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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

The Open Boat

by Stephen Crane

1898

Short Story

Adventure, Philosophical

In “The Open Boat” Crane's talents as a storyteller and interpretive writer are fully displayed. Subtitled “a tale intended to be after the fact,” this short story describes a misadventure that Crane actually experienced after a shipwreck while running guns to Cuba.

The main conflict is the classic one of man against nature—in this case, the sea. Crane gives a detailed account of thirty hours spent in a ten-foot dinghy by four men—a cook, a correspondent, the Captain, and Billy Higgens, the oiler, who is the only character called by name, though the correspondent is obviously Crane himself.

The four men make up the entire cast of characters; there is no single protagonist. The point of view is that of an omniscient narrator, and the use of plural pronouns through much of the story enforces the impression that their predicament is a collective experience.

While the men are adrift off the coast of Florida, they learn two important lessons. First, the natural world is at best indifferent to man, if not hostile, as the high, cold winter star, the roaring waves, and a menacing shark symbolically suggest. Second, if they are to survive, they will have to rely on themselves alone since they can expect no benevolent intervention from either God or nature.

Even though Crane writes that “shipwrecks are apropos of nothing,” he conveys with almost poetic prose a conception that was at the heart of his vision as an artist: The true nature of man's perilous position in the naturalistic universe dictates that he must form “a subtle brotherhood,” composed of those who truly understand the way things are. The men in the open boat show us that compassion for one's fellows, stoic endurance, and courage are the true moral standards in an amoral cosmos.

The cynical view of human society reflected in Crane's earlier story “The Blue Hotel” is here replaced by a more optimistic outlook; although Crane still regards the universe as inhospitable, he sees hope in human solidarity as a means of mutual salvation.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Crane, Stephen. "The Open Boat." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0395.
APA 7th
Crane, S. (2015). The Open Boat. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Crane, Stephen. "The Open Boat." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.