Brotherhood In The Open Boat

In the Open Boat by Stephen Crane, the correspondent’s seems to show a change through his nature of being a cynical man from the beginning of the story to the changed man he becomes toward the end. I believe this change was caused by the brotherhood that was formed between the four men along with the situation of them being lost at sea, which caused him to change and grow as a character. I will support this claim with both textual evidence from the story and my own character analysis of the character.

In the beginning of the Open Boat, the correspondent is portrayed as a hard-bitten character that has seen it all, and believes that no joy can be found in the world. This is hinted in the brief introduction of his character that Crane gives

This seems to first be shown, in the passages leading to the first interaction with the shark, where the correspondent is reminiscing about a soldier who he witnessed lay dying in Algiers, “ He was sorry for the soldier of the Legion who lay dying in Algiers.” (Crane 1051). This is the first sign of empathy that we witness from the correspondent, it is the first passage where he is seen shedding a bit of his cynicism, this is telling especially when he admits to never seriously thinking about the soldier's situation, until now. “ He had never considered it his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the breaking of a pencil's point” (Crane 1051). Until this point in this story he never considered it with any form of sorrow, he even compares the man’s death to being less significant than breaking a pencil point, this thought process portrayed the cynicism that Crane wanted us the reader to see. The correspondent until that very moment admitted to never viewing the soldier’s situations seriously or at least through the point of view of human sympathy. But he does now due to his own situation which causes him to think about the soldier and him dying, through a newfound lens of empathy, because he can now sympathize with the man’s situation and the

An instance of this, is shown through a passage in 5th section of the story. The men, who are beginning to consider the possibility that all or few of them will perish, decide to exchange addresses in order to alert the other’s family of this when they make it back to land, and the correspondent participates. “They then briefly exchanged some addresses and admonitions. As for the reflections of the men, there was a great deal of rage in them.” (Crane). This is another moment where we see a growth in the correspondents character, he is one of the men that exchange addresses and goes along with the promise to deliver a letter along with the news to the men’s family, alerting them of their death if they were to die. This is a far change from the man who was complaining about rowing, and did not have any form of sympathy for another person’s death in Algiers, it is a second sign of change for his character, this time it is personally shown through the subtle brotherhood. This provides evidence that the solidarity between the four men, is slowly changing the correspondents character.

Crane has a habit of using traits from the correspondent character to hint at his growth for further in the story. A example of this, is through the way he portrays him as being a character that values communication. The scene with the correspondent