Preview

Open Boat Symbolism

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
223 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Open Boat Symbolism
Stephen Crane wrote this story in a naturalistic mode. The story of the Open boat talks about the struggle of man versus nature because the men’s in this story are fighting for their life. This story has a tone of serious, sarcastic, and sympathetic. In the introduction, “None of them knew the color of the sky” shows how they were only focusing on what they were doing and give the mood of seriousness. The waves, sharks, and sea symbolize the dangerous and unpredictable behavior of nature in its randomness.

The open boat symbolizes the exposed and vulnerable state of the four men at sea who are at the mercy of nature. Their only hope is to hold on as they navigate their tiny boat through the rough sea. Also, the boat symbolizes how life is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Image, the wee hours of the morning, a ship sinking and its crew abandoning the vessel in a lifeboat with only the thought of survival, unware of what dangers await them in the darkness of the sea. Ironically this is the grim reality of the men in the story The Open Boat written by Stephen Crane. What makes this story interesting is the fact that Crane was actually a passenger on the Commodore when it sank. During this time in American history it seems to be several shipwrecks along the coast of Florida. For the author he witnessed one of these disasters first hand. Therefore, Crane wrote The Open Boat based on his account of what happened on the fatefully morning when the steamer Commodore sank.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    One of the most important aspects of The Open Boat which allows it to achieve pathos so successfully is the plot structure. In the beginning of the short story, a grim picture is painted of the circumstances of the seamen. We realise how dangerous their situation is, and thus take the story seriously right from the first paragraph. As the story progresses we almost find ourselves joining them on the boat, growing used to the radical changes of the wind and surf, and becoming tolerant of the endless waves threatening to overcome them. In the first few paragraphs we are given opportunity to connect properly with the seamen, their situation and who they are, before anything significant happens. This is important because we are therefore effectively focused on the seamen, rather than the happenings of the story, from the beginning. In this way we are included in the struggles of the seamen as well as in the raising of their hopes. This first happens when a lighthouse is spotted and a more optimistic outlook is afforded. The prospect of a life-saving station/house of refuge allows us to think the men will be safe after all-…

    • 1790 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Roger Rosenblatt uses character to develop moral courage. The characters in the short story are: the Man in the water, the passengers, and nature. The passengers are the ones that are trying to survive the disaster, nature is the force trying to kill the passengers, and the Man in the water is the Man who saved all the passengers. Roger Rosenblatt…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the film, the ship has an explosion and causes the people to fall into the water. Due to the explosion on the ship, most of the people did not know how to swim and a quantity of them drowned. As the film continues, a shark attack takes place. It causes the audience fear and raises the level of excitement towards the public. Rainsford, being the only survivor, leaves the audience wondering. Questioning how Rainsford is the only one who made it out alive out of all of the people. The author also shows a lot of different perspectives of expressing emotions throughout the film. The love interest between the characters begin…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story “The Boat” Alistair MacLeod writes a story that predominately deals with the power of the past over the present. She uses symbols such as the boat which eventually transforms into books. From the father’s strong perspective, the boat symbolizes the means of survival for his family and imprisonment whereas, from the father and daughters point of view the books, which replace the boat symbolizes liberation and escape from the traditions of fishing. The main symbol in “The Boat” is the boat itself. The family thought the boat as their means of survival and that without the boat they would not have a house at the harbor, nice food and clothes to wear. Meanwhile, in the fathers perspective the boat is an ever-lasting trap that without it is impossible to sustain life and with it life is an…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Open Boat Analysis

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The four main characters in the "Open Boat" are the captain, the cook, the correspondent, and the oiler; also known as Billy. The captain is injured in the shipwreck that takes place before the beginning of the story. Despite his injury he naturally falls as the leader amongst the group of men. Stephen Crane says "...he could never command a more ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dinghy." Although the men are no longer on the ship the same understanding and respect is still apparent for their captain. The cook is the most optimistic out of the group. Throughout, the "Open Boat" the cook remains hopeful the men will be rescued. His up-beat attitude helps to keep…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This spoken word piece is about the human condition, and our corrupt nature. The ship refers to him, and the ocean is a metaphor for life. His fears, lies and nightmares (standard red devils and white ghosts) binding him, but they’re also the only thing keeping him together while the ocean “tosses him like leaves in this weather.” His dreams are sails, and they point him to his hopes and dreams in life. He says he built his own heart out of wood, and placed it inside himself (the iron ship), as he sails through the struggles in life (blood red seas), and finds his place in life. He’s not letting the struggles in life (waves) destroy his hopes and dreams. He says he believes in both anchors and saviors a line apart, so I’m assuming they are synonymous. His life is falling apart, but he still believes in whatever anchor is in his life, while he’s “sinking”. When he says he is pulling the rotten wood out of his heart, he means he’s letting go of the emotional baggage in his heart, so he can pursue his dreams. “We are all made out of shipwrecks, every single bouard washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores” That line is saying that we are all the person we are today because of our mistakes, and we’re all barely making it through life by ourselves. At this point in the poem, he starts referring to a community making it through together, rather than sailing through life just by himself. The line “we only have what we remember”, that repeats several times throughout the poem, states that if we didn’t have what we remember, we would just repeat the mistakes that we made in our past. “I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it.” this line is basically repeating the very first line of the poem: “We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day…

    • 671 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When authors use symbolism effectively, readers can begin to understand a work of literature on both the surface level and in an illustrative context, attributing significance to ideas, actions, or even characters themselves beyond what is initially described. In her novella The Awakening, Kate Chopin employs symbolism through a variety of images to reveal particular details about the protagonist, Edna Pontellier. One such symbol is the sea, an essential figurative element. Ivy Schweitzer’s scholarly essay, entitled Maternal Discourse and the Romance of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, asserts that the sea is a motherly figure lacking in Edna’s life. Though in her critical analysis of The Awakening Schweitzer asserts that the sea is a “maternal space” (Schweitzer 184), I will argue that the sea represents a metaphorical romantic partner for Edna, and that it really is the symbol of an idealized lover that was an impossible reality in Edna…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stories of survival at sea have captured people’s curiosity and imagination throughout history. The struggles that some seafarers have faced while drifting on the open sea are remarkable. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane is the story of four crew members trying to survive on the open sea while in a dinghy after their ship sank. Throughout the story, Crane describes how man and nature react with one another. By his description of their reactions, Crane makes it clear that nature does not care about man’s well being.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Show Boat Response

    • 650 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The symbolism within Show Boat was carefully placed, while at the same time, not taking away from the story and music. The use of the boat on water is a clear representation of life and its correlation with fate; the song “Ol’ Man River” sums up this idea. The river is personified as a man, who although sees trouble and heartache, must keep “rollin’ on” because those are just the rules of fate. The river, like fate, does not halt for anyone no matter the circumstance. The characters are tested by fate throughout the production, for example Julia, who although being kindhearted and innocent is a victim to fate due to circumstances out of her control. Show Boat spans over many years, which is also a light commentary on the tests of time and how people can change with age and fate throughout the years.…

    • 650 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lisa Meadows Jounal 7

    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page

    Stephen Crane's Open Boat is a story about survival: a story about struggling to live in a very unfriendly world. The story is about man's relationship with nature when it is completely overwhelming.…

    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Naturalism is the belief or idea that only nature and natural law controls the world. Throughout “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane naturalism is a prevalent theme demonstrated throughout the text, and overall the whole plot revolves around naturalism. The story opens with four men, a captain, an oiler, a correspondent, and a cook who find themselves stuck in a lifeboat due to the fact that their ship had sunk. The only character’s name the reader is told is the oiler’s, whose name is Billie. The four men make their way to a lighthouse where they are sure they will be rescued. Unfortunately, no one comes and they set back out on the rough seas in their small boat. There extensive time together in the boat creates a strong relationship between…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The narrator immersed himself in the ocean to escape from his past; he is still dealing with the death of his son and guilt that he was one that killed his own flesh and blood. While in the ocean the narrator briefly describes his swimming technique, he states that he enjoys the feeling of swimming harder underneath the current. He pushes himself harder in the ocean to the point he grasp the concept that in just a matter of seconds a body can easily die as live. Swimming in the ocean with the narrator were jellyfishes and a whale shark. The significant about the whale shark, is it was once alive in the ocean swimming freely than suddenly captured and killed. I believe that the narrator saw as a representation of his son, because similar to…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Open Boat Symbolism

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The captain represents the leaders; the cook the followers; Billie the oiler, (the only character named) represents the hard working members in society. The correspondent represents the observers, with the correspondent being the voice of the story, although he himself wonders why he is caught on the ocean. (pg342) The correspondent talks about the “subtle brotherhood of men” that develops among the crew.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boat

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In “The Boat” by Alistair Macleod, the boat, and the ill-fitting clothes he wore significantly represent the confinement and the father’s inability to break free from tradition, reinforcing that tradition can suppress one’s dream for greater things. To begin, the boat itself is a symbol of the fathers bounding to the sea, showing his obligation to follow customs. The boat is categorize with a “marine clutch and a high speed reverse gear and was painted on an oblong plate across her stern. Jenny Lynn had been my mother’s maiden name and the boat was called after her as another link in the chain of tradition”(Macleod 3) The high speed reverse gear depicts how the father is not moving forward along with the light green name of Jenny Lynn that demonstrates the father’s sacrifice for the fishing custom to support his family. The Jenny Lynn that he receives through tradition gives him a constant reminder that his way of life may never change and that his dreams are out of his reach. Furthermore, the clothing in his closet symbolizes the father’s imprisonment with tradition. The narrator mentions “his ill-fitted serge suit, the two or three white shirts that strangled him and the square black shoes that pinched” (Macleod 4) The square black shoes that pinched him means that the life of fishing that he inherits does not fit, the life he lives is simply to overpowering that it damages him. The white shirts that suffocates him shows the struggles he faces everyday that he is unable to separate from. His attire is so inflexible that it was leaving him trapped in one place incapable to grasp his own desires. Lastly, at the father’s death his departure speculates that it is suicide to liberate his son and himself from an unhappy future bringing the fishing tradition with him. When the father’s body is discovered “the white green stubble of his whiskers had continued to grow in death. Physically as he lay there with the brass chains on his wrist and seaweed in his hair”(Macleod…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays