“The Open Boat” 305Crane found himself in a small dinghy with three
other men; they were adrift for 30 hours.
Crane wrote a newspaper account of this event,
but more important, he crafted one of his finest
short stories, chronicling the hope and despair of the
captain, the cook, the oiler, and the correspondent
(the fictional counterpart of Crane himself ). The
men struggle valiantly to keep the small boat afloat
until they can be rescued, and they vacillate between
hope of survival and fear of death throughout
the harrowing adventure. The captain is a calm,
able leader. The cook provides hope when there is
little, and the oiler and the correspondent take turns
rowing. The story is told from the point of view of
the correspondent, who is initially hopeful of being
rescued but finally is so tired and hopeless that death
seems almost welcome.
The themes of nature’s indifference, the impor-
tance of community, and the mystery of survival
permeate the story as the men valiantly try to reach
shore. Nature is completely indifferent, even threat-
ening in the form of turbulent waves and a predatory
shark. Only a sense of community keeps the four
men from total despair as they take care of each
other, but their survival is threatened over and over.
Joyce Smith
cOmmunity in “The Open Boat”
When the men in Stephen Crane’s “The Open
Boat” find themselves together in a dinghy after
their ship has sunk, they have little in common. One
man is the ship’s captain; one the cook; one the oiler;
and the last a correspondent, or newspaper reporter,
who has managed to secure passage on the ship. In
spite of not really knowing his new mates, the cor-
respondent soon views them as his community, join-
ing them in looking out for each other and working
together. Later, he develops empathy for the larger
society that encompasses even a dying soldier in
Algiers who is remembered through a poem. This
concern for the community of humankind eventu-
ally supersedes the correspondent’s earlier question
of “why he was there.”
The four men work as a team to try to get to
safety. The injured captain gives directions and
voices assurances that they will get to shore all right,
the cook bails water out of the boat, and the oiler
and the correspondent each take an oar to row the
craft. Together they use their individual strengths to
keep the boat afloat and moving toward safety. The
narrator states, “It would be difficult to describe the
subtle brotherhood of men that was here established
on the seas.” In the cold January landscape, each of
the men fell warmed by the companionship of the
others, and the correspondent, who has learned to be
cynical about men, thinks at the time that it is “the
best experience of his life.”
The four do not discuss their companionship,
but after the correspondent discovers he still has
four dry cigars among the eight in the top pocket
of his coat, they seal the relationship with a smok-
ing ritual. After someone manages to find three dry
matches to light the cigars, each puffs contentedly,
assures himself of an impending rescue, and takes a
drink of water. When rescue starts to become doubt-
ful, they begin to consider alternatives, and they
exchange “addresses and admonitions.” The implica-
tion is that even if their little community is broken
up by the sea, they will try to contact each other or
each other’s families.
As night falls, the community becomes more
physically entwined. The oiler and the correspon-
dent take turns rowing as they each try to manage
some sleep. The feet of the men touch each other
as three lie in the boat under the correspondent’s
feet, and the cook has his arm around the oiler’s
shoulders, evoking an image of “babes of the sea.”
This literal touching of bodies is reassuring until the
correspondent thinks himself the only one awake. It
is then that he sees a shark ominously circling the
small boat, and he wishes not to be alone in his fear.
The lack of waking companionship seems to
reach deeply into the correspondent’s psyche and
to dredge up a long-forgotten verse in school. The
poem tells of a “soldier of the Legion” dying in
Algiers, far from his own country, with only a com-
rade at his side. The correspondent had long ago
forgotten the poem and had never seriously con-
sidered the dying soldier’s plight. For the first time,
he finds himself greatly concerned for that soldier,
feeling sympathy for him. Later when the captain
affirms that he too had seen the shark, the corre-
spondent says he wishes he had known someone was
awake to share the danger.