Newspaper account vs. Short story. When discussing an essay for the two contrasting Stephen Crane texts, it is imperative that we realize each text was written to serve a different purpose. “Stephen Crane’s Own Story” is the first text written, and it is by and large a newspaper account, an informative piece chronicling Crane’s own experience aboard the Commodore (filibustering arms) up until the moment it fatally sank. On the other hand, “The Open Boat” is a short story at heart, intended to be viewed as a piece of literature depicting the constant struggle towards survival to the four men (Crane included) who survived the initial shipwreck and now are rowing for their lives on a cramped lifeboat. The inherent limitations of writing a newspaper
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Where the newspaper article starts with a place and a date, “Jacksonville,Fla., Jan. 6.-It was the afternoon of New Year’s” (Newspaper, pg. 1), the short story begins with an ominous yet thought-provoking line, “None of them knew the color of the sky”(Short Story, pg.1). Right from the get-go, we, as a reader, can get a feel of what were about to read. Still on the first page (of short story), Crane follows with a sentence or two about each character, giving us a feel for how each of them operate, setting in motion the attachment we’d soon come to have with them. We see the cook acting as a bit of a clown stating, “Gawd! That was a narrow clip” (Short Story, pg.1); the oiler, characterized from the start as the everyday man, already partaking in his rowing duties; the correspondent, acting as part-philosopher part-man, watching the waves and wondering aloud why he’s even there; the captain, their de facto leader, displaying early dejection at what looked like a hopeless situation. This early characterization is of the crewmembers is nowhere to be seen in the article, in which each character is just a name, the lucky ones with a sarcastic or foreshadowing quote thrown in there for good measure. As “The Open Boat” progresses, we further see Crane delve into the relationship and bonds that these men form, “It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men
Where the newspaper article starts with a place and a date, “Jacksonville,Fla., Jan. 6.-It was the afternoon of New Year’s” (Newspaper, pg. 1), the short story begins with an ominous yet thought-provoking line, “None of them knew the color of the sky”(Short Story, pg.1). Right from the get-go, we, as a reader, can get a feel of what were about to read. Still on the first page (of short story), Crane follows with a sentence or two about each character, giving us a feel for how each of them operate, setting in motion the attachment we’d soon come to have with them. We see the cook acting as a bit of a clown stating, “Gawd! That was a narrow clip” (Short Story, pg.1); the oiler, characterized from the start as the everyday man, already partaking in his rowing duties; the correspondent, acting as part-philosopher part-man, watching the waves and wondering aloud why he’s even there; the captain, their de facto leader, displaying early dejection at what looked like a hopeless situation. This early characterization is of the crewmembers is nowhere to be seen in the article, in which each character is just a name, the lucky ones with a sarcastic or foreshadowing quote thrown in there for good measure. As “The Open Boat” progresses, we further see Crane delve into the relationship and bonds that these men form, “It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men