Open Boat And The Red Badge Of Courage By Stephen Crane Essays

Open Boat And The Red Badge Of Courage By Stephen Crane Crane's Use of Companionship, Through the Effects of Nature, in The Open Boat and Red Badge of Courage In both of these stories, The Open Boat and The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane uses the theme of companionship. The way in which he uses this theme differs in some ways but are also comparable in both stories. In both stories, it is evident that the men all need each other, both mentally and physically. Without one another, it would be inevitable that each and every one of the characters would not have been able to move on and survive without one another. Another similarity between both stories is that an act of nature is what really brings the men together. Yet, another similarity is the fact that in both stories, the men think of themselves throughout the massive ordeals. In The Open Boat, each man wonders to himself, why me, why now? Similarly, in The Red Badge of Courage, Henry feels compelled to believe that he will run cowardly during battle and try to escape death, of which he was terribly afraid. It is evident that in both cases, there is a moment of self-discovery where all characters are forced to take a step back from all the commotion and gather themselves in order for each of them to survive together. In The Open Boat, the sea storm is the act of nature that draws the men to depend on one another, and in The Red Badge of Courage, the act of nature is a combination of both the squirrel and the dead man against the tree. In both cases, nature has the ultimate ?say? in how the men respond. In The Open Boat, companionship is what allows the men to survive. Without all of the men working together as a team, the small dinghy would have definitely sunk. Had the men not taken turns rowing and sleeping, the fate of those men would have been sealed. Again, it is completely evident that without one another, each of the men would have either gone mad or simply drown. This idea of companionship is comparable in The Red Badge of Courage. In this story, Henry Fleming, who you will be introduced to later, doesn't learn the idea and realize the importance of companionship until he himself goes through change and learns the necessity of being there for one another. Fleming learns the hard way, after realizing that he has shamed himself and what he stands for by running, and knowing all of this, makes up for his actions by putting in that extra effort when it was needed. Some may say ?too little, too late,? but in the long run, Henry proved his worth not only to himself, but to his fellow comrades. Like The Open Boat, the point of both stories is that this companionship means the world to each and every one character and it is evident that survival would not have been possible without it. ?Of all Crane's works The Open Boat is the most direct manifestation of his belief that no man can interpret life without first experiencing it?(Omnibus 420). In Crane's The Open Boat, the morale and simple idea of having someone, a companion, there besides you through it all, is what allows these men to survive. This is exactly the case with this story. The Captain, without the Oiler, Correspondent, and the Cook, and interchangeably, would not be able to survive without one another out at sea. ?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. However, 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?(Maggie 30). The comradeship between these four men was very strong and is what allowed most of them to live. The fate of all of these men lay in the hands of each other and it seems that the men felt assurance in