The Open Boat
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The Open Boat is a short story by Stephen Crane, published in 1897. The short story is based on a similar incident Crane had in January of that year. During a trip to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent, and during the Cuban insurrection against Spain, Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours after his ship, the Commodore, sank off the coast of Florida. Crane and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat. One of the men, an oiler named Billy Higgins, drowned while trying to swim to shore. Crane wrote the story "The Open Boat" soon afterward. "The Open Boat” in many ways is a story that speaks to the monumental experience of suffering a close call with death.
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[edit] Naturalism
The Open Boat is considered fiction because Crane's realistic depiction of this ordeal embodies the emotions of struggle for survival against the forces of nature. Because of the work's philosophical speculations, it is often classified as a work of Naturalism, a literary offshoot of the Realist movement.
[edit] Summary
Stephen Crane’s The Open Boat is not a story about four shipwrecked men, but the relationship between man, nature, and fate. The entire time, the four men are upset with the two virtuous beings, which are referred to as people, but they do nothing to upset the two. Upsetting either would result in their end, and throughout the story, they make it clear that they just want to endure the treacherous waters. The short story itself is based on actual experience as Crane spent almost thirty hours at sea after his ship, The Commodore, sank off the coast of Florida.
The captain, the cook, the correspondent, and the oiler are survivors of a shipwreck and are trying to make their way to solid ground. The captain, who is both old and wise, is injured, but still in command of the small ‘dingy’ they traveled in.
Nature, in a way, is the main character in the story because each of the four men is hesitant to make it angry or to disturb it. The men would ask the sea for mercy, pleading with it to let them pass safely. It is not a happy ending but rather an ending of the correspondent coming to terms with the harsh universe. Where the characters were once described as not knowing the colours of the sky, they have survived an ordeal that allows them to become interpreters. Their ability to interpret, however, does not mean that they have found any definite meaning in the universe- it remains indifferent to them.
[edit] Characters
The Captain: The captain is injured and unable to help row the lifeboat. The captain is more forlorn and dejected than the other characters after having lost his ship. And yet he feels that it is his duty to guide the men to safety. The Cook: In the story the cook is described as fat and untidily dressed. He does not help row, but he does bail seawater out of the boat. He is the most talkative of the group, and remains optimistic that they will be rescued. The Correspondent: This character is autobiographical in the fact that Crane himself was shipwrecked off the Florida coast while working as a war correspondent. The Oiler: The oiler, Billie, is the only character in the story whose name is given. He is the only character who appears not to survive the ordeal. He is the strongest rower and seems the most likely among the group to survive. But, at the end he drowns in the shallow water just off shore while the other characters are saved.
[edit] Other themes
Some other themes in The Open Boat include: individual vs. nature, perspective, death, free will, and brotherhood.
[edit] References
- The Open Boat: Themes. Short Stories for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 17 February 2008. <http://www.enotes.com/open-boat/themes>.
- Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Stephen A. Scipione. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
