ring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right

answer.
X

1. Why does the oiler die? Is it because he's the best of the four, or
because he's the worst? Or does he die for no reason at all? What
evidence do you have for your answer?
2. If the universe and the sea are indifferent, why does the narrator so
frequently describe it as if it has a will, or even a consciousness (for
example, 1.10, 6.11, 7.17, etc.)?
3. Remember that poem about the French soldier whom the correspondent
finds so moving? Well, fast-forward a few months. The correspondent is
back home safely, and comfortably lying on the couch. He is reminded of
the poem again. How do you think he feels about it now? Does he still
empathize with the soldier, or is that feeling gone?
4. What character do you admire most in the story? The oiler? The shark?
The guy on the beach with the halo? What are the qualities you find most
admirable?
5. Imagine a reunion between the three survivors one year later. How do
you think they have been changed by this experience? What about five
years later, or ten years? Is there a difference?
6. A shark shows up in the middle of night, but unlike in, say, Moby-Dick or
The Old Man and the Sea, it doesn't really do anything. Why is it in the
story? What do you think it represents?
7. Do you imagine that any other survivors made it off the sinking ship and
onto lifeboats? Try to imagine what might have gone down in another of
the lifeboats.

Quiz https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/2579468.html

Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat" (1897)

Discussion Questions:

1.) Why is only the Oiler given a name (Billie)? Why are the others only referred
to generally?

2.) Why is it that only the Oiler dies and not anyone else?

3.) What is the view of nature presented in this story?

4.) What is the view of the men presented in this story?

5.) How do the men in the open boat relate to each other?
6.) What "patterns" or "repetitions" do you find in the story? How are these
important to understanding the story?

7.) Where does the narrator seem to "intrude" into the story? Is this distracting?
Is it effective?

8.) What do you think about the ending to the story (after we find out that Billie
the Oiler dies)? Is it truthful, or is the narrator being ironic?

9.) Why did Crane use the structure he did -- the seven sections with Roman
numerals?

Pathways to Interpretation:

1. Consider the biographical context and connections

2. Consider the historical context and connections
3. Consider the "literary periods" and similar works.
4. Use the "elements of fiction."
5. Look for "patterns."
6. Always Ask Questions!
7. Click here for a short "catalog" of approaches.

Patterns in "The Open Boat" -- (note: the page numbers are for the NAAL
6th ed.)

1.) Uses of and references to COLORS:

2.) References to NATURE:

 903
 909 -- also "fate"
 esp. 914 -- 3rd paragraph of section VI
 esp. 917 -- top of page

3.) References to ANIMALS:

 904 -- the boat

 905 -- the gulls
 908 -- the boat
 909 -- the mouse (!)
 912 -- branded (!)
 913 -- babes
 914 -- the shark
 916 -- the shark

4.) The RELATIONSHIP of the Men:

  905
 907 -- the "best experience"

5.) Repetition of ROWING passage:

 906
 910
 912

6.) Repetition of DROWNING passage:

 909
 912
 914 -- adds idea of injustice
 917
 918

7.) Use of the name BILLIE for the Oiler:

 911 -- Willie?
 912 -- Billie
 913 -- Billie x2
 916 -- Billie x4
 917 -- Billie
 He's the only one with / given a name (by Crane)
 He's the only one who drowns
 WHY?

8.) Hints or Clues or Foreshadowing about the Oiler:

 197 -- the Oiler is practical, pragmatic, grounded

 200 -- none of them were prepared for the shipwreck
 200 -- the Oiler is even more tired -- a very "off hand" comment, no?
 206 -- the Oiler overdoes it
 209 -- the Oiler overdoes it
 211 -- the Oiler overdoes it

9.) References to DEATH or DEAD SLEEP:

 910
 913
 916
 919 x2

Other Notes and Questions:

10.) The ENDING -- are they really "interpreters"?

 904 -- they know very little; they are restricted

 906 -- they can't see their progress
 908 -- they celebrate too early
  909 -- Narrator: they know nothing! they talk without knowledge!
 915 -- does he understand about the soldier of the Legion at Algiers?
 919 -- the ending: haughty? arrogant? they are sadly mistaken?

11.) Do the men in "The Open Boat" overcome nature, or are they spared by
nature?

12.) Viewed from above / outside -- p. 904

13.) Approximates average experience? -- p. 904 -- NO!

14.) Use of the phrase "Willy Nilly" -- p. 904

AUDIO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8935QYVkKU

Questions: https://www.enotes.com/topics/open-boat

http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-openboat/#gsc.tab=0

https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/stephen-cranes-open-boat#sect-thelesson

SEVERAL QUESTIONS http://mrsgarcia-

english.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/3/2/12328317/student_handout_the_open_boat_questions
_themes_rhetoric_2014.pdf

Activity 1. Introduction to Literary Naturalism

Share with students, or have them visit and read, literary critic Donna Campbell's review of
Naturalism in American Literature, via the EDSITEment reviewed Internet Public Library. In
particular, review with students Charles Child Walcutt's common themes of naturalism as
noted in his American Literary Naturalism: A Divided Stream (cited at Donna Campbell's
Literary Movements website). As a summary, Walcutt notes the following themes in
naturalism:

1. The "brute within"—which is the notion that everyone has "strong and often warring
emotions: passions, such as lust, greed, or the desire for dominance or pleasure,"
leading to behavior considered taboo by society. Encountering the indifferent universe
can cause this brute to rise up, often in violent ways. Students will likely see similarities
to certain comic book heroes like The Incredible Hulk.
2. The indifference of nature as man struggles to survive.
3. The influence of "heredity and environment" (or one's background and surroundings) on
the development of a person. This emphasizes the difficulty of moving between or
mixing social classes (even if successful, the repercussions can be tremendous).
4. Determinism: the inability to express free will or personal agency.
If you wish, use this interactive quiz to test their reading comprehension or understanding
of these concepts. A PDF version is also available, along with a teacher version of the PDF
with the correct answers highlighted.

Finally, ask students to imagine how a character might look from a novel or short story
written in the literary style of naturalism. What settings might be appropriate? What is their
 social situation? What choices are or are not available to them? Ask them to create this
character at the beginning of this imaginary story or novel. Students might speculate about
a wealthy patron of the arts, a noble dock worker, or a charming school teacher. Ask them
to keep this image in mind—they will return to this newly formed character at the end of the
lesson and speculate what might become of him or her if they follow the path of typical
naturalist fiction.

Activity 2. Analyzing Naturalism's Common Themes

Divide students into groups appropriate to your class size. Drawing from the overview of
the common themes of naturalism, ask each student group to complete the PDF chart to
use as the basis for class discussion. Each student group should explore only one of the
following topics; in other words, assign one theme per group (but note that some groups
may apply different themes to the same passages from a text). Students can use the online
version of Crane's "The Open Boat" and London's "To Build a Fire," to cut and paste
passages into a word processing document.

Themes:

 The "brute within"

 The indifference of nature
 The forces of "heredity and environment" (one's background or environment)
 An indifferent, deterministic universe (lack of free will or agency)
After students have spent 10 or 15 minutes in their groups, ask the group leader to share
one or two of their passages from the text and explain why it relates to their assigned
theme. Note that this exercise might be completed as an at-home activity to prompt
discussion for the following day's class.

Activity 3. Navigating the Naturalist Plot of Decline

Now that students have explored many of the general themes of naturalist fiction,
reintroduce them to the idea that naturalist plots typically follow a noticeable "plot of
decline," or a plot that often depicts a character's progression (or retrogression) toward
degeneration or death.

Ask students to note at least three to five major plot shifts in "The Open Boat" and/or "To
Build a Fire" (arrange students in groups or run as a general class discussion, as best suits
your classroom arrangement). Each story contains a metaphorical journey, with the
protagonists encountering nature and succumbing to its indifferent wrath. Students first
should cite passages from each story to represent important steps along the journey, and
then they should chart these steps on a graph, noting whether or not the characters'
situation improves or devolves.

Encourage students to focus on descriptions that relate the fragility of experience, and draw
out other themes of naturalist literature (they can and should build on some of the
passages found in the previous exercise). For example, students can cite key
events/narrative observations from "The Open Boat" as follows:
 The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly
to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed
often ready to snap. The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
wondered why he was there.

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels
she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at
the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any
visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.

In his childhood, the correspondent had been made acquainted with the fact that a soldier
of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had never regarded the fact as important. Myriads
of his school-fellows had informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered it his affair that a
soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it appeared to him as a matter for sorrow.
It was less to him than breaking of a pencil's point. Now, however, it quaintly came to him
as a human, living thing. It was no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a
poet, meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an actuality -- stern,
mournful, and fine.

This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a
degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual --
nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men.

But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was beset with difficulty. He did not
pause swimming to inquire what manner of current had caught him, but there his progress
ceased. The shore was set before him like a bit of scenery on a stage, and he looked at it
and understood with his eyes each detail of it.

Ask students the following questions:

 How does each event affect the following event?

 Are the effects or consequences of each event on the protagonist better or worse than
the one that preceded it? Why or why not?
 Can you think of ways in which the protagonist could have changed the course of
events? What are several factors that might prevent the protagonist from changing the
course of events that unfold throughout each story?
 How would you describe the ending of "To Build a Fire"? How would you describe the
ending of "The Open Boat?" Compare and contrast these endings.
As students consider the outcome for "The Open Boat," encourage them to think of each
character individually, but also the group as a whole. While many characters managed to
survive, including the captain, the loss of the oiler—the strongest among them—presents a
stark view for his weaker companions. Return to the mental exercise that students began
earlier in this lesson plan. As students imagine their character, ask them to imagine where
their character might end up if they were featured in a naturalist novel or short story. The
wealthy patron of the arts might have been too enamored by a work of art, only to lose their
wealth and position by pursuing it. The dock worker might have attempted to nobly save
another, only to suffer a crippling injury (while the person they saved moves into a position
of esteem or wealth). As students spend five minutes creating a plot of decline for their
character, ask them to note which elements of naturalism they choose to include in their
story framework. How might they also deviate from this framework of naturalism? In this
exploration, they should come to understand that not all plots of naturalism are exactly the
same. Encourage them to tinker with the conventions (perhaps as an at-home activity with
their parents) so that they can continue to develop a nuanced view of the genre.

https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/crane-london-and-literary-naturalism#sect-resources

SEE BOOKRAGS AND SPARKNOTES SINCE THERE IS USEFUL MATERIAL