The Other Boat
Who am I? Why do I do what I do? When can I break the rules of society without being guilty? In the unique agony of seeking understanding, acceptance, and love, these several questions echo poignantly throughout human history. For all people these introspective problems—while difficult—desperately need answers, as answers to these questions dictate the choice to stay within the bounds of accepted ethics or to step out. The importance and difficulty of finding good answers to these questions intensifies for atheists and agnostics, since they must formulate answers with the full responsibility for their conclusions resting on their own shoulders. No religion can answer these questions for them. Thus, Forster, a humanist who shunned organized religions and endorsed the creation of individualistic creeds, if choosing to step out from established laws and customs, must ask, on his own, if his justifications hold true or if they converge with all other crimes against society. “The Other Boat” contains many of Forster’s personal humanistic moral perspectives on many issues including class conflict, colonization, racism, and adultery. However, most centrally, through a perspective of naturalistic fatalism, “The Other Boat” contains Forster’s personal moral justifications for homosexuality.
Readily available contexts for discovering and analyzing Forster’s moral justifications appear throughout critical scholarship on “The Other Boat,” yet many critics overlook these humanistic conclusions. In a biographical essay on Forster’s life, Carrol Viera notes that the collection The Life to Come and Other Stories, which includes “The Other Boat,” has generally been analyzed by critics from two perspectives. Most critics, she says...
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...ose difficult recurring questions, and from his own unique perspective he answers boldly: I am a homosexual. I do what I do because my nature dictates I must do it. I can break the rules of society without being guilty for nature disallows doing otherwise. These arguments for justified homosexuality live on today, and in many ways Forster’s naturalistic answers remain the dominant answers given by modern homosexuals. Through “The Other Boat” Forster gives their moral argument an early and eloquent voice, and though we agree or disagree we should laud him for that.
Works Cited
Forster, Edward Morgan. "The Other Boat." The Norton Anthology English Literature. Ed. Stephan Greenblatt. Vol. F. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
Viera, Carrol. “E. M. Forster.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. John H. Rogers. Vol. 162. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1996.
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
Alistair Macleod’s “The Boat” is a tale of sacrifice, and of silent struggle. A parent’s sacrifice not only of their hopes and dreams, but of their life. The struggle of a marriage which sees two polar opposites raising a family during an era of reimagining. A husband embodying change and hope, while making great sacrifice; a wife gripped in fear of the unknown and battling with the idea of losing everything she has ever had. The passage cited above strongly presents these themes through its content
The reading of “The Boat” by Alistair Macleod is an interesting and sad story that displays many elements figuratively and literally. The first figurative element is the boat. At a literal perspective, the boat is used for fishing and boat rides, although these are not the only things that the boat represents. We learn that the father in some way, as been sacrificing his working life for his family, for something that he doesn’t absolutely love. This shows that he is in some way trapped, or imprisoned. The boat displays
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1c. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print. The.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
People exploit the faults in their surroundings in hypocritical attempts to justify their own imperfections. Goodman Brown and Dimmesdale demonstrate hypocrisy in their efforts to avoid confronting their own distorted realities. Both Goodman Brown and Dimmesdale seek to exemplify the ideal Puritan lifestyle. After succumbing to unfaithful temptations, both men recognize that they have transgressed certain central values of their respective puritan communities yet neither correctly identifies the sin that ultimately debases his initially righteous character. For instance, Goodman Brown breaches basic Puritan prin...
Crane, Stephen. "The Open Boat." The Harper American Literature. Ed. Donald McQuade et al. 2nd ed. 2 Vols. New York: Longman, 1993.
Abrams, M.H., et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. 2 Vols. New York: Norton, 1993.
In Daniel Karslake’s documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, he examines the intersection between Christianity and homosexuality. Karslake uses parallelism, appeal to emotion, and appeal to logic to highlight how the religious right has used its interpretation of the bible to stigmatize the gay community. With the use of these rhetorical devices, he is able to auspiciously convey his argument that there can be a healthy relationship amongst the opposing side of this belief. He attempts to enlighten the viewer with the thought that Christianity's homophobia represents a misreading of scripture, a denial of science, and an embrace of fake psychology. The families call for love.
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
McIntosh, James. "The Mariner's Multiple Quest." New Essays on Moby-Dick or, the Whale. ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
Abrams, M. H., et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1986.