The Open Boat

by

Stephen Crane

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Open Boat makes teaching easy.
Need another quote?
Need analysis on another quote?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Request it
Request it
Request analysis
Request analysis
Request analysis
Part III Quotes

It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Oiler, Cook
Explanation and Analysis:

The correspondent thought that he had been drenched to the skin, but happening to feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found therein eight cigars. Four of them were soaked with sea-water; four were perfectly scathless.

Related Characters: Correspondent
Related Symbols: Cigars
Explanation and Analysis:
Part IV Quotes

If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I way about to nibble the sacred cheese of life?

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Oiler, Cook
Related Literary Devices:
Explanation and Analysis:

If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than this, she should be deprived of the management of men’s fortunes. She is an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me, why did she not do it at the beginning and save me all this trouble? The whole affair is absurd… But no, she cannot mean to drown me. She dare not drown me. She cannot drown me. Not after all this work.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Oiler, Cook
Related Literary Devices:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part VI Quotes

For it was certainly an abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still—

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Oiler, Cook
Related Literary Devices:
Explanation and Analysis:

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important…he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Oiler, Cook
Explanation and Analysis:

He has never considered it his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the breaking of a pencil’s point. Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing.

Related Characters: Correspondent
Related Symbols: Soldier
Explanation and Analysis:
Part VII Quotes

Later, carmine and gold was painted upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.

Related Characters: Correspondent
Related Literary Devices:
Explanation and Analysis:

A man in this situation […] should see the innumerable flaws of his life, and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance. A distinction between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him […] and he understands that if he were given another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words, and be better and brighter during an introduction or at a tea.

Related Characters: Correspondent
Related Symbols: Wind tower
Explanation and Analysis:

Afterward he saw his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead in the race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Oiler
Explanation and Analysis:

He was naked, naked as a tree in winter, but a halo was about his head and he shone like a saint.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Life-saving man
Explanation and Analysis:

When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea’s voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.

Related Characters: Correspondent, Captain, Cook
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.