Contemplating Sand and Trees in“The Open Boat” and the Odyssey

[Democrats_win]

by Meredith Meacham from the May-June 2006 Humanistmagazine

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/Meacham-MayJun06.pdf

--snip

The correspondent in “The Open Boat,” a short
story published by Stephen Crane in 1898, poses the following
question as he and three companions are adrift at
sea after a shipwreck: “If I am going to be drowned, why,
in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I
allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?”
A similar question could have been asked by Odysseus in
the Odyssey as he traversed the seas for ten years, though it
would have elicited a quite different response. In Homer’s
world the outcomes of Odysseus’ situation are determined
by responsive and involved gods, whereas in “The Open
Boat” the four companions must face an impersonal and
indifferent nature as the greatest determining force....

...So who is more free in these two worlds, Odysseus and
his crew or the correspondent and his companions? Odysseus
can bargain and communicate with the gods, and he
can tell to some degree what they have in store for him. He
knows that if he angers them he’ll be punished and if he
pleases them he’ll be rewarded. By learning how to appease
the gods, particularly by avoiding offending Poseidon and
staying in the good graces of Athena, he can ensure his safe
return to Ithaca in time to remove the usurpers of his home.
But his life and its meaning have already been decided based
on the wishes of the gods.

By contrast, the men in the open boat have no one with
whom to bargain for their lives. Their sense of injustice
has no effect on their survival because nature is “indifferent,
flatly indifferent.” However, it is they who decide the
meaning of their lives. And one of the ways they can affect
their own survival and derive their own meaning is by understanding
the laws of nature, which are unchanging. For
example, the men apply their understanding of wind when
they use an overcoat as a sail and apply their understanding
of currents when they try to row the boat toward land. They
have learned these laws of nature by careful observation of
the world around them. Worrying about whether or not the
“seven mad gods who rule the sea” want to drown them
serves no purpose.

In addition to using their intellect and knowledge, the
men can control their fate through hope and cooperation
with each other. They survive by teamwork—alternating
shifts of rowing and providing mutual encouragement and
companionship. And at the end of the story, when the unlikely
survivors hear the voice of the sea from the safety of
shore, they feel “that they could then be interpreters,” free to
contemplate and make sense of their experiences together
or on their own....

[LouisianaLiberal]

1. Interesting. Thanks.