Stephen Crane's Open Boat is a story about survival: a story about struggling to survive in a very hostile world. The story is a question of man's relationship to the world of nature that is completely overpowering.

The four main characters were stuck in a ten-foot dingey. Being in a small dingey at a very doomed situation is the worst of all the worst scenarios; riding in a very small craft in turbulent waters is obviously a suicide. But what can they do? They have no choice. They have to stay alive. Struggling to live in a nearly-capsizing dingey was very unlucky but it made them realize the real reason for living.

"These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small boat navigation." "The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she...