Angry Men

From Violence to Order

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky is a story that places a "cowboy", Jack Potter, in juxtaposition with the uncharted world of formality. The villain, Scratchy, exemplifies the lifestyle that Jack Potter is accustomed too. Scratchy is a violent, insane man who is drunk all the time. Crane uses the saloon to define Scratchy. When Potter gets married we see a completely different world of Formality. Jack Potter and his bride can not understand this higher-class living. Crane contrasts Potter's old life through Scratchy and the Saloon scene, as well as with Jack and his bride in the train. When the two of them return to YellowSky, Jack is forced to face Scratchy, and his former lifestyle of guns and violence. During the final conflict, Scratchy witnesses the change in his nemesis lifestyle and lets him go. Thus the conflict is resolved because Scratchy to is shocked by this new way of life. Stephen Crane uses the Setting in "The Bride comes to Yellow Sky" to compare and contrast the characters.

Stephen Crane places his main character Jack Potter in a high-class train. Jack Potter is not used to the waiters, brass and gold furnishings, or his new married lifestyle. Jack Potter points out all these furnishings to his bride explaining that the, "dazzling fittings of the coach, and in truth her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil... "(286) Jack is described as one who's: "face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick colored hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion."(285) Crane uses this imagery to contrast the old cowboy lifestyle, with the new married, high class, and non-violent lifestyle he has entered. The reader can tell that Jack is not a regular in this high-class train. When he buys them dinner his wife feels bad because the meal is so expensive. She says, "Why, that's too much for us ain't it Jack?"(286) The newlyweds were both "elated" to be in the train which, "Reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Anton, this was the Environment of their new estate."(286) Their lives had taken a 180 turn as they immersed themselves in this more orderly way of living.

Scratchy is a villain who illustrates the former lifestyle, which Jack Potter is accustomed to dealing with. He drinks often and becomes violent. Crane uses the Saloon to show the typical Sheriff/hoodlum relationship. There are some typical Texans at the bar along with some Mexican sheep herders who