Survival And Comradery In The Open Boat

The short story “The Open Boat” is a classic story of survival and comradery in the face of the unstoppable forces of nature. The setting of the struggle in the raging sea worked in unison with some of the dialogue of the characters to establish a theme. The most central theme to the story was that all human beings are ultimately the same in that we are all equally powerless against nature.

The story starts out by presenting the setting as an endless number of towering waves all around. “The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed to thrust up in points like rocks” (Crane 246). When the story talks about how the horizon was always jagged it was alluding to the fact that land was nowhere in sight, just an endless barrage of waves. This image that is conveyed to the reader gives an immediate sense of helplessness. No matter who you are, you couldn’t stop those waves. Although stopping the waves wasn’t a viable option in that situation, fighting them was an option. The men in the story continued to row in the direction of land even as the

One phrase was repeated a number of times that emphasized the powerlessness that all human beings must feel when faced with the raw power of nature. “‘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?’” (Crane 253). The author continued to include this in the story on three different occasions to reinforce the idea. It shows that the characters in the story realized that they were powerless. The men felt slighted that they had made it so far, yet their lives could be taken away from them in an instant due to their