isolation in a small town, the novella was first published in Harper's Magazine
in August 1898. A year later it was included in The Monster and Other Stories—the last volume of Crane's work to be published during his lifetime.
Written in a more exact and less dramatic style than two of his previous major works (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
and The Red Badge of Courage
), The Monster differs from the other Whilomville stories in its scope and length. Its themes include the paradoxical study of monstrosity and deformity, as well as race and tolerance. Both the novella and collection received mixed reviews from critics, although The Monster is now considered one of Crane's best works.
, Crane frequently visited the city until 1896, often staying with his older brother and Port Jervis resident "Judge" William Howe. Crane admitted to his publishers at the time that he while he readily used Port Jervis as inspiration while writing The Monster, he was anxious to ensure the residents of his previous hometown did not recognize themselves in the fictional Whilomville. While Crane biographer Thomas Beer
claimed to trace the prototype of Henry Johnson to a Port Jervis teamster
named Levi Hume, Crane's niece, Edna Crane Sidbury, believed the character and his disfigurement were influenced by a local refuse-collector whose face was destroyed by cancer. In Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor, author Elizabeth Young theorized that Crane may also have been inspired by popular freak show
attractions such as The Elephant Man
and Zip the Pinhead
, whose real name was William Henry Johnson.
Modern critics have connected the novella's themes of racial division to a violent historic episode in Port Jervis' history. On June 2, 1892, an African American man named Robert Lewis was lynched
for allegedly assaulting a local white woman—the only recorded lynching of a black man in New York during the 1890s. On his way to the Port Jervis jail, Lewis was set upon by a mob of several hundred men who dragged him through the town, beat him, and then hanged him from a tree. William Howe Crane lived within sight of where the lynching took place and was one of the few men, including the chief of police, who attempted to intervene. Although Stephen Crane was not present at the time, there were detailed accounts published in both the Port Jervis Gazette and the New York Tribune
, the latter to which Crane contributed. The Gazette marked the day of Lewis' lynching "one of the most disgraceful scenes that was ever enacted in Port Jervis", and activist Ida B. Wells
launched a campaign to investigate the murder as well as the widespread theory that Lewis was set up.
. He later remarked that he wrote the novella "under the spur of great need", as he was in dire need of funds. In August of that year, Crane and Cora were injured in a carriage accident while visiting friend Harold Frederic
and his mistress Kate Lyon in Homefield, Kenley; after recuperating for a week, they followed the couple on vacation to Ireland, where Crane finished the story.
The novella was initially sent to McClure's
, along with several other works including "he Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", although it remained unpublished for nearly a year. After McClures eventual rejection, The Monster appeared in the August 1898 issue of Harper's Magazine
with illustrations by Peter Newell. A year later it was published in the United States by Harper & Brothers Publishers in a collection titled The Monster and Other Stories, which included two other works by Crane, "The Blue Hotel
" and "His New Mittens". The English edition, which included four more stories in addition to the three, was not published until 1901.
while playing in his family's yard, young Jimmie Trescott visits with his family's coachman, Henry Johnson. Henry, who is described as "a very handsome negro", "known to be a light, a weight, and an eminence in the suburb of the town", is friendly toward Jimmie. Later that evening Henry dresses smartly and saunters through town—inciting catcalls from friends and ridicule from the local white men—on his way to call upon the young Bella Farragut, who is extremely taken with him.
That same evening, a large crowd gathers in the park to hear a band play. Suddenly, the nearby factory whistle blows to alert the townspeople of a fire in the second district of the town; men gather hose-carts and head toward the blaze that is quickly spreading throughout Dr. Trescott's house. Mrs. Trescott is saved by a neighbor, but cannot locate Jimmie, who is trapped inside. Henry appears from the crowd and rushes into the house in search of the boy, finding him unharmed in his bedroom. Unable to retreat the way he came, Henry carries Jimmie, wrapped in a blanket, to the doctor's laboratory and the hidden stairway that leads outside. Finding that the fire has blocked this way out as well, Henry collapses beside Dr. Trescott's desk where a row of nearby jars shatter from the heat, spilling molten chemicals upon Henry's upturned face.
Dr. Trescott returns home to find his house ablaze; after he is told by his hysterical wife that Jimmie is still inside, he rushes into the house by way of the laboratory's hidden passageway. He finds Jimmie still wrapped in the blanket and carries him outside. Hearing that Henry is inside the house, Dr. Trescott attempts to re-enter, but is held back. Another man goes into the house and returns with the badly burned "thing" that used to be Henry Johnson. The injured men and boy are taken to Judge Denning Hagenthorpes house across the street to be treated, but while it is thought that Dr. Trescott and Billie will survive their injuries, Henry is pronounced as good as dead; he is mourned as a hero by the town.
Henry Johnson survives, however, under the watchful eye of Dr. Trescott, who treats the injured man out of gratitude for saving his son's life. Hagenthorpe, a de facto leading figure in town, urges Trescott to let Henry die, stating that he "will hereafter be a monster, a perfect monster, and probably with an affected brain. No man can observe you as I have observed you and not know that it was a matter of conscience with you, but I am afraid, my friend, that it is one of the blunders of virtue." Ultimately Trescott decides to move Henry, who has sustained disfiguring injuries to his face and psyche, to a local African American household, but Henry's presence proves troubling for the family's well being, and he is moved to another. One night Henry absconds, visiting various people around town and leaving terrified neighbors in his wake, including Bella Farragut, who he attempts to court as if no time has passed since they last met. Not welcome anywhere else, Henry is eventually moved to the carriage-house in the new Trescott house. Despite Dr. Trescott's protection, Henry is branded a monster by the townspeople, who avoid the Trescotts as a result. Although previously Henry's friend, Jimmie now mocks him, daring his friends to approach the disfigured man. Once the leading doctor in Whilomville, Trescott's reputation suffers greatly, as does that of his wife, who no longer receives visitors.
and The Red Badge of Courage
. The Monster heavily uses Crane's signature use of irony, imagery and symbolism. For example, fire—both literal and symbolic—features prominently throughout the story.
In his introduction to 1921's Men, Women and Boats, one of the first Crane anthologies, Vincent Starrett
noted the difference in tone between The Monster and his fourteen other tales that take place in the fictional Whilomville. He wrote, "The realism is painful; one blushes for mankind. But while this story really belongs in the volume called Whilomville Stories, it is properly left out of that series. The Whilomville stories are pure comedy, and The Monster is a hideous tragedy." Critic William M. Morgan noted the stories' similar fascination with "pure animal spirits" and "meanings of boyhood", but also differentiated The Monsters focus on "a larger, more mature, and modernizing community." Paul Sorrentino also pointed to the style differences, noting the story's focus on the adult characters rather than the children, as well as the overall length of the story; at more than 21,000 words, it dwarfs the other Whilomville tales. However, there is disagreement among critics whether The Monster should be considered a short story or a novella. Crane himself called it a "novelette", and the Library of America
edition refers to it as a novella.
Various critics have written about the story's paradox themes of deformity and monstrosity. Not only does Henry Johnson suffer a literal and physical defacement which brands him a monster, but the Trescotts' suffer metaphorical loss of face in their having been cast out by society. The trope of monstrosity takes on a paradoxical meaning when it becomes clear that the townspeople's actions mark them as monstrous as the man they shun for his deformity; as professor and critic Lee Clark Mitchell asked in his essay, "Face, Race, and Disfiguration in Stephen Crane's 'The Monster'", "Is 'the monster' the disfigured black man or is it the town that comes to dis-figure him?" Similarly, Harold Bloom
called The Monster an example of the "invasion myth", made worse by the fact that the "monster" is born from within the townspeople's collective mind. Henry-the-monster is therefore "generated by its fears of social instability, its prejudices about appearance (including racism), and its all-consuming passion for gossip and drama." Trescott, the only man in town not to see Henry as an invader, also becomes ostracized by the frenzied small-town mentality.
Race is a polarizing theme throughout the story. As William M. Morgan wrote, although the white characters are largely depicted as cold and humorless, whereas the black characters are seen to be warm and amusing, the town's racial hierarchy is omnipresent. Slavery is referred to several times throughout the story, as critic Nan Goodman noted; as a post-Civil War
work, The Monster revisits slavery's legacy as well as its effects on modern African Americans like Henry Johnson. At the beginning of the story, it is made clear that the white townspeople tolerate Henry because he "behaves himself" and "knows his place" as a black man. Later, when Henry struggles through the burning house to save Jimmie, it is said that "he was submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this conflagration." However, while his suffering is tantamount to the story, Henry Johnson is never really fleshed out as a character; before the fire, he "strikes in quick succession the minstrel's poses of an old-time, happy-go-lucky Negro", who charms children and women alike. Despite his heroism, Morgan stated, Henry does not stay far from a racially-implicated stereotype.
The Monster received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Before its publication, Crane's friend Joseph Conrad
wrote while responding to a partial draft: "the damned story has been haunting me.... I think it must be fine." William Dean Howells
, an early champion of Crane, proclaimed the novella to be "the greatest short story ever written by an American". The Spectator
concluded that The Monster alone would have cemented Crane's literary reputation; its reviewer wrote, "If Mr. Crane had never written anything else, he would have earned the right of remembrance by this story alone."
The reviewer for The Critic dismissed it as "an unpleasant story.... There is humor in the telling, but it is humor of a rather grim character." Julian Hawthorne
, son of author Nathaniel Hawthorne
, also ultimately disliked the novella, calling it "an outrage on art and humanity". He did, however, point to the similarities between Crane's "monster" and Victor Frankenstein
's creation in Mary Shelley
's most famous work, stating that Crane, like Shelley before him, successfully depicted an innocent outsider being tormented by townspeople who are themselves made monstrous by their irrational fears. Critics have since echoed the comparison between Shelley's character and Henry Johnson; Elizabeth Young explained the parallels in that, similar to Frankensteins narrative—in which "a male body is hideously transformed in a scientist's laboratory and brought back by the scientist from the dead—Johnson's disfigurement takes place in a doctor's laboratory, and it is Trescott that ultimately saves him.
The English edition of The Monster was the last volume of Crane's work to be published during his lifetime. In the mid-20th century, the novella received a resurgence of critical attention, especially in regard to studies of race relations in late 19th-century New York. Critic Chester L. Wolford wrote that the story "reveals truths not socially accepted for almost another hundred years. The story is, indeed, an excoriation of social conditions for the blacks, but more important... it is an excoriation of all communities, all societies, in all places and all times." African American author Ralph Ellison
called The Monster, alongside Mark Twain
's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, "one of the parents of the modern American novel".
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
(1871–1900). Taking place in the small, fictional town of Whilomville, New York, the novella tells the story of Henry Johnson, an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
coachman employed by the town's physician, Dr. Trescott, whose face becomes horribly disfigured after he saves his employer's son from a fire. Despite being branded a "monster" by the town's residents, Trescott vows to shelter and care for Henry, resulting in his family's exclusion from the community.
The town of Whilomville was based upon Port Jervis, New York
Port Jervis, New York
Port Jervis is a city on the Delaware River in western Orange County, New York, with a population of 8,860 at the 2000 census. The communities of Deerpark, Huguenot, Sparrowbush, and Greenville are adjacent to Port Jervis, and the towns of Montague, New Jersey and Matamoras, Pennsylvania face the...
, where Crane lived with his family for a few years during his youth. It is thought that he took inspiration from several local men who were similarly disfigured, although modern critics have made numerous connections between the story and the 1892 lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
in Port Jervis of an African American man named Robert Lewis. A study of prejudice, fear and isolation in a small town, the novella was first published in Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
in August 1898. A year later it was included in The Monster and Other Stories—the last volume of Crane's work to be published during his lifetime.
Written in a more exact and less dramatic style than two of his previous major works (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an 1893 novel by American author Stephen Crane. Often called a novella because of its short length, it was Crane's first published book of fiction. Because the work was considered too risqué by publishers, Crane, who was 21 years old at the time, had to finance...
and The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane . Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to...
), The Monster differs from the other Whilomville stories in its scope and length. Its themes include the paradoxical study of monstrosity and deformity, as well as race and tolerance. Both the novella and collection received mixed reviews from critics, although The Monster is now considered one of Crane's best works.
Background
Crane wrote The Monster in the summer of 1897 while working as a journalist. The fictional town of Whilomville appears in fourteen other stories by Crane, and was based upon the New York town of Port Jervis, where the author lived from the age of six to eleven. After he and his mother relocated to Asbury Park, New JerseyAsbury Park, New Jersey
Asbury Park is a city in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, located on the Jersey Shore and part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 16,116. The city is known for its rich musical history, including its association with...
, Crane frequently visited the city until 1896, often staying with his older brother and Port Jervis resident "Judge" William Howe. Crane admitted to his publishers at the time that he while he readily used Port Jervis as inspiration while writing The Monster, he was anxious to ensure the residents of his previous hometown did not recognize themselves in the fictional Whilomville. While Crane biographer Thomas Beer
Thomas Beer
Thomas Beer was an American author.Thomas Beer may also refer to:* Tom E. Beer , American football player* Tom Beer , American football player...
claimed to trace the prototype of Henry Johnson to a Port Jervis teamster
Teamster
A teamster, in modern American English, is a truck driver. The trade union named after them is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters , one of the largest unions in the United States....
named Levi Hume, Crane's niece, Edna Crane Sidbury, believed the character and his disfigurement were influenced by a local refuse-collector whose face was destroyed by cancer. In Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor, author Elizabeth Young theorized that Crane may also have been inspired by popular freak show
Freak show
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics, people with other extraordinary diseases and...
attractions such as The Elephant Man
Joseph Merrick
Joseph Carey Merrick , sometimes incorrectly referred to as John Merrick, was an English man with severe deformities who was exhibited as a human curiosity named the Elephant Man. He became well known in London society after he went to live at the London Hospital...
and Zip the Pinhead
Zip the Pinhead
Zip the Pinhead, born William Henry Johnson , was an American freak show performer famous for his oddly tapered head.- Early life :...
, whose real name was William Henry Johnson.
Modern critics have connected the novella's themes of racial division to a violent historic episode in Port Jervis' history. On June 2, 1892, an African American man named Robert Lewis was lynched
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
for allegedly assaulting a local white woman—the only recorded lynching of a black man in New York during the 1890s. On his way to the Port Jervis jail, Lewis was set upon by a mob of several hundred men who dragged him through the town, beat him, and then hanged him from a tree. William Howe Crane lived within sight of where the lynching took place and was one of the few men, including the chief of police, who attempted to intervene. Although Stephen Crane was not present at the time, there were detailed accounts published in both the Port Jervis Gazette and the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, the latter to which Crane contributed. The Gazette marked the day of Lewis' lynching "one of the most disgraceful scenes that was ever enacted in Port Jervis", and activist Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who...
launched a campaign to investigate the murder as well as the widespread theory that Lewis was set up.
Writing and publication history
Crane began writing The Monster in June 1897 while living in Oxted, England with his companion CoraCora Crane
Cora Crane was an American writer, journalist and brothel owner. She was married to Captain Donald William Stewart, one of the key figures in the War of the Golden Stool between the British and the Ashanti, but she is best known as the common-law wife of writer Stephen Crane until his death in...
. He later remarked that he wrote the novella "under the spur of great need", as he was in dire need of funds. In August of that year, Crane and Cora were injured in a carriage accident while visiting friend Harold Frederic
Harold Frederic
Harold Frederic was an American journalist and novelist.-Biography:...
and his mistress Kate Lyon in Homefield, Kenley; after recuperating for a week, they followed the couple on vacation to Ireland, where Crane finished the story.
The novella was initially sent to McClure's
McClure's
McClure's or McClure's Magazine was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with creating muckraking journalism. Ida Tarbell's series in 1902 exposing the monopoly abuses of John D...
, along with several other works including "he Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", although it remained unpublished for nearly a year. After McClures eventual rejection, The Monster appeared in the August 1898 issue of Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
with illustrations by Peter Newell. A year later it was published in the United States by Harper & Brothers Publishers in a collection titled The Monster and Other Stories, which included two other works by Crane, "The Blue Hotel
The Blue Hotel
"The Blue Hotel" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane . The story first appeared in the 1899 collection entitled The Monster and Other Stories...
" and "His New Mittens". The English edition, which included four more stories in addition to the three, was not published until 1901.
Plot summary
After being admonished by his father, Dr. Trescott, for damaging a peonyPeony
Peony or paeony is a name for plants in the genus Paeonia, the only genus in the flowering plant family Paeoniaceae. They are native to Asia, southern Europe and western North America...
while playing in his family's yard, young Jimmie Trescott visits with his family's coachman, Henry Johnson. Henry, who is described as "a very handsome negro", "known to be a light, a weight, and an eminence in the suburb of the town", is friendly toward Jimmie. Later that evening Henry dresses smartly and saunters through town—inciting catcalls from friends and ridicule from the local white men—on his way to call upon the young Bella Farragut, who is extremely taken with him.
That same evening, a large crowd gathers in the park to hear a band play. Suddenly, the nearby factory whistle blows to alert the townspeople of a fire in the second district of the town; men gather hose-carts and head toward the blaze that is quickly spreading throughout Dr. Trescott's house. Mrs. Trescott is saved by a neighbor, but cannot locate Jimmie, who is trapped inside. Henry appears from the crowd and rushes into the house in search of the boy, finding him unharmed in his bedroom. Unable to retreat the way he came, Henry carries Jimmie, wrapped in a blanket, to the doctor's laboratory and the hidden stairway that leads outside. Finding that the fire has blocked this way out as well, Henry collapses beside Dr. Trescott's desk where a row of nearby jars shatter from the heat, spilling molten chemicals upon Henry's upturned face.
Dr. Trescott returns home to find his house ablaze; after he is told by his hysterical wife that Jimmie is still inside, he rushes into the house by way of the laboratory's hidden passageway. He finds Jimmie still wrapped in the blanket and carries him outside. Hearing that Henry is inside the house, Dr. Trescott attempts to re-enter, but is held back. Another man goes into the house and returns with the badly burned "thing" that used to be Henry Johnson. The injured men and boy are taken to Judge Denning Hagenthorpes house across the street to be treated, but while it is thought that Dr. Trescott and Billie will survive their injuries, Henry is pronounced as good as dead; he is mourned as a hero by the town.
Henry Johnson survives, however, under the watchful eye of Dr. Trescott, who treats the injured man out of gratitude for saving his son's life. Hagenthorpe, a de facto leading figure in town, urges Trescott to let Henry die, stating that he "will hereafter be a monster, a perfect monster, and probably with an affected brain. No man can observe you as I have observed you and not know that it was a matter of conscience with you, but I am afraid, my friend, that it is one of the blunders of virtue." Ultimately Trescott decides to move Henry, who has sustained disfiguring injuries to his face and psyche, to a local African American household, but Henry's presence proves troubling for the family's well being, and he is moved to another. One night Henry absconds, visiting various people around town and leaving terrified neighbors in his wake, including Bella Farragut, who he attempts to court as if no time has passed since they last met. Not welcome anywhere else, Henry is eventually moved to the carriage-house in the new Trescott house. Despite Dr. Trescott's protection, Henry is branded a monster by the townspeople, who avoid the Trescotts as a result. Although previously Henry's friend, Jimmie now mocks him, daring his friends to approach the disfigured man. Once the leading doctor in Whilomville, Trescott's reputation suffers greatly, as does that of his wife, who no longer receives visitors.
Style
The story is separated into 24 chapters, and some critics believe these chapters are further separated into two parts. Chapters 1–9, for example, set up Henry's injury, whereas chapters 10–24 map the town's response; these two parts contain several minor climaxes which lead to a major one at the end of each section. Critic David Halliburton wrote in his 1989 book The Color of the Sky: A Study of Stephen Crane that The Monster displayed a more "chastened" and exact style than his earlier works, which were often a mixture of clever bawdiness and epic dramatics—both of which are seen respectively in Maggie: A Girl of the StreetsMaggie: A Girl of the Streets
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an 1893 novel by American author Stephen Crane. Often called a novella because of its short length, it was Crane's first published book of fiction. Because the work was considered too risqué by publishers, Crane, who was 21 years old at the time, had to finance...
and The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane . Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to...
. The Monster heavily uses Crane's signature use of irony, imagery and symbolism. For example, fire—both literal and symbolic—features prominently throughout the story.
In his introduction to 1921's Men, Women and Boats, one of the first Crane anthologies, Vincent Starrett
Vincent Starrett
Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett , known as Vincent Starrett, was an American writer and newspaperman.- Biography :...
noted the difference in tone between The Monster and his fourteen other tales that take place in the fictional Whilomville. He wrote, "The realism is painful; one blushes for mankind. But while this story really belongs in the volume called Whilomville Stories, it is properly left out of that series. The Whilomville stories are pure comedy, and The Monster is a hideous tragedy." Critic William M. Morgan noted the stories' similar fascination with "pure animal spirits" and "meanings of boyhood", but also differentiated The Monsters focus on "a larger, more mature, and modernizing community." Paul Sorrentino also pointed to the style differences, noting the story's focus on the adult characters rather than the children, as well as the overall length of the story; at more than 21,000 words, it dwarfs the other Whilomville tales. However, there is disagreement among critics whether The Monster should be considered a short story or a novella. Crane himself called it a "novelette", and the Library of America
Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip...
edition refers to it as a novella.
Themes
The question of morality plays a large role in The Monster, especially in terms of compassion and tolerance. Several critics have pointed to the novella's non-absolute stance on these themes, mainly in regard to Dr. Trescott's ethical dilemma in his devotion to Henry, a black man and his son's savior. As author Patrick Dooley points out, "What is at stake in The Monster is that if Trescott is a moral man, Crane has rejected common-sense morality. If Trescott's actions are supererogative and saintly, however, he is to be applauded and admired, but the ordinary moral behavior of average people and the competence of everyday heroes will not have been expunged." Crane scholar Stanley Wertheim also noted the duplicitous morality depicted by the town of Whilomville, which exhibits "prejudice, fear and isolation in an environment traditionally associated with neighborliness and goodwill."Various critics have written about the story's paradox themes of deformity and monstrosity. Not only does Henry Johnson suffer a literal and physical defacement which brands him a monster, but the Trescotts' suffer metaphorical loss of face in their having been cast out by society. The trope of monstrosity takes on a paradoxical meaning when it becomes clear that the townspeople's actions mark them as monstrous as the man they shun for his deformity; as professor and critic Lee Clark Mitchell asked in his essay, "Face, Race, and Disfiguration in Stephen Crane's 'The Monster'", "Is 'the monster' the disfigured black man or is it the town that comes to dis-figure him?" Similarly, Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
called The Monster an example of the "invasion myth", made worse by the fact that the "monster" is born from within the townspeople's collective mind. Henry-the-monster is therefore "generated by its fears of social instability, its prejudices about appearance (including racism), and its all-consuming passion for gossip and drama." Trescott, the only man in town not to see Henry as an invader, also becomes ostracized by the frenzied small-town mentality.
Race is a polarizing theme throughout the story. As William M. Morgan wrote, although the white characters are largely depicted as cold and humorless, whereas the black characters are seen to be warm and amusing, the town's racial hierarchy is omnipresent. Slavery is referred to several times throughout the story, as critic Nan Goodman noted; as a post-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
work, The Monster revisits slavery's legacy as well as its effects on modern African Americans like Henry Johnson. At the beginning of the story, it is made clear that the white townspeople tolerate Henry because he "behaves himself" and "knows his place" as a black man. Later, when Henry struggles through the burning house to save Jimmie, it is said that "he was submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this conflagration." However, while his suffering is tantamount to the story, Henry Johnson is never really fleshed out as a character; before the fire, he "strikes in quick succession the minstrel's poses of an old-time, happy-go-lucky Negro", who charms children and women alike. Despite his heroism, Morgan stated, Henry does not stay far from a racially-implicated stereotype.
Reception and legacy
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
wrote while responding to a partial draft: "the damned story has been haunting me.... I think it must be fine." William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...
, an early champion of Crane, proclaimed the novella to be "the greatest short story ever written by an American". The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
concluded that The Monster alone would have cemented Crane's literary reputation; its reviewer wrote, "If Mr. Crane had never written anything else, he would have earned the right of remembrance by this story alone."
The reviewer for The Critic dismissed it as "an unpleasant story.... There is humor in the telling, but it is humor of a rather grim character." Julian Hawthorne
Julian Hawthorne
Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories...
, son of author Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, also ultimately disliked the novella, calling it "an outrage on art and humanity". He did, however, point to the similarities between Crane's "monster" and Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein was born in Napoli, is a Swiss fictional character and the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley...
's creation in Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's most famous work, stating that Crane, like Shelley before him, successfully depicted an innocent outsider being tormented by townspeople who are themselves made monstrous by their irrational fears. Critics have since echoed the comparison between Shelley's character and Henry Johnson; Elizabeth Young explained the parallels in that, similar to Frankensteins narrative—in which "a male body is hideously transformed in a scientist's laboratory and brought back by the scientist from the dead—Johnson's disfigurement takes place in a doctor's laboratory, and it is Trescott that ultimately saves him.
The English edition of The Monster was the last volume of Crane's work to be published during his lifetime. In the mid-20th century, the novella received a resurgence of critical attention, especially in regard to studies of race relations in late 19th-century New York. Critic Chester L. Wolford wrote that the story "reveals truths not socially accepted for almost another hundred years. The story is, indeed, an excoriation of social conditions for the blacks, but more important... it is an excoriation of all communities, all societies, in all places and all times." African American author Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
called The Monster, alongside Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
, "one of the parents of the modern American novel".
External links
- The Monster at Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library