Rose of Thorns

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was born November 1,1871 in Newark, New Jersey. He died June 5, 1900, at the age of twenty eight of tuberculosis. He lived a hard life consistently faced with challenges to overcome.

Stephen Crane's naturalistic style of writing is what originally attracted me to his stories. His pessimistic and brutal style of writing is something very much I can relate to myself. Under a rough and crude exterior lies a man of elegant intelligence and poetic essence. His understanding of war, even though never actually participating in one, led him to create some of his greatest works such as "The Red Badge of Courage."

Crane's interest in ideas presented by Charles Darwin had a huge influence on his writing and style. Crane creates a dark and dreary tone in many of his writings and does an exceptional job on illustrating the futile attempts of man to control his own destiny. His characters are consistently ordinary men, with no exceptional qualities, faced with problems every one of us might be confronted with. This is why, in my opinion, Crane has had such a long lasting impression on the world of literature. Every single person that reads his work can relate, every character seems to reflect someone we know, every situation we can see our self facing the same challenges and struggling alongside the characters.