SOURCE: Billingslea, Oliver. “Why Does the Oiler ‘Drown’? Perception and Cosmic Chill in ‘The Open Boat.’” American Literary Realism 27, no. 1 (fall 1994): 23-41.

In the following essay, Billingslea investigates the question of whether perception can alter what is seen and its importance to “The Open Boat.”

Essential to any reading of Stephen Crane's “The Open Boat” is the recognition that its presentational mode—its emphasis on experience preceding essence—is a technique which precludes ideological truths. Much more important to Crane's work than naturalistic determination is his concern with both the “limitations of knowledge” and the “potentiality for sudden flashes of insight in moments of recognition or epiphany.”¹ For instance, when the narrator informs us at the story's conclusion that the men “felt that they could then be interpreters,”² there is no guarantee that what they interpret will be correct. In fact, once ashore, the men may have second...