Open Boat, A Review

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Recommended: The role of nature in modern literature

Stephen Crane's Open Boat is a story about survival: a story about struggling to survive in a very hostile world. The story is a question of man's relationship to the world of nature that is completely overpowering. The four main characters were stuck in a ten-foot dingey. Being in a small dingey at a very doomed situation is the worst of all the worst scenarios; riding in a very small craft in turbulent waters is obviously a suicide. But what can they do? They have no choice. They have to stay alive. Struggling to live in a nearly-capsizing dingey was very unlucky but it made them realize the real reason for living. "These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small boat navigation." "The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high." The waves were unpredictably fierce and the boat was so small. They could not conquer the waves and they could not stop the course of nature. It is very impossible to conquer nature. Being powerless against nature, their only resort was to go with the flow. There is no point in combating with the sea; it cannot be dominated; but they can learn to go along on its surface and exert their effort to help each other. Nature might be that indifferent but with cooperation, support, and unity of those people involved; there is a greater chance to live. The most significant aspect of this struggle lies in the men's attempts to help one another survive. Knowing that someone is there to help you could motivate you; it gives you a reason to live; it makes you fearless. Their only hope to endure life is to form together and not just be individuals lost at sea. This is how the writer explained the changes in man's role in the modern world. The Nature is the most powerful element in the world--it could never be manipulated and it could not even be predicted. To be able to endure the hostility, the alienation of nature, humans have to listen to one another. Individualism should be set aside.

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