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The Open Boat (1897)

• Stephen Crane

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Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

• Writer most famous for novel The Red Badge of
  Courage (1895), about a young mans experience of
  Civil War
• From old American family (since 1600s) son of
  Methodist minister
• Early novel, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets
  (1893), set in slums of New York also wrote
  short stories and poetry
• After Red Badge, became correspondent in Cuban
  insurrection, 1897

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Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

• Jan. 1897 En route to Cuba, steamer The
  Commodore sank off Florida Crane published
  newspaper account and later the short story The
  Open Boat
• 1897 Settled in England with Cora Howard, who
  had been madam of a brothel in Florida. Became
  friend of writer Henry James
• 1900 Died of tuberculosis in Badenweiler, Germany

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(No Transcript)
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The Commodore
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Mosquito Inlet Lighthouse/ Dingy
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Nature vs. Civilization

• About the indifference of nature and the
  necessity for each person to confront that
  indifference independently (like Londons To
  Build a Fire)
• About the ability of people to work together to
  make meaning (be civilized) despite natures
  indifference (unlike To Build a Fire)

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Cranes technique the opening paragraphs

• (728-29)

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Perception

• None of them knew the color of the sky. Their
  eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the
  waves that swept toward them (728)
• In the wan light, the faces of the men must have
  been gray. Their eyes must have glinted in
  strange ways as they gazed steadily astern.
  Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would
  doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque. But
  the men in the boat had no time to see it (729)

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Simile Metaphor

• Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than
  the boat which here rode upon the sea (728)
• A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a
  bucking broncho, and, by the same token, a
  broncho is not much smaller (728)
• Cook Wouldn't have a show without on-shore
  wind (729)
• they now rode this wild colt of a dingey like
  circus men (732)
• Cook with arm around oilers shoulders they
  were the babes of the sea, a grotesque rendering
  of the old babes in the wood (735)

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Bucking Bronco
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Babes in the Wood
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Characters

• Cook fat a talker Gawd! looks at sea (728)
• Cheerful (730)
• Irrelevant talk what kind of pie (735)
• Oiler more physical, agile a worker quiet
• Rows more than anyone else And the oiler rowed,
  and then the correspondent rowed. Then the oiler
  rowed (733)
• Focuses on work sees least all but the oarsman
  watched the shore grow (731)

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Characters

• Captain mind . . . rooted deep in the timbers
  of sunken ship (728)
• impression of a scene (7 facesthe 7 men who
  died)
• Becomes the captain of the dingystill commands
  respect
• Correspondent wondered why he was there an
  outsider, a thinker (728)
• based on Crane himself the main center of
  consciousness
• cynical of men (730) sarcastic and cursing

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Characters

• See conversation at end of section 1 (729)
•      "Houses of refuge don't have crews," said
  the correspondent. "As I understand them, they
  are only places where clothes and grub are stored
  for the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't
  carry crews."
•      "Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.
•      "No, they don't," said the correspondent.
•      "Well, we're not there yet, anyhow," said
  the oiler, in the stern.

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Language Spare Detached

• They rowed and they rowed (730)
• There was a sudden tightening of muscles. There
  was some thinking (732)
• A conference was held in the boat (738)

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Interpretation Boat Shore

• Unbridgeable divide between the men and the
  shore men in boat misinterpret the shore people
  on shore misinterpret the men (732-34)
• "Well, I wish I could make something out of those
  signals. What do you suppose he means?"
• "He don't mean anything. He's just playing."

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Interpretation Boat Shore

• Mens repeated reflection 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, was I allowed to
  come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was
  I brought here merely to have my nose dragged
  away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese
  of life? (732)

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Interpretation Men Nature

• In contrast to Sylvia in Jewetts A White
  Heron, the men here do not communicate well with
  nature
• nature does not regard him as important (736)
  (but waves are important)
• Nature lacks visible expression or
  personification to communicate with (736)
• Gull is an Ugly brute as if made with a
  jack-knife (730)
• Shark is a thing (736)

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Interpretation Men Nature

• The correspondent finds his own visible
  expression of nature in the wind-tower
• This tower was a giant, standing with its back
  to the plight of the ants. It represented in a
  degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of
  nature amid the struggles of the individual --
  nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of
  men. She did not seem cruel to him, nor
  beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she
  was indifferent, flatly indifferent (738)

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Subtle Brotherhood

• The men form a community despite natures
  indifference
• It would be difficult to describe the subtle
  brotherhood of men that was here established on
  the seas. No one said that it was so. No one
  mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each
  man felt it warm him (730)

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Subtle Brotherhood

• However, brotherhood has limits each character
  must finally face his individual fate
• The correspondent, observing the others, knew
  that they were not afraid, but the full meaning
  of their glances was shrouded (738)
• Perhaps an individual must consider his own
  death to be the final phenomenon of nature (739)

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Return to Land Characters

• Oiler swimming rapidly, ahead in the race
  (739)characteristic strength
• Cook swims on backcharacteristic size
• Captain holds onto boatcharacteristic control
  of boat

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Return to Land Characters

• Correspondent paddled leisurely contemplates
  shorecharacteristic thinking, perception
• The shore was set before him like a bit of
  scenery on a stage, and he looked at it and
  understood with his eyes each detail of it (739)

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Conclusion

• Why does the oiler not survive?
• Chance?
• Too weak from his self-sacrifice?
• Lack of perception, imagination?
• Divide between sea and land is bridged
• Land offers all the remedies sacred to their
  minds
• Men hear the great seas voice and they felt
  that they could then be interpreters (740)