Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

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“The Open Boat” was written by Stephen Crane in 1897. This is an extremely powerful short story fictionalized by one of Crane’s own experiences out at sea. He is able to use what has happened to him, and spice it up to turn his story into a fictional account everyone can relate to. The reasons this story is so powerful is because of the literary devices Crane uses throughout the story, especially symbolism. In “The Open Boat,” Crane uses the four main characters, the dinghy, the waves, and the sea-weed as symbols to produce a microcosm of society.

The most important method Crane utilizes to be able to produce a microcosm of society, is through symbolizing the four main characters of “The Open Boat.” Each man Crane places on the boat plays as a particular role to produce a minute society people can relate to; the four major characters are: the captain, the cook, the correspondent, and the oiler. The captain is exactly what he sounds like he would symbolize in a society. When a person hears the word “captain,” he/she automatically imagines a person in charge. Therefore, by naming him “the captain,” the readers are aware that he is in charge of everyone on the boat, and that he symbolizes all the people in the world who are leaders in life. He represents the ones who do not have to work that hard in life, and who controls what others do. To understand who the cook symbolizes in society, the audience may have to analyze the story a little bit more in depth. After closely reading there are some key pieces of information in the text that leads to the cook symbolizing the followers of society. The audience only gets to know the cook through conversation, and by what the captain is telling him to do. In part VII of “The Op...

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...clude this as a symbol that gives evidence to Crane using this story as a microcosm since people are able to relate to this in their life, or even as a society.

There are many lessons one can learn by reading Crane’s “The Open Boat” due to him constructing a microcosm of society. It is unbelievable how authors, especially Crane, are able to use characters and items as symbolism to produce a meaning of a story. Crane was meticulous on choosing the correct names, backgrounds, and descriptions of the characters and items he used in this story. If he would not have paid close attention to these details in his story, it would just be another plain story with no meaning.

Works Cited

Crane, Stephen. “The Open Boat.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Eighth Edition, volume C. Ed. Mary Loeffelholz. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2012. 990-1006. Print

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