The Open Boat,” is a short fictional story written by Stephen Crane based off true events that occurred the author himself. This story is written in a perspective of a story teller describing all the details to bring the reader into the actual life experience. Crane wrote in a naturalism tone with imagery, irony, symbolism themes as hope, survival, determination, and the with theme of man versus nature. The main theme being nature’s indifference to man and man’s insignificance in the universe. Crane writes about four fictional characters that are shipwrecked and that are stranded in the open ocean. After rowing for days, they finally win the battle for survival, however only three of the characters make it, and one of the character meets a watery grave just mere moments of surviving the horrid …show more content…
His hard work gives the reader the hope that his character will survive and be saved, however his death is an example of the unruliness and unfairness of nature. Crane uses vivid detail and can bring his story to life with the use of symbolism, and he takes the reader into the actual experience in real life terms. The author brings the crashing waves to life by comparing them and giving them animal characteristics. By using adjectives like wild, untamed, and powerful, he gives a much more detailed visual experience for the readers. “A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking Broncho, and by the same token a Broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it” (I). Crane also uses the repetition of “drowned” lines to show the men’s internal conflict with life and death, how they struggle both physically and mentally through the ordeal, and how they start with determination of survival and how that determination