Open Boat
Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat" is very much "open" to interpretation. The story revolving around four men on a small boat braving a raging sea in hopes to save themselves from death points to many interesting comparisons and deep symbolism. The purpose of this essay is to examine the five main characters of this story and how they collectively represent something more than the sum of their parts. This essay will argue that the five main characters in this story are the four shipmates: the captain, the oiler, the cook and the correspondent, plus the characterization of mother nature herself which serves as the story's powerful antagonist. The essay will explore the idea that each crew member by himself cannot adequately represent a hero, yet when all are synthesized together a rich and truthful story emanates from this collective.
Crane uses the number four to relate the situation on the boat and the qualities of nature. It appears that this allusion is made to relate man's place within nature. Mother nature herself is divided into four distinct seasons, echoing the distinct characteristics of the shipmates. Nature is also essentially divided into four directions: north, south, east and west. The situation on the boat is much the same as the captain, representing the fiery leadership of man, the oiler, representing the common every day man, the cook who represents the lower echelons of society and the correspondent who represents the thinking and critical skills inherent in man. Each man could be assigned a season or direction depending on the reader's point-of-view.
Throughout the story each crewmember proceeds through the ups and downs of contemplating death and a return to mother nature either spiritually or physically. Crane notes that...
Stephen Crane's story "The Open Boat" is a masterful example of Naturalistic storytelling that evokes the characters of four men stranded on a small boat as well as character of the sea itself. By the end of this long short story, despite the fact that Crane has provided us with only the most elliptical clues about these four men, we have came to understand a great deal about their characters.
"The Open Boat" may have been based on Crane's real-life experience but it also functions as symbolic "of man's battle against the malevolent, indifferent, and unpredictable forces of nature…This reading is confirmed by the final irony of the death of the oiler, physically the strongest man on the scene and the one most favored to withstand the ordeal" (Rath & Shaw 97). The futility of resisting the power nature with
Stephen Crane: A Great Writer of American Naturalist Fiction and Non-Fiction, and of Local Color Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American author of the late 19th century, whose work, in terms of style and sub-genre, was somewhere between American Romanticism and American Naturalism (with some American Realism added). Crane wrote at the end of a century (the 19th), a time when several literary styles and genres are typically blended together until
"The drowned face always staring," and "the drowned face sleeps with open eyes" are lines in Rich's poem that correspond with the symbol of drowning as death in Crane's "The Open Boat." The symbol of drowning is that of respect for nature and especially for the power of the ocean over human life. Darkness is another symbol shared in common by these two works of literature. Although Rich's poem has
If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is an old hen who knows not her intentions. If she has decided to drown me, why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble. The whole affair is absurd...But no, she cannot mean to drown me. She dare not drown me.
One critic's reading of "The Open Boat" positions the story as a turning point in Crane's career, away from the isolation and interiority of The Red badge of Courage and towards a sense of the need of community and the inescapability of interpersonal bonding. Statements like "Four scowling men sat in the dingey" are taken by some to be indicators of the camaraderie that must necessarily form between any
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