Literary Criticism of "The Open Boat"

Even though the oiler suffered on his journey on the open boat all of the characters were victims of life’s unfortunate and twisted series of events. These four men have possibly gone through a shipwreck that left them stranded in the middle of the ocean without any tools for survival aside from a small dinghy. This event in itself is unfortunate enough, but for these men it is barley the beginning. They endure rough seas, fatigue and endless rowing alongside several other complications during their desolation at sea. Nearing the end of the story a large and furious wave completely runs

In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain

Oftentimes, when burdening or stressful circumstances begin to generate strain on an individual, they find themselves turning to literary art as a form of mental relief. This deliverance applies, in particular, to the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the father in “The Boat,” by Alistair MacLeod. In both short stories, readers can pinpoint several instances in which these specific characters seek solace through differing formats of written language. The function of the father’s books in “The Boat,” and the narrator’s diary in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is to serve as an instrument of escapism, rebellion, and self-expression, within the controlled existence of

“To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”- Elie Wiesel. Daniel James Brown, the author of The Boys in the Boat, knew Joe Rantz, the main character in his book, personally, and wrote his book with true facts and real memories. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, narrated the book and wrote it from personal experiences. The Boys in the Boat is about 9 working class boys on the University of Washington’s rowing team who qualified to compete in the 1936 Olympics. Joe Rantz, the main character, has lost everything he knew as a young boy, and had to make his own life. In Night, Elie Wiesel is a Jewish boy living in Transylvania, when the Nazis come and take the whole town to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration of camp. The only thing he got to keep from his childhood was his father, but they stuck together until the end, enduring horrific violence on them and others. Joe Rantz and Elie Wiesel demonstrate resilience by overcoming fear and family

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a true story which illustrates the importance of grit and perseverance in the face of challenging situations. Throughout his troubled upbringing, Joe Rantz faces depressing and unfortunate events. When he was young, his mother dies, and his father remarries a harsh woman, Thula, who treats Joe dreadfully. His father can't hold a job, and his family keeps moving from town to town, which negatively impacts his social life. Eventually, Thula threatens to end the marriage with Joe’s father unless Joe leaves the family. Joe’s father accepts Thula’s request, and he abandons Joes when he is only fifteen years old. Yet in the midst of living independently at such a young age, Joe perseveres through the challenges and achieves his life’s dreams. When he is left with almost nothing, his drive to succeed ultimately leads to his triumph at rowing and to his winning of an Olympic gold medal in Berlin.

In today's world, many people in our society are reluctant to attempt new things, but find success and triumph in doing so. In The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, Joe and Roger are extremely nervous about joining the team, but, in the end, the roller coaster was thrilling and successful for the tandem. My experience at Belmont Hill feels somewhat similar, and I possess hopes of creating my own personal victories. Although I feel nervous and at times uncertain, I believe I am making the right choice to help make my future positive.

“The Open Boat” is a short story written by poet and author Stephen Crane (1871-1900). In a sense, the story is about survival. The author, who serves as the story’s narrator, is retelling his real life experience of sharing a small dinghy in the middle of the ocean with three other men after the boat they were sailing in hit a sandbar and sunk. The story is relentless because it begins and ends in what seems to be frantic desperation. The men are up against the forces of nature and the relentlessness of the wind and ocean squalors. They are specks to the vastness of the watery landscape and, as such, they each are forced to reckon with the fact that if the ocean were to swallow them it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. As the men work beyond the point of exhaustion they are

Brad Muhamad 4774501 Professor Dabek Approaches to literature 5/18/2015 Stephen Crane: The Open Boat Shortly after surviving a shipwreck Stephen Crane published a short story named “ The Open Boat.” It is a story about four men in a dinghy trying to reach help on the coast. Although they are the only survivors of a ship that sank overnight, the four men continue their burdensome task for safety as they confront the dangers nature brings their way.

In the beginning of The Open Boat, the author Stephen Crane displays a wide variety of imagery. The first chapter is about several men who get stranded on a deserted island. While their ship is in the process of crashing into land, Crane describes the cruel waves. "The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times it's edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks". With much hesitation, Crane subtly foreshadows the future events.

When reading "The Open Boat", by Stephen Crane, one quickly starts to realize that life is not all fair. The short story starts off with a ship sinking during one night in open waters, and the only survivors are four men. These men are in a small dingy, and they are trying to keep it afloat. Yet the men struggle to keep it afloat due to the rough surf. All throughout the story, one tends to notice the struggle and perseverance of the four men. Not only that, but during the course of the story, these four sailors start to realize what life and nature truly is. The theme of “The Open Boat” is that there is a lack of empathy toward man from nature itself, and this can be seen through the use of characterization, naturalistic tone, and the combination

In both Strange Cargo and the Floating Room, there were two sisters, one who was smart and one who was not. The sister who was smarter in Strange Cargo helped to keep them alive from the Ogre. In the Floating Room, the smarter sister actually ended up sending her dull sister away to a much better place where she was treated like a Queen. In the Juniper Tree, there too was a daughter who was a nice girl. The mother (of the little girl) however, was not nice. She ultimately ended up killing the little boy. This story sort of followed the same idea as Strange Cargo, where there was an evil woman who was a family member who either tried to kill or did kill another family member. In the East of the Sun, West of the Moon, there was a family of siblings,

“The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway follows an older Cuban fisherman named Santiago who struggles with a giant marlin, “the biggest fish he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of” (Hemingway 63), far out in the Gulf Stream. Two days and two nights pass in this struggle. Santiago, completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he had left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon putting an end to the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. On his way back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left in the water by the marlin. By night, the sharks gnaw round the marlin leaving only its skeleton. Having reached the shore with the only marlin’s skeleton, he slumps onto his bed and enters a deep sleep and begins to dream about lions. The main character of the story, Santiago, is an old Cuban fisherman who is a perfectionist and precise when it comes to fishing. Despite his precise techniques, he has no luck at sea. “He is a strange old man, still powerful and still wise in all the ways of his trade” (Burhans 2).Santiago is patient and unique among the fisherman. He is in love with the sea and considers it a living thing with a personality. The young boy in the story, Manolin, is the apprentice of Santiago and he has concern for the old man. His parents prefer that he work with more successful fishermen, but later he chooses to be loyal to Santiago. The old man and the sea’s

Throughout the course of his life, Ernest Hemingway proved to be a prolific writer who cherished the art of literature. His works embodied a simplistic style, yet he often portrayed profound messages hidden within this simplicity. As a person who loved adventure and travelling, he always had sources of inspiration that he used in his books. One of the most notable influences on his life was his time serving in various wars, which drastically shifted his view of the world and universe. Although some of his earlier books directly referenced the struggles of war, many others hid the effects war had on Hemingway and his resulting opinions of war underneath simple sentences and storylines. Big Two-Hearted River, which was written in 1925 after Hemingway served in World War I, follows the character Nick Adams as he confronts the wreckage of his burnt town and goes fishing alone. One of the last books Hemingway ever wrote was The Old Man and the Sea, which depicts the struggles of an old man, Santiago, who tries to catch a fish after being unsuccessful for 84 days. Although neither of these books directly mention war, the motivations and actions of Hemingway’s characters reflect his own struggles and demonstrate the disillusioning effects that war had on his mindset.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, exemplifies the circle of life. The circle of life is usually characterized by life coming to an end as a new life is begun. The story follows Santiago an old fisherman in Cuba. He has struggled recently not being able to catch a fish for eighty-four days (Hemingway, 8). He finally hooks a fish and has a long enduring battle with the marlin (Hemingway, 51). This long duel between the old man and the marlin showcases the struggles in life, along with success, and even death.

Is the achievement of victory an indicator of how valuable a man’s life is? This can be answered by examining several characters and the journey they travel in different stories. The short novel The Old Man and the Sea is written by Ernest Hemingway, and is the story of a Cuban fisherman who battles with a giant fish for many days. The next book, A Lesson Before Dying is written by Ernest J. Gaines, and tells the story of a man named Grant who is tasked with convincing a young man sentenced to death that he is not an animal like everyone says he is. Finally, William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech tells writers it is their duty to encourage people to be courageous in the face of danger. The characters in each of these stories have different life journeys but similar outcomes through achieving moral victory. Achieving a moral victory contributes to the overall success of one’s life.