Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

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The late 1800s and the early 1900s describe the time of the naturalistic movement of literature as writers would try and depict realistic experiences in a very pessimistic tone and deterministic manner. Naturalism is a branch of realism; however, it is a very extreme sect of realism. Rather than illustrating an average person in an average situation like most realist writers, naturalist writers illustrate an average person facing very extreme and dangerous situations; such as war, natural disaster, extreme poverty, etc. Due to a great influence from Darwin and Social Darwinism, naturalists tend to believe in the survival of the fittest and that people are predetermined by their genetics and their environment, and that the environment one …show more content…

Along with this idea, naturalists believe that there is not a supernatural or spiritual aspect of the world, and there is only the universe which has an external force on all people living there. One major theme of Naturalism is the indifference of nature towards humans. It’s nature’s world, and humans are just living in it. Nature does not care if a human lives or if a human dies, and due to this feeling of indifference by such a strong external force, there tends to be a very cynical and pessimistic tone to naturalistic literature. Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat,” is a perfect example of naturalism as its characters,’ four men, are stuck at sea in a tiny row boat after they’ve survived a shipwreck. These four men, known as the captain, the oiler, the correspondent, and the cook, are left with no control over their situation as they helplessly fight against the indifferent forces of nature and the universe in order to try and return back to …show more content…

Rowing got more and more harsh on their bodies, at one point a shark starts swimming around on the boat, the weather continues to be stormy and windy, and evidently, they all grow very restless and tired. Continuously throughout the short story the men question the universe and their fate by asking, “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 man gods who rule the sea was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?” (Crane 1059). If they men were ultimately going to drown in the end, then why would their own fate put them through such a hard and strenuous journey? This journey continued to work and effect the men mentally and emotionally, and it gets so harsh that the men finally realize the full extent of nature’s indifference towards them. The short story claims that, “when it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers” (Crane 1059). This is the moment that the men actually realize to the full extent how little the universe cares if they live or die. As they realize that nature doesn’t care if they ultimately live or

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