Literature concepts and applications

Stephen Crane's story "The Open Boat" is a masterful example of Naturalistic storytelling that evokes the characters of four men stranded on a small boat as well as character of the sea itself. By the end of this long short story, despite the fact that Crane has provided us with only the most elliptical clues about these four men, we have came to understand a great deal about their characters. Crane what must be seen as almost a stereotypical stratagem of the Naturalistic writer (Hill 1989) in placing people in a situation in which their characters are laid bare by the fact that the raw force of Nature is arrayed against them and this paper examines how Crane provides us with clues about how the proximity of danger peels away carefully constructed outer layers of our personalities.

Each of these men may die from exposure or drowning or thirst, and because each one knows this, he reveals, intentionally or not, something of his most essential nature. Crane writes about these revelations with skill and wonderfully evocative language, although he saves his most compelling descriptions not for the men but for the sea itself. In the end, we understand something of the nature of each of these men as they find themselves challenged by the might of nature, but we actually discover more about the nature of the sea itself. This paper also examines the ways in which Crane creates a portrait of the sea as a marvelous complex, protean entity, perhaps in this one case the taker of human life but far more importantly the source of all life.

Unlike the men in the story, who at best approach the problems that they are facing with courage but never with creativity, the sea is both beautiful and creative. With his double use of the word "probably" Crane makes us realize early on (in chapter two) that the sea is both more powerful than the men and also something far grander than it, something beyond their ability to understand or even imagine. (Brown discusses these ways in which nature but not humans "plays" in chapter two.)

The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad 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.

We see throughout the story how those creatures that make their homes in the sea are at one with it, in contrast to the men who are so very much not at home, who do not have the psychological or physical capacity to be at home in this sea, as in this description of the birds who come to watch the men:

Canton flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the sea, near patches of brown sea-weed that rolled over the waves with a movement like carpets online in a gale. The birds sat comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the wrath of the sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a thousand miles inland.

Against this magnificence of the natural world, the men seem diminished. We come to understand that the captain is in general a brave man and not unintelligent - he does help bring about their salvation with his suggestion that they use his coat as a sail. But we also understand that he views the sea as an enemy, as a foe to be met and either defeated or be vanquished by. His inability to see the connections among all natural things - himself included - diminishes him. The oiler, whom we come to understand is a man who always follows orders, is a reflection of the captain. He is a man who is good at following orders, and skillful at his craft, but not good at thinking for himself - which would have made him an invaluable crewmember but means that he has relatively little to contribute once they are stranded.

The cook is the person whom we learn the least about, the person who is the least revealed by this ordeal - perhaps because he is the person most out of place: He is a cook with no kitchen, a cook moreover with no food. Crane uses him to suggest how humans stripped of the trappings of civilizations are not only endangered but made (even to themselves) useless.

The correspondent, who should be the one who is most psychologically lost given that he has the least experience with the sea, is actually the one who seems least intimidated by their plight because he seems to be the one most capable of bringing the force of imagination to bear to make the immense creative force of the sea. He understands his own insignificance in the world, but he of all the four is the least troubled by it: