The Correspondent In Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

During his ordeal with his comrades off the coast of Florida the Correspondent, a cynical and apathetic man, develops a compassion for others and a will to live better. Stephen Crane, the author of this story, almost certainly based “The Open Boat” on his real life experience during the sinking of his ship the SS Commodore while he was traveling to Cuba to be a war correspondent.
“The Open Boat” is a roman a clef that tells the tale of four men: The Captain, the Cook, the Oiler, and the Correspondent. Trapped at sea, the four men do their best to try and get to the house on the shore, yet it seems as though no one can spot them. Frustratingly, when people from shore do glimpse the men in the boat, they assume they are fishermen. Finally the men decide not to wait and attempt to swim to shore on their own. Swimming to shore sadly results in the death of one of their party.
At the beginning of our story the Correspondent does not seem to be a positive man.In fact, he is often seen arguing with the cook, at the begining of the story. Moreover, the story mentioned that the Correspondent had been “taught to be cynical of men”. In addition to this, in a passage where the Correspondent recollects a story he taught to him when he was a child about a soldier who had died away from home, he said that he …show more content…
Soon, he experiences a sense of comradeship with the other three described as “a subtle brotherhood of men”. And after spending a time contemplating his life while a shark lurks nearby, the Correspondent thinks of the story of the soldier who died and finds himself “moved by a … comprehension” and says that “he is sorry for the soldier”. Despairingly, he notes several times in the story of ’fate’, and asks it if he “was allowed to come this far to see sand and trees”, and if he was “to have his nose dragged away from the cheese of life”. Slowly, it seems, the Correspondent is losing his belief in