The Open Boat Literary Devices

Explanation and Analysis—Furniture of the World:

Crane uses imagery to appeal to the visual senses in describing a sunset:

A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night. As darkness settled finally, the shine of the light, lifting from the sea in the south, changed to full gold. On the northern horizon a new light appeared, a small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters. These two lights were the furniture of the world. Otherwise there was nothing but waves.

The coming of night, even though the men are tired and nights sailing on the sea are difficult, is described as something beautiful. This choice is interesting because unlike much of the story, which is bleak, Crane here gives the reader a chance to imagine a beautiful scene.

Here, Crane, emphasizes the beauty of the natural world, even if the natural world is uncaring. But the author does not completely ignore the bleakness of the sea even while demonstrating its beauty, for Crane paints an empty world composed only of two lights and waves. He uses the phrase “furniture of the world” to show that the world is as empty as a large room with sparse furnishings. The lights are the only decoration, and all else is merely empty space.

The light in the north exists as something to move towards, as the captain literally commands the crew to steer toward it. But it later disappears, demonstrating an even greater emptiness and loss of purpose. The men, quite literally, have nothing to guide them through the night when the light leaves.

The following sunrise, the dawn that brings an end to the night, is described with similar imagery:

WHEN THE CORRESPONDENT again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were each of the gray hue of the dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.

Note the similarity between the two passages. They mirror each other, each a beautiful image invoking blue and gold. The two passages are equally gorgeous, even though one brings a hard night and the other brings a hopeful day.

The act of describing the sea as painted again explicitly invokes Romantic paintings of the sea, while the description of sunlight flaming on the tips of the waves emphasizes how majestic the light makes the sea. It is no longer a dark and gloomy abyss, but a brilliant spectacle as bright as fire.

These instances of imagery demonstrate that nature, even though it is shown to be arbitrary throughout “The Open Boat,” is still beautiful.

Explanation and Analysis—The Dying Soldier:

Crane uses imagery to elaborate on a story about a soldier dying in Algiers:

The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on the sand with his feet out straight and still. While his pale left hand was upon his chest in an attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood came between his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the slow and slower movements of the lips of the soldier, was moved by a profound and perfectly impersonal comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the Legion who lay dying in Algiers.

The image is meant to be moving and horrific. The sensory language used (“still” and “pale”) invokes a sense of fading life and oncoming death. The soldier is shown to be motionless and colorless in an effort to liken him to a corpse. His lips becoming more and more slow visually demonstrates his progression toward death.

Even the scenery around the man suggests death: behind the man the sky is “faint” because the sun is rapidly setting; nature itself echoes the man's decline. This setting is supposed to induce a tragic sympathy in the reader.

In his childhood, the correspondent heard the story of a man dying in Algiers in the verse of a song. It did not appear important or moving at the time. But in his shipwreck situation, the image and verse come to him once again, and this time they feel real.

The initial verse is sparse in details:

A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;

There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears;

But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade’s hand,

And he said, “I never more shall see my own, my native land.”

So, Crane uses imagery as a way to show that this man has become significant to the correspondent. The dying soldier is no longer a few words in a verse; he appears to the correspondent's imagination as if in flesh and blood. The appeal to the senses leads the reader to think of the soldier as a person, who existed as a physical being in a physical setting, and in turn makes the men in the boat seem more sharply real, and their plight more visceral, to the reader.

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