Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

“The Open Boat” is short tale of endurance, suffering, and redemption. The story focuses on four interesting sailors on a journey towards survival. They try their best to overcome the adversities of the water and raging storm. Crane focuses on the constant struggle of man’s immobility to control his own life. “The Open Boat” is a nonfictional fiction some call it.

The captain “feels that it is his duty to guide the men to safety” (Open Boat). Yes, he lost his ship and indubitably the rest of his crew. Nevertheless, he still is concern for all of them in the boat. The captain again expresses concern for Billie and the Reporter wishing for a sail in order for them to have “a chance to rest” (Crane, 205) from rowing. Wherever compassion is present readers should easily locate hope.

Stephen Crane’s short story “The Open Boat” is a story of conflict with nature and the human will and fight to survive. Four men find themselves clinging to life on a small boat amidst a raging sea after being shipwrecked. The four men, the oiler (Billie), the injured captain, the cook, and the correspondent are each in their own way battling the sea as each wave crest threatens to topple the dinghy. “The Open Boat” reflects human nature’s incredible ability to persevere under life-and-death situations, but it also shares a story of tragedy with the death of the oiler. It is human nature to form a brotherhood with fellow sufferers in times of life threatening situations to aid in survival.

The crewmember’s perspective/descriptions of the boat and water change throughout the story. The water is chaotic, bumpy, and dangerously high in the beginning but as the men begin to loose hope and challenge the gods, the water is no longer mentioned and if it is its calm. Also, the seagulls are flying around and the weather does not change regardless of the men’s situation. Therefore enforcing the idea that nature is indifferent to man. The crewmembers desperately use confirmation bias, the tendency to search for or

When the correspondent thinks that he is the only person awake on the boat, and he sees and hears the shark in the water, the narrator says, “Nevertheless, it is true that he did not want to be alone with the thing. He wished one of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it” (Crane 212). In reference to this scene, Shulman remarks that “the central theme of community [is] touchingly rendered here because the correspondent does not awaken his exhausted companions” (451). Nobody makes any statements about the bond that the men develop, but it is evident in small things like this, where the correspondent lets the other men sleep

The narrator of the novel supports this idea when he says: "They always sat on the Terrance and many of the fisherman made fun of the old man and he was not angry." (p. 11) The younger fishermen do not want Santiago around them because he is different from all of them. They always try to make fun of him and make him feel out of place. This didn't harm Santiago because it didn't break his spirits, but it motivated him to work harder to prove himself to them. The setting that Hemingway uses gives the reader a feeling of the pain and alienation of the old man.

He shows the group being given false hopes from outside forces but, how in the end the group must band together for survival and not rely on anything but themselves. "The Open Boat" is one of Crane's best known works. Throughout the story, paralleling an actually event in his life Crane brings the reader inside the minds of his characters. By letting the reader see what each individual character is feeling, the sense of needing a community can be felt. Stephan Crane's life was not long, but with his time he accomplished much.

There was humor, yet the seriousness of the whole fishing endeavor. The simple statements of emotions of thoughts give a view of the endearing fisherman to the head and heart. The novella, The Old Man and the Sea, is about a fisherman, Santiago, whose life is approaching its conclusion and his final heroic struggle against a great marlin and evil sharks that ultimately devour his prize. Also, the story shows an irreplaceable relationship of an old man and a young boy with the use of dialogue. The plot of the story is effected by the author’s choice in the way he used syntax.

Stephan Cranes “The Open Boat” Stephan Cranes “The Open Boat” is short stories that will make one appreciate every aspect of life whether it is a tragic misfortune or even a simple head cold. This is illustrated due to the fact in the story nature trains the men in the raft to appreciate what they have and don’t take life for granted. This is made clear when the correspondent says “If I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned, why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, I was allowed to come thus far and contemplate land and trees” (Baym)? After that statement one realizes that the men in the raft are beginning to appreciate nature that they show no attention to. In the story it says “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” (Baym).

In 1887, he survived a shipwreck with two other men. "The Open Boat" is his account from an outsider’s point of view of the two days spent in a dinghy. Crane pays special attention to the correspondent, who shares the chore of rowing with the oiler. While rowing, he contemplates his situation and the part that nature plays in it. Mainly through the correspondent’s reflection, Crane shows the power that nature and experience have in expanding people’s ignorant opinions of the world around them.