Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

“The Open Boat” is a short story based on Stephen Crane’s own experience of a shipwreck in 1897. The story shows how with faith and not giving up in a significantly bad situation can be turned into good. As a correspondent Crane was on his way to Cuba to follow the war. His ship the Commodore sank and he was stuck on a lifeboat for thirty hours with a cook, oiler, and captain. The four individuals had to maintain a sense of hope to be able to survive the ordeal. (History.com)
Looking at this story from a reader-response criticism the internal struggles the characters were having can evoke a lot of emotional response. This is shown in the question that Crane continually asks multiple times throughout the story asking why he and the others have to endure so much To be given hope by seeing land and then having to go back out to sea. There is also a sense of pity for all of the men as they come close to being saved but the inevitable of being stuck at sea becomes reality again. An example of this in the story is when an individual from a resort sees them and is waving. Not realizing the trouble they’re in he and the others from the resort do nothing to save them. To have an emotional high believing you would be saved and then it’s taken away from you in a heartbeat can destroy an individual. Even with issues such as this …show more content…
We just have to have faith and hope that the event will pass. There may still be troubles like as we saw in the story when the oiler doesn’t make it to shore. We have to overcome those troubles and push through adversity. Crane does a wonderful job eliciting an emotional response from the readers in this story. “However, in place of solitary or un-orchestrated efforts, the four men struggle in unison. They find that their shared trial produces human solidarity as each of them encounters an efficacious social self”.