The Open Boat
First published in 1898, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent.
Crane subsequently adapted his report into narrative form, and the resulting short story "The Open Boat" was published in Scribner's Magazine.
[1] Hired by the Bacheller newspaper syndicate to serve as a war correspondent during the Cuban insurrection against Spain, the 25-year-old Stephen Crane boarded the filibustering steamship SS Commodore on New Year's Eve, 1896.
He and three other men (including the captain, Edward Murphy) floundered off the coast of Florida for a day and a half before attempting to land their craft at Daytona Beach.
[8] Crane's report of the shipwreck appeared on the front page of the New York Press on January 7, 1897, only three days after his rescue, and was quickly reprinted in various other papers.
A second and lesser story, "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure", based upon the same shipwreck but told from the point of view of the captain, was published in McClure's Magazine in October 1897.
The first part introduces the four characters—the correspondent, a condescending observer detached from the rest of the group;[15] the captain, who is injured and morose at having lost his ship, yet capable of leadership; the cook, fat and comical, but optimistic that they will be rescued; and the oiler, Billie, who is physically the strongest, and the only one in the story referred to by name.
In the penultimate chapter, the correspondent wearily recalls a verse from the poem "Bingen on the Rhine" by Caroline Norton, in which a "soldier of the Legion" dies far from home.
Vibrant descriptions of color, combined with simple, clear writing, are also apparent throughout, and humor in the form of irony serves in stark opposition to the dreary setting and desperate characters.
[19] Editor Vincent Starrett stated in his introduction to the 1921 collection of Crane's work entitled Men, Women and Boats that the author keeps "down the tone where another writer might have attempted 'fine writing' and have been lost.
"[20] Other critics have noted similarities between the story and shipwreck-related articles Crane wrote while working as a reporter for the New York Tribune earlier in his career.
Articles such as "The Wreck of the New Era", which describes a group of castaways drowning in sight of a helpless crowd, and "Ghosts on the Jersey Coast" contain stark imagery that strongly prefigures that of "The Open Boat".
"[22] The correspondent regularly refers to the sea with feminine pronouns, pitting the four men in the boat against an intangible, yet effeminate, threat; critic Leedice Kissane further pointed to the story's seeming denigration of women, noting the castaways' personification of Fate as "an old ninny-woman" and "an old hen".
[31] Sergio Perosa similarly described how Crane "transfigures an actual occurrence into existential drama, and confers universal meaning and poetic value on the simple retelling of man's struggle for survival".
The correspondent's desire to survive is evident in his refrain of the lyrical line: "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?
[34] In his 1990 book Sea-Brothers: The Tradition of American Sea Fiction from Moby-Dick to the Present, author Bert Bender noted Crane's sympathetic portrayal of the oiler Billie, the most physically able of the four characters, and yet the only one to perish.
"The Open Boat" directly references Lady Caroline Norton's 1883 poem "Bingen on the Rhine", which focuses on the death of a French Foreign Legionnaire, far from home, while grasping the hand of a comrade.
[41] While the literary reference may be considered ironic, unsympathetic, and only of minor interest, Stone for one argued that this poem may also have served as a source for The Red Badge of Courage, which also explores man's relationship with the metaphysical.
Praising the merit of the story and his friend's literary importance, journalist Harold Frederic wrote in his review for The New York Times that "even if he had written nothing else, ["The Open Boat" would] have placed [Crane] where he now undoubtedly stands.
"[44] English poet Robert Bridges likewise praised the story in his review for Life, stating that Crane "has indelibly fixed the experience on your mind, and that is the test of a literary artisan".
[45] American Newspaperman and author Harry Esty Dounce praised the story as chief among Crane's work, despite its seemingly simple plot, writing for the New York Evening Sun that "those who have read 'The Open Boat' will forget every technical feat of construction before they forget the long, heartbreaking mockery of the day, with land so near, the bailing, the egg-shell changes of seats, the terrible, steady cheerfulness and brotherhood of the queer little human group".
Author and critic Elbert Hubbard wrote in Crane's obituary in the Philistine that "The Open Boat" was "the sternest, creepiest bit of realism ever penned".
