The Open Boat Analysis

The experience of reading Crane’s The Open Boat, isn’t distinctly adrenaline pumping nor is it overwhelmingly emotional. The reader, as well as the men in the boat, do end in a starkly different scenario than when they began their journey, but the movement is often hard to pin point. In fact, the narrative is contrasted so that there are gaps, physical and literary as well as tonally. Shawn Michelle Smith investigates a similar scenario in her analysis of Muybridge’s photo framing. In a series of snapshots, taken quickly in order to capture the shape of movement, the gaps that occur when the photos are lined up are representation of movement, not the changes in the photos themselves. The men in The Open Boat are trapped in space and their dialogue …show more content…
It is suggested by th logic of the sequence but remains unseen in the space between frames” (Smith 77). The ocean the men are trapped within is unending and with no way to keep time, the separation of dialogue and creative writing create a beginning and end, giving the reader a sense of special awareness. Crane also makes use of structural gaps, using section markers and page breaks to signify a separation of events. For instance, on page 526, the oarsman meditates on his very existence, “If
I am 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?” (Crane 526). The dialogue shifts to the cook asking Billie what kind of pie he likes best and then there is a page break. However, we return to the very same moment of the men talking about pie. Smith discusses a similar phenomenon in Muybridge’s work when an identical image will be placed twice in a series, from afar still carrying