In the following excerpt, Gerstenberger studies the epistemological aspect of "The Open Boat," which deals with the human limitations of knowing anything with objective certainty. She also examines Crane's choice to divide his point of view among the various characters in the story, with particular emphasis on the character of the correspondent.

Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" is generally acknowledged to be among the masterpieces of the modern short story. The question of the story's excellence has never been debated; the only questions have been the proper means of defining the story's modernity and of accounting for what appear to be certain awkwardnesses of style, tone, and point of view.

"The Open Boat" has been hailed as an example of naturalistic fiction at its best until recent years, when the automatic and somewhat naive tendency to equate naturalism and modernity has been called into question in all...