The Swede may have been a trouble maker, but he was right about his accusations. He had to grab the gambler at the saloon, because the gambler was already destined to act. They were all part of an 'act' in a play that was already rehearsed and going to be performed like it or not.
The other passage in the story that is very telling is:
One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smitten, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb.
Here, in one sentence is Crane's understanding of the world in which humans live. As the naturalist, he observed and wrote about the world around him from the Darwinian "survival of the fittest" perspective. He perceived the world and everything on it prescribed by these uncaring natural laws, which could be very harmful to humans. And what are humans? Freak accidents of nature, lice, that hang on to the world by being parasites. This is not a very positive view, by any means.
This theme is strengthened by the Crane's use of weather. The men fight in the swirling snow and the Swede walks through this blinding snow to the saloon. Here is nature in its raw form. These men have no more control over their own lives as they do to change the weather. In fact, much of Crane's naturalism theme is created through his use of imagery. The playing with cards, which is random in their shuffling. The blue color of the hotel its setting. The distinction is made between the inside the hotel with a stove and warmth and outside with the storm, which is the conflict between man and his environment. The uncontrollable snow also symbolizes the violence of the human community it encloses in the Blue Hotel. In fact, humans may even be more violent than this snow storm, itself, as Crane writes earlier that...
"the conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One was a coxcomb not to die in it. Humans may be vain and consider themselves higher than others, but they are just fools who are at the whims of the storms of nature.
Is Crane right in what he believes? Does man live in a world where there is no reason and where there is no control? Where life is meaningless rather than meaningful? Where violence is the norm and no one can have control over the elements, let alone other people?
The definition of naturalism by philosopher Paul Draper, is "the hypothesis that the physical world is a 'closed system'...where anything that is either a part of it or a product of it can affect it. In other words, it denies the existence of any supernatural causes or forces.
Whether or not there is something supernatural that has created this world is beyond knowledge. However, what is known is that humans now are on the earth and cannot give up and relinquish all power by saying, "nothing can be done," or as the character says at the end of the story, "Well, I didn't do anything, did I?" In other words, by doing nothing, one is actually doing something," so one may as well take the gamble that there is some control and do the best to make the world a better place.
References
Crane, Stephen. "The Blue Hotel." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 1626-1645
Gibson, Donald, and Moore, Harry. Fiction of Stephen Crane. Urbana: Southern Illinois University, 1968
