Indifference to Anxiety in Cranes The Open Boat Essay example -- Open

Indifference to Anxiety in Cranes The Open Boat In recent years, comminuted response to Stephen Cranes The Open Boat has shifted dramatic in ally, focusing less on the tales philosophical agendas than on its epistemological implications. The story no longer stands as merely a naturalistic depiction of natures monumental indifference or as simply an existential affirmation of fifes absurdity. Instead, we have slowly come to realize a clean level of the text, one that, according to Donna Gerstenberger, explores mans limited capacities for knowing reality (557). Gerstenbergers conclusion that the tale may be best viewed as a story with an epistemological emphasis, one which constantly reminds its reader of the impossibility of mans knowing anything, even that which he experiences (560), is further developed by doubting Thomas L. Kent If we insist that the text be understand naturalistically, if we insist, that the text must have some sort of overarching meaning --- even a meaning that shows the world to be existentially absurd --- we place ourselves in the similar boat as the deluded castaways who felt that, they could then be interpreters. On both the narrative and extra-textual levels, the subject of The Open Boat is epistemology, and the text suggests that meaning in the universe is secondary to mans ability to preceive sic it. (264) Building upon the insights of Gerstenberger, Kent and others, l hope to show bow the structure of The Open Boat creates an epistemological dilemma, moving the reader from a couch of epistemological indifference to a state of epistemological anxiety. Four key moments in the story create this shift from indifference to anxiety first, in role 1, the opening sentence... ...st way allowing us to know what it is they are now interpreters of, Crane highlights more than our own inability to achieve interpretation, to gain access to knowledge. Rather, he has position us in such a position that we must shed our casual indifferen ce to our epistemological failures and embrace, unwillingly perhaps, the anxiety that will attend all of our efforts to read lifes impenetrable meanings. WORKS CITED Crane, Stephen. The Open Boat. The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane Volume V, Tales of Adventure. Ed. Fredson Bowers. Charlottesville UP of Virginia, 1970. Gerstenberger, Donna. The Open Boat An Additional Perspective. Modern Fiction Studies 17 (1971-72)557-561. Kent, Thomas L The Problem of Knowledge inThe Open Boatand The Blu Hotel. American Literary Realism 14 (1981) 262-268.