Judgment and Deception Theme Analysis

The characters in “The Blue Hotel” are all strangers to each other when they arrive on the train, and three of them—the cowboy, the Easterner, and the Swede—are new to the small town of Romper, Nebraska altogether. Repeatedly described as tense and suspicious of their companions, the characters rely primarily on surface appearances to size each other up. By offering little to no backstory for his protagonists, Crane creates an environment of fear and unease, as characters—and the reader—are unsure of who to trust. Such ignorance and shallow judgments, the story ultimately suggests, pave the way for deception.

The cowboy, the Easterner, and the Swede are immediately judgmental and suspicious of one another upon arriving at the Palace Hotel. After washing up, they sit tensely “in the silence of experienced men who tread carefully amid new people,” and respond to the local farmer’s attempts at small talk with only “short but adequate sentences.” For his part, the paranoid Swede does not respond at all, and is instead “making furtive estimates of each man in the room.”

The fact that none of the three guests is properly named increases the air of mystery surrounding them and reflects that they are defined in each other’s eyes by their outward appearance. That none of the men make much of an effort to share their backstories further suggests their mutual lack of trust and allows for ignorant speculation, and, ultimately, deception.

Indeed, the hotel guests make frequent presumptions and talk behind each other's backs. For example, after the Swede leaves the room, Johnnie says, “‘That’s the doddangedest Swede I ever see,” to which the cowboy “scornfully” replies, “He ein’t no Swede.” Crane writes, “‘Well, what is he then?’ cried Johnnie. ‘What is he then?’” This moment makes clear that the men need to latch onto something familiar in order to understand this man—that they require some sort of backstory from which they can then extrapolate the Swede’s character. Of course, as the cowboy quickly asserts, the Swede is actually Dutch. In their efforts to peg the character of their new acquaintance, the other men have ironically misidentified the only identifier they have. This points to the futility of basing judgment entirely on surface-level perceptions.

The disconnect between shallow appearance and genuine character is particularly evident with the gambler, whom the townsfolk respect despite the fact that he is a violent conman. Crane writes that the gambler “was, in fact, a man so delicate in manner, when among people of fair class, and so judicious in his choice of victims, that in the strictly masculine part of the town’s life he had come to be explicitly trusted and admired. People called him a thoroughbred.” Crane’s tone here is ironic, and it conveys the author’s judgment of the people of Romper for trusting such a character based solely on his genteel outward mannerisms while ignoring his violent actions. By demonstrating the flawed logic by which the disreputable and ultimately murderous gambler is accepted by the town, Crane further underscores the danger of ignorant judgment.

By the end of the story, it’s clear that such ignorance leads to both misinformation and potentially wrongful alienation of characters. When the Swede eventually accuses Johnnie of cheating at cards, for instance, the other characters are quick to jump to the latter’s defense; rather than consider the evidence at hand, they simply assume the Swede is in the wrong based on their prior judgments of his paranoid behavior.

The Easterner reveals at the end of the story, however, that it was in fact Johnnie, and not the Swede, who was being deceitful; Johnnie really was cheating at cards. While the Swede has been perceived as a villain and Johnnie as relatively innocent for most of the story, Crane makes clear in the end the folly in relying on appearances and blurs the line between trust and deceit. By misleading the reader into trusting certain deceptive characters, Crane demonstrates how easily ignorant judgment can lead to alienation and violence.

In the tale’s final moments, even as the Easterner asserts that Johnnie had deceived them all, and that all men are to blame for the Swede’s death, the cowboy refuses to believe any of it; instead, he insists on Johnnie’s innocence, the Swede’s shameful behavior, and that his hands are clean of any wrongdoing. Not only are people quick to make shallow assumptions about those around then, the story thus suggests, but they are also loath to abandon their prejudices even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary.