Crane and Human Ideals Essay

Stephen Cranes short legend, The Open sauce ride (1894) shows a microcosm of social interdependency, which is set against the back-drop of the inbred world. The horizontal surface, at its most fundawork forcetal root, could be considered a valet vs. character level, or an adventure invention with the sea as a symbol for records crucial neutrality and indifference to gentle deport manpowert and human aspiration.Given this exchange tension in the tosh, it is important to recognize that Crane, rather than pitting an distinguished protagonist against the trial against an indifferent nature, chose to express the heroic capacity of a group of individuals acting in concert for their mutual survival. In this way, the story becomes less about the indifference of nature and to a greater extent about the powerfulness of human participation to function as a buffer against nature and a construct which gives not only a degree of safety, moreover meaning, to human existence.In orde r to establish the conflict between man and nature, as well as to introduce the persistent idea of common accommodate, Crane begins the story with the words None of them knew the color of the sky (Crane, 728) eyepatch the opening words convey a sense of mystery and danger, they in like manner convey at the same time, a firm understanding on the lectors behalf that nature has become alien to the characters in the story and that it is them rather than nay particular individual with whom the story will be concerned.The following description of the men who are banded together in a dinghey after a shipwreck informs the reader that Crane, is in fact, intractable to offer a social microcosm in order to represent, as in full as possible within the limited confines of the short-story form, the urgency and brilliance that the communal identity described in the story extends to completely walks of life and all levels of night club.By the time the entire story has been studied, the a lert reader realizes that not only the makeshift confederacy of the boat itself, which is comprised of the wounded lord of the sunken ship, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, but the cast of the story totally represents a typical Western society at all levels men and women, workers and executives, thinkers and doers as well as the lucky and unlucky. Both life and cobblers last figure prominently in the struggle which is described in the story with the ability to distinguish between the two an immediate threat which faces the crew of the dinghey.In order to establish the utter despair of being cut-off from the auspices of human society (symbolized by the sunken ship) and left to the devices of uncontrolled and undisciplined nature (symbolized by the sea and its wildlife), Crane describes the motion of the dinghey, which smoke be thought of as a makeshift society, in words which can only be interpreted as showing a consanguinity from social order to the chaos and indiffe rence of nature A put in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho the craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal (Crane, 728).Additionally, Crane offers a description of the mens view of the sea from a moderate one of the great waves, and before the corresponding plunge The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and snow-clad and chromatic (Crane, 729). The word probably in this description is the key to injecting the sinister and at the same time indifferent pose of nature to the men trapped in the dinghey.In order to drive his point regarding the indifference of nature even more fully home, Crane creates an image which is at once ironic and prominent an image which fills the reader with dread and a sense of the absurd all at once. By descr ibing the gulls who flew nearby the drifting craft and showing their knack in the very fixings which threatened to destroy the men alongside the dinghey, Crane creates a genuinely masterful symbol to demonstrate natures indifference to humanity when he describes that a gull came, and plainly decided to alight on the top of the captains chieftain (Crane, 729).This image is ironic and compelling and is Cranes most clear articulation of his theme that is given in the story. Against the backdrop of indifferent nature, none of the men aboard the dinghey as individuals is able to perform a give up plan or find some heroic solution to their problem. Rather, by increments and by working together, the men eventually begin to regain a sense of determination, which ultimately rises to the level of hope and then action.The mutual support of the men is the heroic aspect of the story They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiou sly iron-bound degree than may be common (Crane, 729). This quite optimistic notion is meant to establish human society as a whole (as expressed through the microcosm of the open boat) as both a necessity and a natural development of human capacity. In other words, the men are out of their element (unlike the gulls) when pitted against the open sea, but in their element which is human society they can meet the test which confronts them.Humanity is meant to build mutually sustaining communities and societies skillful as gulls are meant to float on open ocean waves. In the long run, the tension between nature and man which is created at the showtime of the story finds fulfilling closure in the storys post-climax where Crane writes the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great seas spokesperson to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters (Crane, 740).The closure of the story suggests not a tension or co nflict between man and nature but a resolution through nature human nature to the discord offered in the storys rising action. In other words, man by following his nature to be a social animal, and only by following this impulse, can be as harmoniously at home in the world, despite the indifference of nature, as a seagull which also accepts its rightful place in the natural order. Works Cited Crane, Stephen. The Open Boat, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library (1999) accessed 2-1-09 http//www2. lib. virginia. edu/etext/index. html