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- Title
Nature's Paradoxicality in Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat".
- Authors
Haque, Salma
- Abstract
Stephen Crane's (1871-1900) one of the best known short stories, "The Open Boat " is based on his own real-life traumatic incident. It starts with a description of four shipwrecked men aboard an open dinghy on a turbulent sea. There is the captain, a correspondent, an oiler, and a cook. In the story, their struggle for survival is found in the setting of the sea, which symbolizes nature. Nature is the protagonist and the open boat represents helpless men in the vast universe. The story is notable for its use of irony, imagery, symbolism and the exploration of themes as survival, solidarity and the conflict between men and nature. With the help of tone and imagery, Crane successfully portrays the cruelty of nature to the boatmen. At the beginning of their ordeal, the men find nature unpredictably fierce. Throughout the story, we see nature's antagonism and indifference and the boatmen try their best to overcome the adversaries of nature. In this paper, I shall show that nature is paradoxical as well as unpredictable, and these characteristics completely overwhelm the endangered men.
- Subjects
OPEN Boat, The (Short story : Crane); CRANE, Stephen, 1871-1900; INTERPERSONAL conflict; SOLIDARITY; BOATERS (Persons)
- Publication
ASA University Review, 2017, Vol 11, Issue 1, p121
- ISSN
1997-6925
- Publication type
Literary Criticism