The mood of “The Blue Hotel” is primarily ominous and tense. It is clear from the beginning of the story that the three travelers (the cowboy, the Easterner, and the Swede) who find their way to Scully’s hotel do not trust each other. As tensions between the men increase, the blizzard outside also becomes more severe, contributing to the eerie and edgy mood of the story.
The tension in the story is punctuated by several moments of violence when the men come to blows and the mood becomes more frenzied and heated. Take the following passage, for example, when the group of travelers attack each other after the Swede accuses Johnnie of cheating at their card game:
The men found tongue together, and hoarse shouts of rage, appeal, or fear burst from every throat. The cowboy pushed and jostled feverishly at the Swede, and the Easterner and Scully clung wildly to Johnnie; but through the smoky air, above the swaying bodies of the peace-compellers, the eyes of the two warriors ever sought each other in glances of challenge that were at once hot and steely.
Descriptions like “hoarse shouts of rage, appeal, or fear burst from every throat,” “the cowboy pushed and jostled feverishly,” and “Scully clung wildly to Johnnie” all contribute to the chaotic and heated mood of this moment in the story. Even the less frenzied description of the Swede and Johnnie (“the two warriors”) exchanging “glances of challenge that were at once hot and steely” communicates that this is a moment in which the tension that has been growing between the men over the course of the story will be released.
It is notable that the mood shifts into an entirely new place at the end of the story as the Easterner reveals to the cowboy that they teamed up against the Swede for the wrong reason, as the Swede was right about Johnnie cheating. Here, the mood becomes much more contemplative, since the Easterner and cowboy wonder what actions they could’ve taken to prevent the Swede from dying that night.
