Short Story: ‘The Open Boat’ by Stephen Crane (Part 1)

April 08, 2011

BARBARA KLEIN: Now, the VOA Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.

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Our story today is called “The Open Boat.” It was written by Stephen Crane and is based on what really happened to him in eighteen ninety-six.

Crane was traveling from the United States to Cuba as a newspaper reporter. One night, his ship hit a sandbar. It sank in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida. Most of the people on board got into lifeboats. Crane was among the last to leave. There were three others with him: the ship’s captain, the cook, and a sailor.

These four men climbed into the only remaining lifeboat. The boat was so small that no one believed it could stay afloat for very long. None of the four men thought he would ever reach the shore. But the men fought the seas bravely, with all their strength. Would they finally reach land? Here is Shep O’Neal with the first part of the story.

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SHEP O’NEAL: The small lifeboat bounced from wave to wave in the rough seas of the Atlantic. The four men in the boat could not see the sky. The waves rose too high.

The waves with their white tops pushed at the open boat with angry violence. Every man thought each wave would be his last. Surely, the boat would sink and he would drown. The men thought that most adults would need a bathtub larger than the boat they were sailing. The waves were huge, and each created a problem in guiding the direction of the boat.