The Open Boat | Characters

Using only four characters, Crane establishes both brotherhood and individualism. The captain, the oiler, the cook, and the correspondent create a cosmos wherein the men have no actual common bonds. Their methods of earning a living, their education, and their social classes all seem to divide them, yet Crane shows us a very tight union. In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893; see separate entry), Crane asserts that because few people care for anyone else, social problems like poverty and ignorance are never defeated. In "The Open Boat," he demonstrates that when people work...

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