This passage, from the beginning of section VI, serves as a preface to the correspondent’s epiphany that the sea is a formless, voiceless phenomenon that lacks the consciousness he requires to validate his own existence. Until this point, the correspondent has thought of the sea, nature, and the universe as part of a higher power that intelligently governs the cosmos, a higher power against which he can define himself and through which find meaning in his own life. Instead, the correspondent finds out that he is nothing to the universe or God, who remains as distant and cryptic as “a high cold star.” In the absence of this power, the correspondent loses his identity. Crane creates a sense of irony by having the narrator personify
