Crane's Short Story The Open Boat
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The following essay maintains as its thesis that in the face of an often brutal and godless existence, Crane demonstrates in ôThe Open Boatö that the only source of psychological wholeness for human beings is to reach out toward others. I reviewed three articles on Steven CraneÆs ôThe Open Boatö from scholarly literary journals, including the Hemingway Review, Studies in Short Fiction, and College Literature. These articles focused on CraneÆs worldview evident in the story, something that helped reveal his theory of psychological wholeness. In my analysis I searched for information that provided greater insight into the authorÆs personal psychology as illustrated by the characters and emotions in the story. The main conclusion I drew from this research is that Crane believed in a harsh and godless world, one where a commitment to other human beings represents the only chance for psychological wholeness. The Stephen Crane short story ôThe Open Boat,ö is but one of the authorÆs accounts of a personal trauma he suffered, being lost at sea on a lifeboat in January 1897 (Bates, 1998, p. 65). Through fiction, Crane fictionalizes a non-fictional episode from his own past. Because of this, ôThe Open Boatö readily lends itself to a psychological critique, for the authors personal psychology is clearly reflected in the story. The emotions and behavior of the men in the boat demonstrate the authorÆs psychological perspective of ôwholeness
. . .
human existence struggles amidst a brutal and godless nature, we see that the emotions and behaviors of the men in the boat reveal CraneÆs belief that only fraternity or reaching out to others can provide psychological wholeness for the individual. We already see that there is no belief in some kind of spiritual fulfillment after life. As we are told, ôI am going to drown? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final phenomenon of natureö (Crane, YEAR, p. 739). Against the indifference of nature and the thought of their impending mortality, the men form a community on the boat, one where commitment to each other provides them psychological wholeness in the midst of trauma, ôàdistances were so magnificent in the dinghy that the rower was enabled to keep his feet partly warmed by thrusting them under his companions. Their legs indeed extended far under the rowing-seat until they touched the feet of the captain forwardö (Crane, YEAR, 735). In this manner, the men on the boat literally form a human chain of brotherhood against the cruelties of nature and a godless existence.
As Rath and Shaw (1991) assert, the ôàfour characters in the dinghyö are
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Rath Shaw, Edward Stephenson, Stephen Crane, College Literature, Body CraneÆs, Boat Abstract, ôthe boatö, psychological wholeness, Steven CraneÆs, Shaw MN, short story, Stephenson ER, Hemingway Review, brutal godless, human existence, craneÆs psychological, bates 1998, godless existence, cruel indifferent, craneÆs ôthe boatö, psychological perspective, perspective human existence, crane short story, manÆs existential dilemma, studies short fiction,
Approximate Word count = 1433
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Crane Short Story The Open Boat
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
