Crane was born in 1871, the ninth surviving child of deeply religious Methodist parents. Crane began writing as a child and increasingly turned toward atheism rather than the religion of his parents, leading to recurring themes of spiritual crisis in his works, including his exploration of The Meaninglessness of the Universe in “The Blue Hotel.”

Though he published several articles even before his short university career (Crane left Syracuse University in 1891 without graduating), his first major work was the 1893 novel Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, which focuses on the lives of the impoverished living in the Bowery in New York City, particularly sex workers. Often considered the first work of American Naturalism, Maggie stands out from previous works dealing with “fallen” women due to the absence of moralizing. Maggie, like “The Blue Hotel,” depicts characters as types rather than as individuals with autonomy; both texts treat the world as something that happens to the characters. Critics have associated this view, a hallmark of Naturalism, with Crane’s efforts to work through his departure from religion.

In 1895, Crane published his most famous work: The Red Badge of Courage, a Civil War novel that was praised for its

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