The Open Boat

"The Open Boat" is written by Naturalism author Stephen Crane, and the story is a great example of what Naturalism adheres to. Simply put, Naturalism paints nature and the universe as completely...

In part 5, the correspondent is taking his turn rowing; he and the oiler, Billie, are the only two of the four men who can really row: the captain is injured and the cook is physically unable. All...

One of the ways the author illustrates the daunting task ahead of the men is to make the ocean like a character. Each wave is a "menace." As each salty wall of water approached, it shut all else...

In “The Open Boat,” we read a story that talks about the terror of being shipwrecked at sea. The story mainly takes place on a tiny lifeboat that floats along after the wreck of a larger ship. The...

Perhaps the lack of color is more significant than color itself in this Naturalistic story of Crane's. For, the first line of "The Open Boat" suggests the uninvolvement of Nature in the lives of...

The eleventh paragraph of Crane's story demonstrates that the narrator has a role to play in the men's physical and psychological survival. The captain and the cook both say that they have just...

There are many instances where the sea is personified, where it is described in human or animalistic terms. These uses of figures of speech give the sea (and nature in general) character, almost...

This is an excellent question because the point of view shifts. Initially, the point of view of "The Open Boat" is told from the point of view of a third person narrator. This third person point of...

In part 5 of “The Open Boat,” the correspondent is on rowing duty when he sees a trail like “blue flame”; when he spots the fin speeding through the water, he realizes that a shark is creating that...

When writing an analysis of a literary work, you might want to focus on either a prominent theme in the work or on the way the style of the work relates to the content or theme. In terms of theme,...

In Stephen Crane's short story, "The Open Boat," the captain is portrayed as a natural leader who assumes captaincy of the lifeboat after the sinking of the Commodore, and he is largely responsible...

When he was a child, the correspondent was told the story of a soldier dying in Algiers, "but he had never regarded the fact as important." His friends at school would tell him all about the...

The point of view in which Crane writes is third-person limited omniscient. A third-person point of view specifies an external narrator who is witnessing the story as though from afar, either at...

Billie the oiler is the only character who dies in the story. He's also the only character whose name is given. The fact that Crane only names Billie, the character who dies, makes said character...

"The Open Boat" begins with "None of them knew the color of the sky." The story ends with ". . . they could then be interpreters." That is, the men in the boat could then interpret nature, "the...

Because Stephen Crane writes "The Open Boat" from a third-person omniscient point of view, he occasionally offers a narrative perspective that is outside the point of view of the story's...

You are only allowed to ask one question so I have had to edit down your question. Please do not ask multiple questions in future. You might want to think how the presence of the shark ties in with...

Billie, the oiler, is hardworking and the most physically capable person in the boat. Used to difficult manual labor, he is strong and can endure hours and hours of rowing in the small boat. The...

In the second paragraph of the story, the narrator says that many men actually have, or should have, a bathtub which is larger than the boat that contained the poor men after their ship sunk....

In Stephen Crane's story, "The Open Boat," we are introduced to four men who have survived the sinking of their ship. The four occupants of the small life boat are the ship's cook, the oiler...

The following quote appears in Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat." When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe...

The oiler is the strongest and therefore the most likely one to survive the ordeal. Ironically, he is the only one who dies. This underscores the futility of his struggle against the indifferent...

The prevailing ideas in Naturalism include a belief that human beings are natural creatures and, thus, are subject to the same laws of nature that all creatures are—there is nothing special about...

Naturalism is a genre in which nature and humans are, at times, adversarial to each other. The other times, nature is presented as completely uncaring of the existence of humans. Naturalism can...

I don't think that there is a moment in which all readers all of a sudden realize that the narrative point of view is limited to the things seen and heard by the four men in the boat. Readers...

There are several individual conflicts that occur throughout the story. Here are six of the most readily apparent. The story is largely a case of man versus nature, and as such, several conflicts...

In “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane, there are a few examples of man versus nature. There are a few ways in which nature is at odds with the sailors on their dinghy. The most obvious is their...

Immediately after this first sentence of Part I, the narrator tell us that Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were the hue of slate,...

I would say that the tower is the most straightforward symbol in the story because Stephen Crane comes out and writes down exactly what the tower symbolically represents to the correspondent. It...

Picture this: you've been shipwrecked. You are in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with three other men. There is no land in sight and very little hope of rescue—there's only the crashing...

While there is a lot of overlap between realism and naturalism, the two are distinct literary movements. Naturalism was born from the realist movement, but it often indulges in the grotesque to a...

After the men see the lighthouse, the correspondent finds eight cigars in the "top pocket of his coat". Four were soaked and "four were perfectly scatheless" someone found...

The men can see the lighthouse and the alleged "house of refuge" by this point. However, they see no signs of life and the cook says, "Funny they don't see us!" He says he wonders why they don't...

"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, is a fictionalization of a real occurrence in his life. Its portrayal of the sinking of a steamship and the survival of four men is overflowing with the emotions...

All of the characters in the story are quite literally in the same boat, which means that even though they might not ordinarily give each other the time of day, they have to put aside their...

“The Open Boat” is an 1897 short story written by American poet, novelist and short story author Stephen Crane. It is actually based on real life events and depicts the experiences of the young...

I'll answer the first question that is listed. Yes, I think the end of the story is a return to the collective; however, the narration at times returns to the collective throughout many other parts...

Based on the question's wording, it hints that this is an opinion-based question and answer, but I don't feel that is giving Crane's text enough credit. Crane quite beautifully tells readers at the...

Situational irony occurs when the men in the open boat see people upon the shore. Situational irony is where a situation occurs in which expectation is contradicted by reality. The men in the...

One could argue that "The Open Boat" is amenable to a Marxist interpretation—however strained—in that it reveals the existence of a common human nature beneath the artificialities of class...

"The Open Boat" is actually an adventure story. It was published in his first collection of short stories which, significantly, was titled The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure (1898) People...

In the tiny lifeboat launched from the sinking ship, Commodore, there is the cook, a heavy man who is out of shape and unused to physical labor. There is also the oiler, a young man named Billie...

Stephen Crane in The Open Boat reveals, not only the fight for survival of those now lost at sea in the boat, but of man's constant struggle against the elements. The struggle to survive is...

The last paragraph encapsulates what I believe is the main point of Crane's story: the randomness of nature and of the outside forces to which man is subject. In the boat, the men seem to be...

One of the phrases frequently used in the defintion of naturalism is the indifference of nature. The Romantics viewed nature (or Nature, as they would probably write it) as restorative and somehow...

“Naturalism” in literature is often associated with the following traits, many of which are exemplified in Stephen Crane’s short story “The Open Boat”: an emphasis on a view of nature, including...