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Critical analysis on the open boat
Symbolism, imagery and metaphor in "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
The open boat by stephen crane symbolism
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When people write, they always write with a purpose. We, the readers, may not be able to discern what this purpose is; however, most authors decide to either write a story, explain or inform, or persuade the reader of a particular position or opinion. Stephen Crane joined the writing world to tell stories with a lesson within them. His stories are unique in the respect that his works asserts we live in world of uncaring, natural forces. His story “The Open Boat” is rich in this style of writing. Every piece of this story is symbolic in some way, such as the boat, the waves, and the act of drowning. The boat that the four men are trapped in represents human life. The waves beating upon the boat relentlessly symbolizes the forces of nature and
...lying terrified and helpless in the water reaches back for his shipmates to save him. It shows the battle in life over a cause. One side wants to save him (shipmates) while the other side wants him to die (shark) . This parable is a message to the triumphant colonists who fought for liberty and freedom in America. It can be related back to the Tea Party when the colonists stayed together against oppression from the Parliament and won.
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
The sea in the novel is another part of the symbolism. It represents a god like form. In chapter 7 the narrator’s parents die because the ice on the water cracked and they fell through as mentioned earlier. This is a sign of how the sea can bring death and play the role of god in other words. In the beginning of the book (24) we are also introduced to the birth of Catherine while everyone is on the ship that takes the characters to North America, this showing that the sea can also bring life and existence to us. For the most part the sea in the novel brought death like when the dog got shot after she crossed the water but for that one circumstance life was created. For the most part there also seems to be ice structures or platforms in the water when a character is going to die.
To begin with the characters on the raft are all on a different level when it comes to class and rank in society. The correspondent is the youngest of the four men in the boat and besides the oiler is the most physically able to row the raft. He is the one that shares rowing duties with the determined oiler. One begins to realize that throughout the story the correspondent gains a loving and caring heart for the men, which he feels is a forming brotherhood. Also he is so frustrated with the seven Gods that rule the see he makes rude remarks toward them. this is made clear when the correspondent says “If I am going to be drowned – if I am going to b...
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
It has often been compared to as a microcosm of society, with each of the men coming together to form a singular, perfectly functioning human machine. For example, the captain represents the leaders in the world. He directs the men in the boat, reminding the forgetful cook to bail out the boat every once and awhile, as well as directing Billie in which way to point the boat, or how to steer it, or just general advice to the rest of the men in the boat. The correspondent is the observers in society. He thinks about the nature of man and his relation to nature, as mentioned before. He is cold and calculating and thinks about everything while stuck on the boat. He eventually comes to the conclusion that nature is a cruel mistress whose job is to torture man endlessly, but he also finds that this isn’t true. “This tower is a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented, in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual-- nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent” (page 83). In this quote, the correspondent realizes much about himself and nature, all because he was stuck in that boat. The oiler represents the everyman, the subtle heros, the firemen and the postman who are
On December 31, 1896, Stephen begun his journey to cover the war in the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2 the ship sank. The only survivors were the captain that is injured, the oiler, the cook, and the correspondent. These four men are in a damage dinghy that almost stand in the surface of the Ocean. The story of Crane reveals the situation of each member of the story. The captain that is injured, calm, and lead and give orders to the crew. He is the man that have had the authority. The cook was a man that keeps everyone in a good moo...
A household is a precious and sensitive system of a group. Everyone has a role and responsibilities and even if someone took a sliver of more than the rest the balance could be broken. In the short-story “The Boat” written by Alistair MacLeod, the mother controls decisions in the house and abuses them even if they are not for the better of the house. She refuses to accept the daughter’s gifts, she discourages her family towards getting a better education and she married their father and pressured him to be a sailor. Though these decisions are what she feels is right, it does not work out for the rest of the family members. The mother’s stubbornness towards change and education caused the state of desperation in the house-hold.
Crane begins not with the details of the sinking vessel, but by immediately introducing the surviving characters in a lifeboat: the ship’s captain, the cook, the correspondent and an oiler; introduced primarily by their shipboard occupations as nameless men that continued to observe a hierarchal societal structure, even during the matter of survival. Stephen Cranes uses the sea to both support and contradict this concept: He writes “A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats"(Perkins). He later uses the sea as the perfect vehicle to portray nature has no vested interest in human death: “The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed for a moment abroad tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid, it was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and white and amber” (Perkins 104). Here the sea is objective in its connection to the boat and its occupants; they are being addressed without malice; it is simply doing what the sea does; not stalking them as predator versus prey.
The reading of “The Boat” by Alistair Macleod is an interesting and sad story that displays many elements figuratively and literally. The first figurative element is the boat. At a literal perspective, the boat is used for fishing and boat rides, although these are not the only things that the boat represents. We learn that the father in some way, as been sacrificing his working life for his family, for something that he doesn’t absolutely love. This shows that he is in some way trapped, or imprisoned. The boat displays
“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.” In other words, nature is an apathetic force that acts upon the lives of human beings simply as a consequence of their existence. However maddening and frightening this may be, man is in essence a byproduct of the environment and its conditions. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane displays a theme commonly found in naturalistic works of literature (517). According to “Realism in the Frontier,” naturalism begins in the late 19th century and continues into the early 20th century as philosophical
Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.
Symbolism allows writers to suggest their ideas within a piece of literature. This is found in most types of writing. Stephen Crane expresses this in his short story, The Open Boat. Through symbolism and allegory, it is demonstrated that humans live in a universe that is unconcerned with them. The characters in the story come face to face with this indifference and are nearly overcome by Nature’s lack of concern. This is established in the opening scenes, the “seven mad gods” and in the realization of the dying soldier. The descriptions that Crane uses in the opening scenes illustrate nature’s lack of concern for their tragedy. He discusses the waves in the ocean that continually roll and crest. The waves are problems or situations that are unavoidable; moreover, the “waves” continue to flow one after another towards the poor rowers. Also, the “birds sat comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey” because the birds were indifferent towards the sailors’ situation. They were sitting happily as if nothing was going on around them. The sailors were envious of this because they were forced to confront nature’s trials. The sun continues to rise and set daily, maintaining this routine regardless of what occurs in the world. The shore is also “lonely and indifferent.” This indifference causes the men to feel a certain isolation from nature. The men feel as if fate (the “seven mad gods”) controls their destinies. Their thoughts are given: “If I am go...
In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. As they get closer to land a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. (255-270) “The Open Boat’s” main theme deals with a character’s seemingly insignificant life struggle against nature’s indifference. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, creative point of view, and a mix of irony.
"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane is a factual account of his adventures at sea, or as he declares, "the Experience of Four Men from the Sunk Steamer COMMODORE" (48). He and three other men--the ship's captain, oiler, and cook--escape the sinking steamer in a small dinghy, and spend thirty wretched hours on the rough sea before reaching the Florida coast. Despite undergoing these events firsthand, Crane narrates the story in third person, indicating his presence in the dinghy through the character of the correspondent. As time passes during their perils at sea, Crane, or the correspondent, creeps ever closer to an impending epiphany: the realization of the indifference of nature and the relative insignificance of men--essentially, Crane's personal beliefs, as well as the presiding themes of Naturalism, which is "an irreligious philosophy that views the universe as indifferent to the existence and struggles of humans" (48). Through the use of imagery, personification, and symbolism, Crane illustrates Nature's obliviousness to the fortunes of men and reveals the struggles of man's realization and acceptance of this reality.