The Sea in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 13 pages of analysis & critique of The Sea in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature.

The Sea in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 13 pages of analysis & critique of The Sea in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature.
This section contains 3,534 words
(approx. 12 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Max L. Autrey

SOURCE: “The Word Out of the Sea: A View of Crane's ‘The Open Boat,’” in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer, 1974, pp. 101-10.

In the following essay, Autrey contends that the death of Billie in “The Open Boat” demonstrates the futility of man's struggle for independence and freedom.

Although presented as an anticlimax and beautifully understated, the death of the oiler holds the key to Stephen Crane's study of mankind in “The Open Boat.” As the most significant single occurrence in a work composed primarily of inner action, Billie's drowning gives meaning to the final periodic comment:

When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.1

His death offers the final lesson for these “interpreters.” Paradoxically incorporating the pathos...

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This section contains 3,534 words
(approx. 12 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Max L. Autrey
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Critical Essay by Max L. Autrey from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.