Naturalism in The Open Boat
... 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 boats”(49-50). Crane also uses personification to create a more personal interaction between man and nature. “There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests”(51). References such as this are common in the story and eventually establish an estranged and alienated relationship between man and nature as Crane personifies it. Nature does not entirely seize the persistence and determination of the sailors, however, which makes man look all the more insignificant because their fortitude seemingly does them no good. “If I am going to be drowned-if I am going to be drowned-if I am going to be drowned, why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?”(57). As the sailors begin to express these words, readers become aware that the sailors understand that their destiny is in the hands of a higher power. Even as this goes on, however, there is still a degree of futile hope among the sailors. Many who have studied naturalism and applied it to “The Open Boat” have found that many of the typical character traits are present in the sailors. Donna Campbell asserts that characters in naturalistic literature are typically lower class and in a constant struggle to fight forces within nature that are beyond their control. She goes on to say that the characters are also emotionally strong and emphasizes the element of indifference in nature (Campbell, 1). Anna Ryan focuses on the post- Darwinian ideology of naturalistic writers that “a human being belongs entirely in the order of nature and does not have a soul or any other mode of participation in a religious or spiritual world beyond nature; that such a being is therefore merely a higher-order animal whose character and fortunes are determined by two kinds of forces, heredity and environment” (Ryan, 1). “The Open Boat” is a perfect e...