The Open Boat Critical Analysis

Perspective of the natural world can be indifferent or beneficent, through life and death. This is all dependant on the view of the person interacting with nature. In the works presented, from the eyes of men (in life and in death) nature is indifferent towards his life; Contrastingly, women see nature as being a more benevolent force of gentle good. Perhaps this could be explained by the different purpose of men and women of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Women were even referred to as the ‘fairer sex’ and expected to be generally gentler. They grew up weaned on crafting and caring, prepared not for any serious work. Men however were meant to protect and guard, given the tasks of hunting and providing as well. As boys they went around whacking

Contorting the waves of the sea into sharp, angry points, nature is not kind to the men in peril. But "She did not seem cruel to [them] then, not beneficent, not treacherous, not wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent,” (1003). Because their situation did not bode well, the men in the boat didn’t see anything around them with the light seen in Jewett’s more romantic piece. Instead they blunder around, fighting the waters stubbornly rather than working with them to get back ashore. In this life nature does not provide, but simply goes about her tasks with no concern for the actions of little boats filled with little men. They almost seem to argue with the water, and lash out at the birds flying by. They are in competition with what is surrounding them, and in war with nature, man will always lose. The confrontational mannerisms of men in the past might have played a role in their violent objection to comply with nature’s

In Jack London’s The Law of Life, the protagonist explains that “Nature was not kindly to the flesh. She had no concern for that concrete thing called the individual... Nature did not care.” (1044). Not only does he argue this, but also that the rule of nature is that all must die. However, the fact that he even gives nature a set of rules displays that he’s trying to constrain and understand it. Man tries yet again to pin down nature, controlling and forcing it into a set of rules that he can understand. This seemingly instinctual requirement to subjugate the things around him hinders man 's progress. Possibly it is because he is not taught in another way, but instead is shown nature as a force to be fought with as a child, or maybe it’s that the particular samplings of written work presented from the 1860’s on were biased in the way of women, but nonetheless only the men seem to share this perspective. Instead of working with what they are given, or in this case, trying to make life for himself, man just sadly reflects upon how nature is taking that life that it gave him