Open Boat
“The Open Boat” Frequently, authors will draw upon their own life experiences to formulate ideas for their stories. ... In “The Open Boat”, Crane illustrates his theme of Nature’s indifference to man through symbols such as water, animals and man’s own mortality. ... At one point Crane describes the waves “as most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth top was a problem in small boat navigation.” And later, that “a singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping the boat. ... Again, later in the story they state that “as each slaty wall of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean…” This passage can be compared to the colossal problems in our lives that sometimes, at least during a particular moment, prevent us from seeing any hope in the future because of forces supposedly beyond our control.