The Open Boat

Born November 1, 1871, and passing on June 5, 1900, Stephen Crane lived a short and fruitful life. His is often considered one of “America’s foremost realist writers,” according to American Authors Online (Gale, 2000), and is credited with “marking the beginning of American Naturalism.” Crane is best acclaimed for his novel “The Red Badge of Courage,” a work that American Authors Online describes as “a masterpiece” of “classic American literature” (Gale, 2000). They also acclaim his novella “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” to be an “important work in the development of American Naturalism (Gale, 2000)

A product of the great Garden State, Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey. He was the last of fourteen children to be brought onto earth by Reverend Dr. Jonathan Townley Crane and Mary Helen Pack. Crane’s parents were both active church members: his father was a Methodist clergyman, his mother a religious journalist and speaker. Much of Crane’s youth was spent ingesting the sights an sounds of New York, where his parents eventually settled. The typical american child in him loved baseball. When he left for collage in 1888, he loved smokes, alcohol, and poker (Quartermain, 1987).

Crane’s formal education was quite different then one may expect. While records of his elementary schooling are vague, his formal education began at Claverack College. There he attended about two years, publishing many works in the school paper, before dropping out. He returned, this time to Lafayette college, in the fall of 1890. He roomed alone on campus. Within six days of registering, Crane was pledged into a fraternity. Interestingly, this first year Crane received a 60 in algebra and a zero in THEME WRITING! He then transfered to Syracuse University during January, 1981. All in all, he attended a total of three institutions during a period of over four years ( Pratt, 460-471).

Crane thought little of his formal education, probably finding more practicality in his real life experience. Practicing journalism helped Crane develop a unique ability to record his observations and personal experiences, adding to the realism of his writing (Gale, 2000). His powerful short story “The Open Boat,” in which Crane captured his ordeal as a passenger on a shipwrecked steamer, certainly developed through this ability. His success in capturing the realism of war, combined with his journalistic experience, gained him the notoriety to be a paid newspaper correspondent for newspaper tycoons William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer (Wiki, 2008). 

Pratt, Lyndon Upson. “The Formal Education of Stephen Crane.” American Literature. Vol. 10, No. 4 (1939): 460-471. Duke University Press. Richard Stockton College of NJ. 17 June 2008 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2920733>.

Quartermain, Peter. ”Stephen (Townley) Crane.” American Poets, 1880-1945: Third Series. Ed. Peter Quartermain. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale Research, 1987. Literature Resource Center. Gale. VALE - Richard Stockton College of NJ. 17 June 2008 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=richstockcol>.

“Stephen (Townley) Crane.” Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Gale. VALE - Richard Stockton College of NJ. 17 June 2008 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=richstockcol>.

“Stephen Crane.” Wikipedia. 13 June 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 17 June 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Crane>.