"The Open Boat" is
a short story
by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1897, 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 was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were
forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned after the boat overturned.
Crane's personal account of the shipwreck and the men's survival, titled
"Stephen Crane's Own Story", was first published a few days after his
rescue.
Crane subsequently adapted his
report into narrative form, and the resulting short story "The Open
Boat" was published in Scribner's Magazine. The story is told from the point of view of an anonymous
correspondent, Crane's fictional doppelgänger,
and the action closely resembles the author's experiences after the shipwreck.
A volume titled The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure was published
in the United States in 1898; an edition entitled The Open Boat and Other
Stories was published simultaneously in England. Praised for its innovation
by contemporary critics, the story is considered an exemplary work of literary Naturalism, and is one of the most frequently discussed works in
Crane's canon. It is notable for its use of imagery, irony, symbolism, and the
exploration of such themes as survival, solidarity, and the conflict between
man and nature. H. G. Wells considered "The Open Boat" to be "beyond all
question, the crown of all [Crane's] work".[1]
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