Marc Veldhuyzen, Contributor
A boat sinks in the middle of the ocean. You and a small crew of three barely escape on a row boat.
You’re alone in an open boat at sea. No food, no fresh water and nothing but the consistent buoy of the ocean. This is a hopeless situation, and yet, you still struggle. You still desperately row your boat to try to get to shore before you die.
The Open Ocean by Stephen Crane is the story of hopeless struggle. Fervent and hard struggle for no result at all. It is the story of life, of the vast majority of extraordinary efforts. Unremembered and unknown, never achieving their exorbitant goals. Sometimes it’s because you really aren’t smart enough. Or strong enough. Or creative enough. Or maybe it’s because the goal was always impossible in the first place. The goals may be ambitious or maybe it’s just to survive.
In the open ocean, every moment is a struggle for survival, no longer in the protective shell of the ship. At first, they are able to appreciate the full scope of their situation. But they can plan, work out elaborate schemes to get to shore safely, back into the same sense of safety they had in the boat. Their focus is still on the world around them, the subtle waves of the sea, and the beautiful stillness of the sky, and their dreams for survival are all still intact.
Then, time passes and things get harder. They’re trying to make their way to a spotting house on the shore. They can’t break the surf between land and sea without its aid. They want a boat to come pick them up, which they can only do by signaling some help from shore. They make it to the edge of the surf and are spotted by a person. The person waves to them and they wave back. It looks like rescue is going to come.
Soon a crowd gathers at shore. They all pay attention to the small row boat, and signal to them with waves and some cheers. But, it’s not about rescue. The crowd just sees the boat as a piece of entertainment. There was no help coming. They do not know the passengers’ plight. Soon they all disappear and again they are alone.
The struggle becomes real now. They are low on food and water, the sun has been bathing down on them constantly. They begin to take turns rowing to conserve energy, as they follow the shore looking desperately for anyone to help. But, no one comes to help. Soon, the captain makes a fateful decision. He’s going to dash to the shoreline, a final move to use all of their energy left in a single moment, for even the slightest chance, of breaking the surf.
They’ve accepted that death is likely now, but are upset that it has waited for so long. If death was going to take them, why not when the ship sank? Why did fate force them to go through all of this effort, all of those false hopes.
Tired, sleep deprived, exhausted, they don’t even notice the natural world anymore, the world around them. Everything becomes internal when your body is in agony, you can’t appreciate the beauty of the sea or sky.
The crew makes the dash for it. They row wildly, through the surf, through the hard and accursed waves of nature trying desperately to seal their fate. As expected the boat flips over and all of the men are forced to swim the last distance in the ice cold water.
It’s unclear if they survive. However, one man makes it to land. In the instant that he touches the shore the once empty beach is suddenly filled with people, beach goers, women with coffee pots, blankets, and flasks. His body collapses the moment he touches sand, and lays there still. The struggle for survival ends and finally they are at peace.