Autumn Hatter
American Lit
Roba Kribs
April 13, 2014
Nature in Crane and London
Nature is unconcerned, impassive, and apparently random in its life and death choices. There are several similarities in the stories “To Build a Fire” and “The Open Boat” when connecting to Naturalism. One similarity is that nature was the adversary in both stories. In Stephen Crane's
“The Open Boat”, it recounts of four men shipwrecked and they're now stuck on the ocean in a ten foot dinghy. They can't do anything about their position as the sea had decided their destiny by demolishing the ship they were on and now they are stuck in a small boat moving on the broken waves. The story “The Open Boat” has four characters: the cook, the captain, the correspondent (who is based on Crane himself), and Billy Higgins, the oiler. While the point of view is 3rd person, the focus is mostly on the correspondent. Talking about the ocean, which they watch obsessively, he says, “ 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 (604). He doesn’t say, “Every minute we almost drowned!!!!”
There are a number of animals around them: a group of gulls, for example, who are perfectly at home on the water (605) and who are curious about them and a shark who also circles the boat as the correspondent rows through the night: “There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail of phosphorescence, like a blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters. It might have been made by a monstrous knife (613). Unlike movies, the shark doesn’t attack and destroy th...
... middle of paper ...
....
There are also many differences in the stories when connecting to Naturalism. One difference of opinion is that nature in each story were very dissimilar from each other. Another difference is that in “To Build a Fire”, the vulnerable character dies while in “The Open Boat” the powerful character dies from nature. The death of the oiler was unannounced while the death of the man in “To Build a Fire” was anticipated from to his lack of experience, and being feeble. The last difference between the stories is that they show different facets of struggles relating to Naturalism. In “The Open Boat”, there is a battle among the men in the boat and the weather encompassing them, along with the conflict among themselves trying to work together to survive. In the story “To Build a Fire”, the fight is between the man, with his deficiency of instinct, and nature itself.
Crane’s work, “The Open Boat,” is story based on his experience as a survivor
The picture of the crewmen; Michael Moran, Dale Murphy, Alfred Pierre, Robert Shatford, david Sullivan and Frenky Billy Tyne Jr. on the Boat shows the viewer how they had to dress everyday to work and what they would have been wearing when the boat capsized and sank but the bodies were never found. This picture shows the imagery of how life as a fishermen would look like on the open seas. This also gives insight to how the ranking of the crewmen worked captian telling the fishermen what to do depending on the
This image is what a majority of people believe to be the shark. They believe it to be the bloodthirsty sea monster that appears in countless works of literature and films, but science says otherwise. The classic picture painted by the minds of sailors returning from years at sea come from imagination and sharks’ violent methods of hunting and mating. Sharks fear humans as much as humans fear sharks, and most sharks, particularly the “man-eating” great whites, only bite humans because they mistake surfers for seals. In earlier times, the ocean was a source of mystery and adventur...
“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...
Starting in the very beginning, the four man crew is faced with a tragic shipwreck. After the disaster had struck, Crane goes into a long great detail about the knew vessel the crew must
This passage defines the character of the narrators’ father as an intelligent man who wants a better life for his children, as well as establishes the narrators’ mothers’ stubbornness and strong opposition to change as key elements of the plot.
There are four men stranded on a boat who are introduced in the beginning of the story. The cook, the oiler, the correspondent, and the captain are all on a boat that "a man ought to have a bath tub larger than" (360). As the men fight the crest of each wave they encounter, it is obvious that this is a desperate situation. Showing their powerlessness the narrator describes a group of birds as sitting ."..comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dinghy, for the wrath of the sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a thousand miles inland" (363). Even though the men are in grave danger, the sun rises and sets and a shark even swims by but seems to have no need for the men in the boat. The men even believe that the waves are harsh on them and want to capsize the boat. The narrator explains that "[the waves were] nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats" (361). Even though it is obvious that the ocean always has waves, it is hard fo...
The Open Boat is a particularly interesting story because of the great detail that the author extends and because of the solitary reflections of the characters in consideration of their demise. The story possesses an amazingly vivid description. This attention to detail affords the reader the greatest degree of reading pleasure. Crane paints such glorious images in the reader's mind with his eloquence.
...ne that when reading from an objective point of view the audience is able to place themselves in a similar position as the man. A story about man without a name and a face to visualize leaves only his personality for the readers to connect with. In “To Build a Fire” the man’s determination is the character of the story, through all the events that transpire he is still willing to meet his friends, “the boys”, by six o’clock. Although it took another writer’s opinion to help me comprehend the true intentions of London’s “To Build a Fire”, my appreciation for the piece has grown along with my understanding of what sets naturalism apart from other writing styles.
“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.
Therefore, the incessant troubles arising from human conditions often bring about unpredictable crises as "shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. " The tiny "open boat", which characters desperately cling to, signifies the weak, helpless, and vulnerable conditions of human life since it is deprived of other protection due to the shipwreck. The "open boat" also accentuates the "open suggestion of hopelessness" amid the wild waves of life. The crew of the boat perceive their precarious fate as "preposterous" and "absurd" so much so that they can feel the "tragic" aspect and "coldness of the water. " At this point, the question of why they are forced to be "dragged away" and to "nibble the sacred cheese of life" raises a meaningful issue over life itself.
In “To Build A Fire”, the main conflict throughout is man versus nature although it would be inaccurate to say that nature goes out of its way to assault the man. The fact of the matter is, nature would be just as cold without the man's presence regardless of him being there .The environment as a whole is completely indifferent to the man, as it frequently is in naturalist literature. The bitter environment does not aid him in any way, and it will not notice if he perishes. In the same way, the dog does not care about the man, only about itself. Ironically enough though, as the man was dying he was getting upset toward the dog because of its natural warmth, the instincts that it had, and its survival skills and those were the elements that the man lacked for survival. It is ironic that the man had to die in order to find out that man's fragile body cannot survive in nature's harsh elements, regardless of a human’s natural over-confidence and psychological strength.
Jack London 's "To Build a Fire" is a tragic story of a man who embarks on a journey through the frigid cold on the Yukon Trail during a brutal winter and is faced with battling the power of nature. We are shown a man who begins his journey, accompanied by a wolf-dog that follows, with all the confidence in the world, only to quickly end, not just his travels, but also his life. London uses many elements of naturalistic literature to tell his story. The theme of man versus nature, as well as survival, is our first evidence of this. He also concentrates on narrative as opposed to character to make his point that we are nothing in the eyes of nature. Determinism is another theme used that is extremely important. Naturalism, in all, is a type of extreme realism that is built on the idea that environment determines and governs human character. "To Build a Fire" is a classic example of naturalistic literature and shows that, if humans are not careful, nature will defeat them.
...and an equally indifferent relationship between humans. These styles are blended in the story by Crane’s varied role of Nature and humans throughout the story and the use of symbols and different imagery.
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.