What is a summary of The Open Boat?

Answer 1

The Open Boat is a dramatic short story based on Stephen Crane's own real-life experience, when a ship he was sailing on to Cuba sank in high seas off the coast of Florida. He was a correspondent for an American newspaper and he was on his way to write about problems that led up to The Spanish-American War in 1898.

As the story opens, four men: a cook, a correspondent, an oiler and a captain, are in a lifeboat in stormy seas. They are off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Soon, they spot the light of a lighthouse somewhere in the distance, so they know they are near land. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. The waves will destroy the lifeboat and possibly crash hard on the men in the surf, maybe killing them.

People on the shore see the lifeboat and try to signal to the men to come in, but the sea is just too rough. The four men in the boat hope that the people on land will send a bigger boat out to rescue them, but that does not happen. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend a total of two nights in thelifeboat and take turns rowing and thenresting. They are not sure if they will survive and they have exchanged addresses in case any of them should die.

On the morning after their second night, the men are weak and no fishing boat has come to rescue them. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. This is exactly what happens. As they get closer to land, the waves get bigger and bigger. Just as they expect, a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water.

Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler, the strongest man and best swimmer, has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. As night comes, the men still hear the pounding of the waves on the shore - the voice of the sea. Now, they understand the power of the sea, and how easily it can claimeven the strongest man's life.