The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

1891 Words4 Pages

“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. It typically is argued as only fiction, but many lean toward its nonfictional quality. Crane wrote the story based off his real life experience of a shipwreck he tragically endured. The Commodore, the name of the ship, was the victim of the waves and Crane just so happened to be one of its friends. He wrote 2 articles based on this tragedy, but “The Open Boat” became the best way for him to make people visualize his struggle. The correspondent is the fictional form of the writer himself. Crane did not focus on the correspondent as much as the oiler. Billy Higgins is the only character in the short story that is named in the story. The oiler is named due to Crane’s remembrance of the sailor’s death. “The Open Boat” itself introduces all these thoughts and facts in one setting. “The Open Boat” has forms of analysis through patterns of characterizations, shipwrecks, and autobiographical information.
“The Open Boat” uses characterization to analyze the forms of survival that comes from the characters of the realistic fictional short story. The oiler, correspondent, captain, and cook all fulfill the different personalities dealing with the shipwreck. According to Joseph, the characterization in the story introduces four characters who have been dealt a bad hand by nature in a devastating shipwreck. The correspondent, the captain, the cook, and the oiler escaped are the maj...

... middle of paper ...

...10. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Hodgins, Nikki. "Character Annot."pagepanthers.wikispaces.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb 2014. .
LaFrance, Marston. "'The Matter That Pleased Himself.'." A Reading of Stephen Crane. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. 192-242. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 129. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Metzger, Charles R. "Realistic Devices in Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat'." The Midwest Quarterly 4.1 (Oct. 1962): 47-54. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 70. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
"The Open Boat." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 70. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.

Open Document