"SUMMARY OF THE OPEN BOAT By Stephan Crene

THE OPEN BOAT

By Stephen Crane

"The Open Boat" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of having survived a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. 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. Crane's personal account of the shipwreck and the men's survival, titled "Stephen Crane's Own Story", was first published a few days after his rescue.

Crane subsequently adapted his report into narrative form, and the short story "The Open Boat" was published in Scribner's Magazine. The story is told from the point of view of an anonymous correspondent, Crane's fictional doppelgänger, and the action closely resembles the author's experiences after the shipwreck.

 One of the most frequently discussed works in Crane's canon, it is notable for its use of imagery, irony, symbolism, and exploration of themes including survival, solidarity, and the conflict between man and nature.

Hired by the Bacheller newspaper syndicate to serve as a war correspondent during the Cuban insurrection against Spain, the 25-year-old Stephen Crane boarded the filibustering steamship SS Commodore on New Year's Eve, 1896. The ship sailed from Jacksonville, Florida, with 27 or 28 men and a cargo of supplies and ammunition for the Cuban rebels. On the St. Johns River, less than 2 miles (3 km) from Jacksonville, Commodore struck a sandbar in a dense fog and damaged its hull. Although towed off the sandbar the following day, it was again beached in Mayport, Florida, and further damaged. A leak began in the boiler room that evening, and as a result of malfunctioning water pumps, the ship came to a standstill about 16 miles (26 km) from Mosquito Inlet (now called Ponce de León Inlet). As the ship took on more water, Crane described the engine room as resembling "a scene at this time taken from the middle kitchen of hades."

Commodore's lifeboats were lowered in the early hours of the morning on January 2, 1897, and the ship sank at 7 a.m. Crane was one of the last to leave the ship in a 10-foot (3.0 m) dinghy. He and three other men (including the captain, Edward Murphy) floundered off the coast of Florida for a day and a half before attempting to land their craft at Daytona Beach. The small boat, however, overturned in the surf, forcing the exhausted men to swim to shore; one of them, an oiler named Billie Higgins, died. The disaster was front-page news in newspapers across the country; rumors that the ship had been sabotaged were widely circulated but never substantiated.

Crane was reunited with his partner, Cora, several days after the ordeal, and quickly wrote his initial report of the sinking while waiting in Jacksonville for another ship. Desperate for work, he soon left for New York to secure a job covering the impending Greco-Turkish War. Crane completed the story that would become "The Open Boat" a few weeks later, in mid-February. According to fellow correspondent Ralph D. Paine, Crane had the opportunity to show the first draft of the short story to Murphy when Crane again passed through Jacksonville. When Crane asked his opinion, Murphy allegedly replied, "You've got it, Steve.... That is just how it happened, and how we felt. Read me some more of it".

Author’s Background and Writing

Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works that critics have claimed are mainly influenced by Realism, Naturalism and Impressionism He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

The eighth surviving child of  Methodist Protestant parents, Crane began writing at the age of four and had published several articles by the age of 16. Having little interest in university studies, he left school in 1891 and began work as a reporter and writer. Crane’s first novel was the 1893  Bowery tale, Maggies: A Girl of the Streets  which critics generally consider the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim for his 1895  civil war novel ,The Red Badge of Courage which he wrote without any battle experience.

In 1896, Crane endured a highly publicized scandal after acting as witness for a suspected prostitute. Late that year he accepted an offer to cover the Spanish –American War as a war correspondent .While en route to Cuba, Crane’s ship sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him adrift for several days in a dinghy. His ordeal was later described in The Open Boat”. During the final years of his life, he covered conflicts in  Greece and lived in England with Cora, where he befriended writers such as Joseph Conrad and HG Wells the literary figures of the time. Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium at the age of 28.

At the time of his death, Crane had become an important figure in American literature. He was nearly forgotten, however, until two decades later when critics revived interest in his life and work. Stylistically, Crane’s writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects and irony . Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. Although recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage, which has become an American classic, Crane is also known for short stories such as “The Open Boat”, The Blue Hotel,The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky and the Monster.” His writing made a deep impression on 20th century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and Imagists.

Context

Born in 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, Stephen Crane hailed from a line of determined men who were actively involved in pioneering the nation of the United States of America. On his father’s side, one man sailed to America with Sir Francis Drake, and another served as a representative to the pre–Revolutionary War Continental Congresses. Crane was always proud of his family’s role in American history, and it motivated him to carve out his own place in history, in his own peculiar manner. It is interesting that in his short life, Stephen Crane produced so much memorable fiction; he died in 1900, at the young age of twenty-eight. Although his last years were dominated by poor health, Crane left an indelible mark on American literature. His influences were few, but his disciples were many, among them Hemingway and Joseph Heller as well as many 20th-centuries war novelists. .

Although he began writing at a very young age, Crane first made his presence felt in the literary world at age twenty-two with Maggie: A Girl of the Streets(1893), which he wrote while living in the slums of New York and for which he needed money from his brother to publish. Maggie was instantly notable not only for the conditions in which Crane wrote it, but also for its unblinking look at its subject: the underbelly of New York. Crane attempted to depict what he saw as the enslavement of the poor by their own poverty. He was committed to naturalism and realism, as he would be throughout his life, no matter what subject he was writing about. A “naturalist” writer approaches subjects objectively, almost scientifically, staying detached as much as possible. “Realist” writers strive to portray their subjects as realistically as possible. Crane’s best-known work, The Red Badge of Courage (1895), was a naturalistic novel set during the Civil War. Told from a private’s point of view, Red Badge resonated with readers who were familiar with the life of the grunt: the constant threat of the unknown, the feeling of being a pawn in someone else’s schemes, the suppression of personality, and self-doubt.

“The Open Boat” (1897) evolved from Crane’s real-life experience of being stranded in a dinghy on the Atlantic Ocean. On December 31, 1896, Crane sailed out of Jacksonville, Florida, bound for Cuba, to cover the emerging war as a correspondent. His ship sank in the morning of January 2, and Crane and three crew members spent thirty hours in a dinghy before coming ashore near Daytona Beach. Crane immediately wrote “Stephen Crane’s Own Story,” a newspaper account of the sinking, but he shied away from further telling of his experience, writing only that “The history of life in an open boat for thirty hours would no doubt be instructive for the young, but none is to be told here now.” Crane waited for years before he turned his experience into “The Open Boat.”

“The Open Boat” confronts both Crane’s time aboard the dinghy and the symbolic implications of fighting for one’s life amidst forces that are uncaring about one’s survival. The correspondent in the story is based on Crane himself, while the injured captain, the cook, and Billie the oiler all have their real-life counterparts in the men who shared the dinghy with Crane. The actual captain did indeed injure himself in the ship’s foundering, and William Higgins, the actual oiler, did indeed die on the shore. Although all of Crane’s characters are based in reality, Crane turns them into archetypes (ideal models) of humanity and submits them to the whims of nature. The critical reception of “The Open Boat” was enthusiastic, with both H. G. Wells and Joseph Conrad praising the story. Unfortunately for Crane, the experience that gave him this story also took away his health. Following his experience at sea, Crane became vulnerable to the diseases that would eventually kill him.

Despite his poor health, Crane never stopped moving in an attempt to be on the frontline of some of the grimmer scenes of his time. His travels took him to Greece to report on the Greco-Turkish War; to England, where he befriended contemporaries such as Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Joseph Conrad; back to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American War; and finally to England and Germany, where he succumbed to tuberculosis. During all this time, Crane persisted in writing fiction and poetry, much of it characterized by his naturalistic perception of man caught in the throes of the conflicting, alienating forces that define the human condition. Ultimately, Crane tried to follow his own maxim that “the nearer a writer gets to life the greater he becomes as an artist.” For him, this meant a commitment to reality in life as well as in art. Crane lived this maxim so deeply that in the end, his desire to report from the thick of war was responsible for putting him in contact with the diseases that killed him while he was still in his twenties.

Elements of Fiction in "The Open Boat"

Point of View

In "The Open Boat," the narrator is an invisible character, the omniscient godhead. This character knows everything and sees everything. He can get into the head of any character. This narrator informs readers about events, facts and thoughts the other characters do not know. Crane's narrator, however, does not reveal too much. He allows readers to discover details through dialogue. For example, readers discover Billie's name through the captain's words. Readers also learn the difference between the lifesaving station and a house of refuge through a disagreement between the correspondent and the cook. Crane uses this technique to lend realism to the story.

Character

Crane's characters in "The Open Boat" are representations of certain types of men. For example, The captain is the leader; yet in this position, he is depressed and weakened. The correspondent is the educated observer, even though he is one of the two characters who strives to keep the boat afloat. The cook is the jovial, overweight follower. The oiler is the hard-worker. He is the second character who strives to keep the boat afloat. Despite all his labor, ironically, he is the only character to die.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

The Correspondent -  A reporter and the central character of the story. The correspondent is presumably young and able-bodied, given that he shares rowing duties with the oiler. The correspondent is also, by virtue of his profession, inclined to be cynical of men. He is pleasantly surprised to find his heart warmed by the brotherhood that he and the crew have formed in the boat. Several times, the correspondent curses nature and the gods who rule the sea and wonders whether he is really meant to drown.

The Captain - The captain of the ship, injured when the ship floods. The captain is calm and quiet, talking for the most part only to give directions and lead the crew to shore. The captain commands complete authority, and although he does not take part in keeping the dinghy afloat, he bears the full responsibility of getting everyone to safety. He is always alert and cool-headed, even when it looks as though he might be sleeping.

The Cook - The ship’s cook, who maintains a positive, even na?ve, outlook on the men’s rescue. The cook is the first to suggest the presence of a lifesaving station and cannot help but turn his mind to the simple pleasures of living on land, such as his favorite pies and meats. Although he is not fit enough to help with the rowing, the cook makes himself useful by bailing water.

The Oiler (Billie) - The only refugee from the ship to die in the final attempt at reaching land. Before the ship sank, the oiler worked a double watch in the engine room, and he is most likely to be exhausted in the dinghy. The oiler is staunch, obedient to the captain, and generous and polite to the correspondent whenever he is asked to row. The oiler also seems to be the most realistic of the men, never losing sight of the task at hand or the slim chance they have of surviving.

Analysis of Major Characters

The Correspondent

For Crane, each crewmember is an archetype that, when joined with his fellow castaways, constitutes part of a microcosm of society. The captain represents the leaders; the cook the followers; the oiler the good, working men; and the correspondent the observers and thinkers. As his profession as a reporter suggests, the correspondent functions as the eyes and voice of the story. Crane underlines this point in his introduction of the characters in the first section. While the cook is cowering on the boat’s floor and the oiler is silently working at his oar, the correspondent watches the waves and wonders why he is caught on the ocean, a question that reveals the correspondent’s search for purpose in life. With this question alone, the correspondent begins to shape our perceptions of the ordeal the men are undergoing.

In the first five sections of “The Open Boat,” the correspondent’s challenges to the sea, which he associates with nature and fate, reveal his desire to make sense of surviving the ship only to drown in the dinghy. Although he understands that nature and fate do not act and think as men do, the correspondent nevertheless goads them because he believes that there is a purpose to nature, that it in some way validates his struggle for survival. The correspondent initially thinks he finds the answer when he considers the “subtle brotherhood of men” that develops among the crew in response to the overwhelming cruelty of nature. At this point, he takes pleasure in the pain caused by rowing in the rough sea because he believes that this pain is the healthy byproduct of his effort at community, which nature has forced them to create and is the only thing that really matters. As the men realize that no one is coming to save them, however, the correspondent comes to lose hope in the “subtle brotherhood” that had seemed to be the noble purpose of submitting to nature’s punishment.

The Captain

The captain is the consummate leader, a man who never shirks from the responsibility he takes for those who have entrusted their safety to him. When he loses his ship to the sea at the beginning of the story, the captain suffers infinitely more than the other survivors. Deprived of his ship, he becomes a broken man who has lost the very thing that grants him his authority. Yet the captain, through his dedication to guiding the men to safety, retains a degree of dignity to go with the ineffable sense of loss he feels at having failed in his charge. In this sense, the captain is at once a majestic and tragic figure, one who has not measured up to the standards he has set for himself but continues to fight for his fellow men. His quiet, steady efforts in the boat are not self-motivated and afford him no personal redemption. Instead, his actions are directed toward the others.

The Oiler (Billie)

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. He has the fewest delusions about the men’s physical plight, but he never gives in to the hopelessness that the others mask with idle talk about nonexistent opportunities for rescue or meditations about the cruelty of nature. Instead, the oiler maintains an image of strength, warmth, and integrity. He echoes the captain’s orders, reinforcing the social structure of the crew and instilling confidence in the others, whose outlook rises and falls with the waves.

Plot

The conflict, or plot, of "The Open Boat" is man versus nature. In the beginning, the readers witness the characters, full of anger that they are in this predicament, as they battle the ocean's power. Crane uses figurative language to describe the battle: It was "easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dingy" and "waves with a movement like carpets on a line in a gale." Later, to show the indifferent, uncaring attitude of the ocean, Crane says, "The wind slowly died away."

Setting

At first, the ocean is portrayed as a violent, wild entity that can pull the men under at any moment. Later the sea is seen as an opponent who cares little for the men's outcome. The men realize that to have a chance at survival, they must make it to shore. However, getting to the shore becomes a battle. The men constantly question what they see, and they become confused about the location of the rescue station.

Theme

 Man’s Insignificance in the Universe

“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. They have an egotistical belief that they should have a role in the universe, that their existence should mean something. When the correspondent realizes by section VI that fate will not answer his pleas, he settles into despair. His subsequent recollection of the poem about the soldier who lies dying in Algiers reflects his feelings of alienation at being displaced from his position in the universe. Like the soldier who dies in alien territory, the correspondent fears that he too will perish without a connection to whatever gives him his sense of self.

Throughout “The Open Boat,” the correspondent understands pain to be the necessary byproduct of his efforts to overcome nature, the willful enemy. He comes to value his suffering because it is nobly derived; in the earlier sections, the correspondent, whom the narrator says is cynical, is often cheerful and talkative in his descriptions of the physical pain he experiences. By the end of the story, however, the correspondent’s new awareness that the universe is unconcerned with the situation’s outcome makes him physically and spiritually weary. He decides that there is no higher purpose to surviving other than prolonging a life that is meaningless. His comment in section VII that the coldness of the water is simply “sad” underscores this despair. At this point, all sensations of pain and pleasure are merely physical and have no spiritual meaning.

Throughout the story, the characters' moods change from anger to optimism to doubt. As they change, they learn the cold fact of life: Man has little control over the situation he finds himself in. As the characters leave the boat and swim toward the shore, each character discovers he must struggle to the shore independent of the others. According to Crane, all the goodness in life means little in a world where man stands alone, suffering in his own despair and frustration.

Motifs

Drowning

As the narrator attempts to capture the men’s thoughts as they endure many demoralizing episodes, he inserts a refrain into the text three times that suggests that the men’s general fear of death is exacerbated by the unconcern of nature. The refrain is a rant against fate, which the narrator personifies as an incompetent fool unable to govern men’s lives. The narrator is not really trying to tell us that fate is cruel. Instead, he is suggesting that the men are furious because they believe that fate has toyed with their lives. The men consider their situation unfair, and in the refrain, they protest against it. The fact that the narrator intrudes on the story with this refrain at the moments when fate seems to have let the men down creates the impression that this is, in fact, the men’s reaction. The refrain acts as the narrator’s interpretation of how the men themselves interpret their situation

Hidden deeper in the refrain is the narrator’s conviction that a higher power does not exist to weigh in on men’s affairs. By making outright references to “the seven mad gods who rule the sea,” the narrator clues us in to the mythical implications of the story, insinuating that these pagan gods, who are traditionally involved in men’s lives, have abandoned the stranded men. More important, the narrator hints at the absence of an overseeing God through a subtle use of numerology. The thrice-repeated phrase “If I am going to be drowned” in the refrain alludes to the New Testament Gethsemane scene in which Peter denies Jesus three times. In the Bible, man denies God, but Crane inverts the scene so that it is God denying man.

Waves

A ceaseless presence in the story and constant nuisance to the refugees, the ocean waves suggest both the forces of nature and uncontrollability of life. At the beginning of the story, the narrator presents the waves as the men’s primary concern, the thing they must master if they are to survive the shipwreck. In this sense, the waves resemble the ever-changing demands of the present, the part of life that demands the most attention but allows for the least reflection. Crane seems to imply that because the men cannot control the waves’ ebb and flow, man in general cannot affect the outcomes of his life and can hope only to respond constructively to what he encounters. Just as the waves are constantly changing, becoming sometimes violent and sometimes favorable, the pressures in man’s life will continue to jostle his progress toward whatever he seeks. The narrator’s final mention of the waves as “pacing to and fro” emphasizes this point by suggesting that the waves, in their motion, are impatiently waiting for the men, who must eventually venture out again onto the seas of fortune.

Symbols

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. The boat is inconsequential and always in danger of capsizing, much as we as humans are inconsequential and frail in the context of the world around us. The fact that the boat is characterized as “open” supports this interpretation: the boat is unprotected and thus open to suffering the unexpected turns of fortune that are unavoidable in life. For the men, being in the open boat becomes the reality of their lives, and they realize from their experience on the boat how little control they have over where they can go and what they can do. Through the boat, Crane implies that life is not something we can control, but rather life is what we must hang onto as we make our way in the world.

The Oiler’s Death

The oiler’s death and lack of explanation surrounding it reinforce the randomness of nature’s whims and symbolize the indifference of nature toward man. Because he is no more deserving of death than any other crew member, and in some cases is less deserving because he has worked the hardest under the most physical strain, his death highlights the fact that nature is arbitrary in how it chooses its victims. The events surrounding the oiler’s death also uncover the fact that the “subtle brotherhood of men” sensed by the crew is nothing more than a delusion. The men make a break for land on their own, and the good-natured oiler leaves everyone behind to reach the shore. In this way, Crane illustrates that there is a limit to what working together can accomplish and that all men ultimately end up alone.

The Poem

The poem that the correspondent recites about the soldier who pitifully lies dying in a foreign land represents the correspondent’s understanding of his own plight. Just as in youth he never considered it a tragedy that the fictitious soldier dies away from home, the correspondent realizes that, as a grown man, his situation is like the soldier’s and that it is nature that now regards his death as inconsequential. This understanding forces the correspondent to see the soldier’s story as tragic because it is the only way to give his own life weight. The correspondent endows the fictitious soldier with humanity, a gesture that reveals both his maturity at understanding what his life really amounts to and his self-delusion for using fiction to give meaning to his own situation. In truth, the poem does not make the correspondent’s plight any more real. Rather, it only reinforces the meaningless of his struggle, which the narrator later describes as “the plight of the ants.”

The Cigars

The four wet cigars and four dry cigars serve as a complex symbol of hope for spiritual salvation and as the ultimate loss of that salvation. When the correspondent finds these cigars in his pockets, Crane makes it clear that there are two interpretations of the men’s plight. First, like the four sodden cigars, the four men are physically and spiritually soaked by the heavy, demoralizing forces of nature—they are broken and useless. Second, like the four dry cigars hidden deep inside the correspondent’s pocket, there is something inside the men that remains untouched by the cold, drenching despair that the sea imparts. At the moment when the correspondent digs through his pocket, the men are likely to see themselves optimistically—as the four dry cigars—because their cooperation and hard work has seemingly put them on track to defeat nature. Yet by the end of the story, the men’s optimism is not intact, and they feel misery, not triumph. The wet cigars more aptly illustrate the tragedy of the men’s spirits. 

Existentialism and Irony

In “The Open Boat,” Crane conveys an existential view of humanity: that is, he depicts a human situation in which the individual is insignificant in the universe and yet, through free will and consciousness, must interpret a reality that is essentially unknowable. The men in the dinghy, particularly the correspondent, try desperately to justify their survival in the struggle against the sea, but the values by which they live and the appeals they make to the heavens are inadequate. The universe is indifferent to their courage, valor, and brotherhood, and there is no response to the men’s furious appeals to fate and God to answer for the outrageous misfortune that has befallen them. Crane’s use of the word absurd in the narrator’s refrain challenging fate—“The whole affair is absurd”—resonates well with the existentialist creed that the universe itself is “absurd” and that there is no meaning in the natural order of things. At best, these men can construct their own meanings, such as the “subtle brotherhood of men” they form, but in Crane’s vision, they are shut out from the cosmos.

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. For example, the narrator calls nature a “she.” For both the narrator and correspondent, nature is an old, inscrutable mistress whose workings are always beyond their grasp. At the end of the story, the captain, correspondent, and cook are no more able to converse with nature than they were at the beginning. Indeed, they finally realize that there is no such thing as conversing with nature. This awareness drives home the irony of the final sentence in the story, in which the narrator says that the three surviving men feel that they can be interpreters of the ocean’s voice. The men’s capacity to interpret nature for other people refers simply to their understanding that the sea’s voice is incoherent and the universe a cosmic void. There is nothing to interpret.

Alternative Interpretations

Critics generally agree that “The Open Boat” is an examination of man’s relationship to the universe as well as of man’s relationship to other men. But there are different opinions about the precise nature of these relationships. On one hand, Crane’s work seems to be anti-Romantic. Romanticism argues that human beings exist in harmony with nature. The sea in this story, with its constant snarls and hisses, is a hostile force to mankind and certainly not in harmony with the men who are fighting for their lives. American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau believed that nature is a mystic wonderland that in every corner holds tiny clues to how man fits seamlessly into the universe. “The Open Boat” suggests the opposite: man is alienated from the universe and doomed to lead a cold, unnatural existence.

Narrative Techniques/Style

The ''Open Boat ’’ employs an omniscient narrative technique, where the narrator has the ample opportunity to hover round and present the characters, both their thoughts and feelings.

One way to establish the atmosphere of the story is to vividly describe the setting of the story which is the sea in its ferocious state as the men struggle against it. The sea here is symbolic of nature in its omnipotent state and man at its mercy. This is often captured by rather dark imageries of fear, terror, force and unpredictability. One of such descriptions is, ''It was probably splendid, it was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and white and amber’’.

The coming of the gulls is also captured in the same mould of rich imagery and language. The birds stare at the crew, ''with black bead-like eyes’’. It is this kind of dramatic description that makes up the whole story.

Apart from the rich vein of description of the setting by the writer, the characters themselves are allowed to engage in rather interesting dialogues .One purpose of the dialogues is to fill the void and boredom caused by their restriction to the boat. Apart from this, the dialogues help to explore individual character and who they really are. The correspondent for example had heard the story of soldier of the Legion, but because he has always been consumed by self, he did not feel the agony of what this soldier experienced, but now, being faced with a similar dire situation, he now understands what it means to be helpless and left with no help in sight. There are times when these dialogues sound like meaningless rantings. This is the purpose of the refrain, ''If I am going to be drowned’’.

Also of note is that fact that though some of the names of the crew members are mentioned, they are not emphasized. Rather, each crew member is called by their professional names such as the cook, correspondent, oiler and the captain. These titles are symbolic of a range of professions that manage a normal human society. The cook-food, agriculture/correspondent-information and arts/oiler-industrialization and captain-governance. By emphasizing these titles, the writer is able to arouse a universal appeal.