SOURCE: Nagel, James. “The Narrative Method of ‘The Open Boat’.” Revue des Langues Vivantes (1973): 409-17.

In the following essay, Nagel explores Crane's narrative method in “The Open Boat,” particularly the shifting perspective of the story.

Stephen Crane's “The Open Boat”¹ is one of the most frequently read and discussed stories in American literature. But despite the enormous interest in the story, it has tended to evoke far more praise than understanding, particularly with regard to its narrative technique. This admiration has not been restrained: R. W. Stallman has called it a “flawless construct of paradox and symbol,”² and Andrew Lytle regards it as “one of the finest works of its kind in the language.”³ To Daniel Hoffman the story illustrates Crane's growth as a writer “from a brilliant youth with an undisciplined gift for literary impressionism to a mature master of symbolism and style.”⁴ Joseph Conrad once wrote...