Criticism > Short Story Criticism > The Open Boat, Stephen Crane - Eric Solomon (essay date 1966)

The Open Boat, Stephen Crane - Eric Solomon (essay date 1966)

Eric Solomon (essay date 1966)

SOURCE: Solomon, Eric. “The Destructive Element.” In Stephen Crane: From Parody to Realism, pp. 145-76. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.

[In the following essay, Solomon notes the lack of parodic elements in “The Open Boat” and situates it within the context of Crane's other sea pieces.]

To the maiden
The sea was blue meadow,
Alive with little froth-people
Singing.
To the sailor, wrecked,
The sea was dead grey walls
Superlative in vacancy,
Upon which nevertheless at fateful time
Was written
The grim hatred of nature.

—Crane, War Is Kind, III

“The Open Boat” is one of the great sea tales of world literature, and the story has the power and tragic import attained by only a few of the vast number of writers—particularly in the nineteenth century—who have told of man's struggles against the wind and waves. Only in the works of Herman Melville and Joseph...

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