Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

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From all the readings made in class I decided to make this literary analysis about Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. “The Open Boat” is a short story written by Stephen Crane an American writer, poet, and novelist whose works follows a Realist tradition. “The Open Boat” is a short story based on Crane’s shipwreck experience. Divided into seven sections, this story narrates the conflict of four men who are lost in the middle of the sea and fight for survival against nature. The main characters of this short story are the oiler Billie who is physically the strongest from all four, the correspondent he believed he was the head of the group, the captain who was injured, however, able to leadership the group, and finally the cook who was not strong …show more content…

Nature is represented as an indifferent and uncaring force acting on the lives of human beings.” “The Open Boat” shows the perspective on Man v. Nature, when the four men fight for survival against nature. Throughout the story the four men refer to Mother Nature as “She”. In certain moments of the story there is a repetition of drowned, for example in section six the narrator states, when the correspondent was awake while everyone was sleeping, he thought to himself, “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?” (Crane, 399; par. 171), Stephen Crane uses repetition to emphasize the internal conflict of the correspondent of being desperate of being in that position. This line prove his fear of what can happen to him and the danger that he confront. He claimed how Mother Nature could let them navigate that far, after all the torment they have gone through, and being so close to being rescued. He thought that this incident was an abominable injustice for him. Why him a man with a great life, profession. Later in the same section the correspondent’s composure decrease by the meaning of the following

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