The oiler is the strongest and therefore the most likely one to survive the ordeal. Ironically, he is the only one who dies. This underscores the futility of his struggle against the indifferent forces of nature. If the oiler is killed, and he was most likely to survive, then his death was the result of bad luck.
Q. What is the irony in the open boat?
The irony in Crane’s vision of “The Open Boat” is that, in describing the situation of the correspondent, who has come to understand his insignificant position in the natural universe through the manmade tower, the narrator continues to give human qualities to inhuman things.
Q. What is the boat compared to in the open boat?
The Boat. The boat, to which the men must cling to survive the seas, symbolizes human life bobbing along among the universe’s uncertainties. The boat, no larger than a bathtub, seems even smaller against the vastness of the ocean.
Q. Why is it that only the Oiler dies and not anyone else?
2) Why is that the Oiler dies and not anyone else? Billie is the one who dies because according to determinism things happen because they are meant to. His destiny was to die and save the others, he was the weakest and that’s why he needed to die, to save the fittest, like Darwin’s theory explains.
Q. Who dies at the end of the open boat?
Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned after the boat overturned.
Q. Why is the Oiler The only one name?
Full disclosure: remember, Crane based his story on his own real life experience in a lifeboat. Apparently a guy named Billy Higgins really did drown as they tried to reach shore… naming the oiler after good ol’ Billy Higgins might also be a way for Crane to memorialize him in print.
Q. Why did Crane use the structure he did — the seven sections with Roman numerals?
9) Why did Crane use the structure he did —- the seven sections with Roman numerals? Crane used this structure (7 chapters) to tell that the mood changes. He used the Roman numerals because he wanted to show when this happen, in the past.
Q. What is the setting of the open boat?
The action in “The Open Boat” takes place between January 2 and January 4, 1897, off the eastern coast of Florida near Mosquito Inlet (now known as the Ponce de León Inlet), about twelve miles south of present-day Daytona Beach.
Q. Where does the narrator seem to intrude in the open boat is this distracting or effective?
Where does the narrator seem to “intrude” in “The Open Boat”? Is this distractingor effective? The narrator seems to intrude himself at the end of the story. This makes the ending very distracting and a bit confusing because it makes it hard to tell when the narration changes.
Q. Which one character in the open boat ironically did not survive the experience?
Oiler The oiler, Billie
Q. Who is the hero in the open boat?
Of the four characters in the boat, the oiler represents the everyman, the one whom Crane intends to resemble the average person most closely. The oiler functions as the lynchpin of the crew, holding everyone together through his staunch heroism.
Q. What is the main theme of the story The Open Boat?
The overwhelming theme of the story is the conflict between the men and the cold indifference of the sea. The sea, in fact, is a character in its own right, an elemental force, unmindful of the human struggle to survive.
Q. What is the theme of the story The Open Boat?
“The Open Boat” conveys a feeling of loneliness that comes from man’s understanding that he is alone in the universe and insignificant in its workings. Underneath the men’s and narrator’s collective rants at fate and the universe is the fear of nothingness.
