...Comparison of Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" and Jack London's "To Build a Fire" Two prominent American literature works, Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” portray the man vs. nature theme. These two pieces are alike and different in many ways. I can agree and disagree on the survival methods used by both authors, although Crane’s methods seemed a bit more questionable. While nature seemed to toy with the crew of the boat in “The Open Boat”, the old man in “To Build a Fire” seems to toy with nature by ignoring its signs to stop and to relinquish his failing journey. In the following paragraphs I’d like to get into the trenches of these two adventure stories. These two authors share similar traits when it comes to connections and reasons for writing these stories. Stephen Crane wrote “The Open Boat” based on a real life experience he went through. It was on December 31, 1896 when Crane left the Florida panhandle en-route for Cuba. His mission was to cover the war as a correspondent. On January 2, his ship sank and he and the other three crew members were forced to make the rest of the 30 hour trip in a small dinghy back to the United States (SN). This real life experience compares to Jack London’s real life journey through the Yukon Territory in 1897, around the same time as Crane’s sea adventure. London scavenged the area with others around that time in search for gold (Rees). While the gold rush was ultimately not as successful as he had...
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...Naturalism When must people think of naturalism they think of nature, and people who love the nature. That is not what naturalism is when it comes to literature. Naturalism is where the character in a story are caught in the forces of nature, and they have no control of their situation. Both Stephen Crane and Jack London did a great job with their short stories when portraying the writing style of naturalism. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane four men are on a boat when bad weather approaches them. They have to work together in order to survive this. In “To Build a Fire” by Jack London a man is at war with everything that the nature is putting in his path. He has no control at what is being thrown at him. The short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London is about a man trying to escape death. The man is in Alaska, and decides to go on a walk with his dog. He is new to the area, and does not understand how bad the conditions really are. The man is supposed to meet up with a few friends at six o’clock. It starts getting colder, and the conditions are starting to worsen. The man falls down, and the snow gets him wet all the way up to his knees. So, he starts a fire to dry himself off, but the ice falls from a tree and kills the fire. He is not able to build another fire. By this point he is beginning to become frostbitten. He has a plan to kill his dog, and stuff his hands inside the dog to rebuild his circulation, but he just cannot do it. “To Build a Fire” by Jack London is a great example...
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...bottle and the looked for him and the found a human skull. The water brings bad luck to other ship that travel down that river or up. The people on the boats went missing they found the boats and they tried to find life in the woods but nothing came up. There was this old man named Henry he saw what happened that night he lives on the edge of the river bank. He told the story and one day he heard the cries for help he...
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...Every year around the campfire at the Landry’s camp, they always tell the story of Lost Man Bayou. The bayou is known to have gates at the entrance so no boats can get through Lost Man Bayou. Troy Landry, knowing all the waterways and swamps of Pierre Part, Louisiana, holds the only key to the gate. People who have entered the bayou are known to never be seen again. If you look down the bayou, you see sunken boats and abandoned boats along the bank. The bayou’s name carries a lot of stories and tales with it. If you ever hear it’s name, you know there will be a story. Alligator season is coming to an end and the Landry’s still have seventy three tags to fulfill. At the beginning of the season starting with three hundred and seventy five tags, they have had a satisfying year with an average of about thirty gators a day. There best day was a day when they caught a total of eighty two gators. They launched the boat at 5:15 in the morning and didn't put the boat on the trailer until 7 that evening. They had to go to the landing and put the gators in the back of the truck and brought them to the seller in the cooler. They then went back to the bayou and filled the boat up to the max with gators again. The boats side was almost under the water due to the weight in the boat. Troy was assisted by his son Jacob, also known as his sharp shooter. Troy...
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...THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea is the story of an epic struggle between an old, seasoned fisherman and the greatest catch of his life. For eighty-four days, Santiago, an aged Cuban fisherman, has set out to sea and returned empty-handed. So conspicuously unlucky is he that the parents of his young, devoted apprentice and friend, Manolin, have forced the boy to leave the old man in order to fish in a more prosperous boat. Nevertheless, the boy continues to care for the old man upon his return each night. He helps the old man tote his gear to his ramshackle hut, secures food for him, and discusses the latest developments in American baseball, especially the trials of the old man’s hero, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago is confident that his unproductive streak will soon come to an end, and he resolves to sail out farther than usual the following day. Character List Santiago - The old man of the novella’s title, Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who has had an extended run of bad luck. Despite his expertise, he has been unable to catch a fish for eighty-four days. He is humble, yet exhibits a justified pride in his abilities. His knowledge of the sea and its creatures, and of his craft, is unparalleled and helps him preserve a sense of hope regardless of circumstance. Throughout his life, Santiago has been presented with contests to test his strength and endurance. The marlin with which he struggles for three days represents his greatest challenge. Paradoxically...
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...The painting was exhibited at Lyman Allyn Art Museum during 2015 august exhibition at the museum. The art is done on canvas using oil paint. In the painting, one can see a boat on the lake with two sailors. One sailor is a man, and the other is a woman. The woman in the boat is decently dressed, and she is peddling the boat. The man is gazing at the large landscape at the end of the lake. At both edges of the lake, there is a landscape covered with big bush. At a distance, there is another boat occupied by two sailors. The two sailors at the distant boat can be seen conversing with each other. The sky is very brighter with scattered brown clouds indicating that it was on a summer evening (Leiber, Alden, Mœglin-Delcroix, & Purves, T. 2001). From the look, the painting represents a couple enjoying a date at the lakeside on a summer evening. However, the man is depicted as naïve looking on how he is dressed and is being distracted by the large landscape covered with bushes. The woman is seen gesturing her to concentrate. There is another couple in the other boat that is seen enjoying their time by looking at how they are communicating. The lady in the big boat has diverted her attention to the couple in the other boat, and it can be interpreted that she wishes she could be comfortable in the other boat. Analysis The work is a representation of romance and women...
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... Then on the first day on Monday, we went to our hotel. “TSUNAMI”! Screamed my sister Callie. “Oh yeah the boat, we can ride the tsunami with it”, I said, “Are you crazy?, we can’t ride a boat on a tsunami”, said Callie, “but we can try , it’s our only way to survive”, “ok let’s stop talking and start moving” said mom. Dad got the boat. “EVERYBODY GET IN!” we all got in the boat and the water was coming fast. “WAIT”, said Callie, “I forgot Emry my doll.” “Callie forget the stupid doll there is a tsunami coming” I said. “Please mommy and daddy I really need her, she is my best friend,” cried Callie. “Ok, ok, but be quick,” said dad. Callie Came back. “HURRY UP AND GET IN THE BOAT,” I said. “THE TSUNAMI IS A MILE AWAY AND IS COMING UP 40 MILES PER HOUR,” said dad. “Okay, the tsunami is coming so everybody get ready for the crazy ride,” said mom. “HERE COMES THE TSUNAMI!” BOOMSACALACA! “We are riding the waves of the Tsunami,” I said. “I’m scared,” said Callie. “It will be ok, soon it will be over.” As we rode the tsunami we saw a guy on a big ship. “Please we need a bigger boat can we get on your boat?” asked mom. “Sure,” said the man in a creepy voice. ZOOOOOM! The man left us here on this little boat. “HE’S AN IDIOT.” I said. Hours past and finally the tsunami was over. “We need to find land.” “I see it,” said Callie. “See what?” I said...
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...INTRODUCTION Our client, Erin Smith, believes that her Aunt, Julie Cook, gifted her a boat. Cook recently died, and the executor of her estate told Smith there was no mention of the boat in the will. The boat passed by law to Cook’s daughter Marisa. Smith would like us to determine her legal right to the boat through an inter-vivos gift under Maryland law. As explained below, Smith cannot prove complete delivery due to insufficient evidence satisfying this element of an inter-vivos gift. Because Smith never established absolute dominion over the boat when Cook gifted it to Smith, nor acquired any symbol of the boat such as keys or a pink-slip, she cannot prove constructive delivery. Consequently, a court is likely to find she failed the element...
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...response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response, one may be able to get over these fears to enjoy the many things that one can do in the water. A 38-year-old man loves to go to the lake. His friends go out on the boat to go fishing but the man stays and says he will fish from the banks with his wife. While his wife and he are casting their lines out from the rocky ledge, his wife asks him why he never goes out on the boat with his buddies or why he does not swim in the beach on family outings. He states that when he was a small boy his parents took him out on the family boat. His parents put him in a little floatation device so that he could enjoy a few hours of swimming, and they jumped in behind him. His father was playing a game of tag with him when his farther disappeared under the water. A few seconds went by when he felt his feet being tickled. The boy started to laugh and was throwing his arms around so fast and hard that he flung himself out of the floatation device. He realized he had started sinking under the water. He remembers reaching up trying to grasp for anything that would pull him up. Opening his mouth to call for help, he swallowed some water. He could not breathe, and he felt his lungs start to tighten up and hurt. The next thing he remembers is coughing and waking up on the boat with his mother and father kneeling beside him. They set him up and told him to keep taking deep breathes. He remembers being taken to a nearby hospital for observation...
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...nature. Your struggle may be as little as trying to change a tire in the middle of a rain storm or as severe as expressed in Stephen Crane’s story The Open Boat. From the beginning of time man has pondered the question as to “Why was I placed here on Earth?” We tend to see ourselves as being important, that we have to leave our mark in order for life to have some sort of meaning. In this story, four men, known simply as the captain, the oiler, the correspondent, and the cook, become stranded in the sea in a small boat. Together they are forced to bare the torments of one of Mother Nature’s toughest challenges, the open sea. In this process these four men learn much about nature and just how little they are on Earth. One of the characters, the correspondent, comes to the realization that nature is indifferent despite the struggles of the individuals, “When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him…” (para, 174). The captain, who is seen as a symbol of strength to the other men on the boat, has doubt as to whether they can make it to shore safely, “Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor, contempt, tragedy, all in one. “Do you think we’ve got much of a show now, boys?” (para, 25). The men in the boat are still upset with what fate has dealt them and seem to have the same opinion that they are still in control of their outcome, “If I am going to be drowned----if...
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...The story sets off in England, where a young boy, Jim Hawkins and his mother own an inn. One day a man named Billy Bones storms into the inn demanding a room, later on Jim's dad dies and Billy Bones has a stroke and dies as well. Some of Billy Bones belongings are found by Jim, pirates that were looking for Billy Bones storm into the inn and try to take his belongings. jim escapes with his mother with as much as he could and left to find dr livesey and squire trelawney jim shows them that he has found billy bones treasure map and they all agree that they well set out to find because its treasure who doesn't want to go on an adventure as the squire is finding the crew for the ship he finds a nice old man named long john silver moving on...
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...A ship sank in a storm. Five survivors scrambled aboard two lifeboats: a sailor, a girl, and an old man in one boat; the girl’s fiancé and his best friend in the second. That evening the storm continued, and the two boats separated. The one with the sailor, the girl, and the old man washed ashore on an island and was wrecked. The next day the weather cleared, and still the girl could not locate her fiancé. In the distance she saw another island. Hoping to find her fiancé, she begged the sailor to repair the boat and row her to the other island. The sailor agreed, on the condition that she slept with him that night. Distraught, she went to the old man for advice. “I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong for you,” he said. “Look into your heart and follow it.” Confused but desperate, she agreed to the sailor’s condition. The next morning the sailor fixed the boat and rowed her to the other island. Jumping out of the boat, she ran up the beach into the arms of her fiancé. Then she decided to tell him about the previous night. In a rage, he pushed her aside and said, “Get away from me! I don’t want to see you again!” Weeping, she started to walk slowly down the beach. Her fiancé’s best friend saw her and went to her, put an arm around her, and said, “I can tell that you two have had a fight. I’ll try to patch it up, but in the meantime I’ll take care of...
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...spiral and acts on desperation. The American dream applies to Harry Morgan; however, the dream works backwards for Harry and collapses around him. The American dream takes Harry Morgan from something to nothing. Despite this backwards direction Harry Morgan never gives up hope of doing better. Even though Harry Morgan runs liquor, Cubans, and murders people, he is a good man. Harry Morgan’s first business deal with Mr. Johnson does not go the way he had hoped it would. Harry is chartered by Mr. Johnson, who not only skips out without paying for the three weeks he chartered Harry’s boat, but also loses his fishing equipment. “Johnson had fished fifteen days, finally he hooks into a fish a fisherman would give a year to tie into, he loses him, he loses my heavy tackle, he makes a fool of himself and he sits there perfectly content, drinking with a rummy” (Hemingway 22). Even though Mr. Johnson lost all these things, he can still sit on Harry’s boat satisfied with his trip. “…It was my fault. I should have known better” (Hemingway 27). Despite losing income and equipment Harry still has his boat which is how he makes his living and he still has his family. Next Harry Morgan chose to run twelve Chinamen for Mr. Sing. Harry needed a way to provide for his family and this was an opportunity for him to do so. “I was damned if I was going home broke and starve a summer in that town” (Hemingway 28). Harry knew the danger of being caught, he was better to take the money...
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...Alec Orozco Mr. Tom Treffinger ENG 102-005 4 March 2015 Correspondent’s Epiphany in “The Open Boat” In Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat”, Crane seems to focus on the struggle of man versus nature. The struggle is shown throughout the whole story, but is most clearly seen when the correspondent seems to be on the verge of death. The correspondent begins to see how nature “views” humanity. The four men who are on the boat all start to see that though they may have worked hard to live their lives, nature does not seem to care who lives or dies. In “The Open Boat”, there are four men trying to survive on a small boat there believe is smaller than a bathtub should be (Crane, 339). This posed a problematic situation because the “waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation” (339). During this trial in the four men’s lives, the correspondent begins to contemplate on various things about their situation and his own life. One of the correspondent’s thoughts is “’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’”(350). The meaning behind this particular thought is the correspondent is wondering why he is living his life so long just to have it taken away for no real reason. Then the correspondent begins to ponder the death of “A soldier of the...
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...receives an Emergency Action Message, ordering the launch of its missiles. Intel from satellites show that the Russian missiles are being fueled for deployment. The boat begins the process to launch ten missiles. During this time a second radio message begins to be received, but is cut off by the attack of a Russian...
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