The Open Boat

"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane is a story of survival of the fittest. In many stories of suvival of the fittest the strongest survives but in "The Open Boat" the strongest dies. As the group jumps in the icy water the oiler, the stronget, leads the group in to getting to the shore. The oiler jumps in, followed by the cook and correspondent swimming slowly and the captain holding onto the dinghy. The oiler lead the group to safety but did not make it. This story is in some ways opposite of survival of the fittest, because normally the strongest person of the group survives. The strongest person is the one who leads the others and keeps control. The oiler in this story did lead the group and stayed calm throughtout their troubles at sea but in the groups attempt to shore he does not make it but the others do. This story shows how the strongest person does take control of the group but does not always turn out the best for him. The oiler did his best to lead the group to shore and he was the one who died in the attempt.

The Open Boat

“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane is a story about four men being stranded on a row boat after a tragic ship accident. There was the captain, the correspondent, the oiler, and the cook. The correspondent and the oiler would switch off rowing whenever the other would get tired and needed to rest. The whole story all the cook would do was speak about food and sleep, while the captain was injured and hurt his arm during the accident and would help and guide the others. The captain was very motivational to the others so that they would not quit on him and would make it all the way through the end of the journey. They get near to land and then cannot reach it because of the tide and the waves. The boat is so weak and small that just by getting hit in the wrong way by a wave they would all be done. At the end the begin moving in the direction of the shore and the boat flips over as they all fall out of the boat. The all make it except for the oiler, which throughout the story was the strongest of the bunch. Stephen Crane writes about survival of the fittest, which usually means that the strongest will survive, but in this case all but the strongest survive.