Short Story: The Open Boat (1)
Author: Stephen Crane
Storytellerr: Shep O’Neal
Source: VOA
BARBARA KLEIN: Now, the VOA Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.
(MUSIC)
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.
(MUSIC)
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.
For two days, since the ship sank, the four men had been struggling to reach land. But there was no land to be seen. All the men saw were violent waves which rose and came fiercely down on them.
The men sat in the boat, wondering if there was any hope for them. The ship’s cook sat in the bottom of the boat. He kept looking at the fifteen centimeters which separated him from the ocean.
The boat had only two wooden oars. They were so thin – it seemed as if they would break against the waves. The sailor, named Billie, directed the boat’s movement with one of the oars. The newspaper reporter pulled the second oar. He wondered why he was there in the boat.
The fourth man was the captain of the ship that had sunk. He lay in the front of the small boat. His arm and leg were hurt when the ship sank. The captain’s face was sad. He had lost his ship and many of his sailors. But he looked carefully ahead, and he told Billie when to turn the boat.
“Keep her a little more south, Billie,” he said.
“A little more south, sir,” the sailor repeated.
Sitting in the boat was like sitting on a wild horse. As each wave came, the boat rose and fell, like a horse starting toward a fence too high to jump. The problem was that after successfully floating over one wave you find that there is another one behind it just as strong and ready to flood your boat.
As each wall of water came in, it hid everything else that the men could see. The waves came in silence; only their white tops made threatening noises. In the weak light, the faces of the men must have looked gray. Their eyes must have shone in strange ways as they looked out at the sea. The sun rose slowly into the sky. The men knew it was the middle of the day because the color of the sea changed from slate gray to emerald green, with gold lights. And the white foam on the waves looked like falling snow.
(MUSIC)
SHEP O’NEAL: As the lifeboat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the hair of the men. As the boat dropped down again the water fell just past them. The top of each wave was a hill, from which the men could see, for a brief period, a wide area of shining sea.
The cook said the men were lucky because the wind was blowing toward the shore. If it started blowing the other way, they would never reach land. The reporter and the sailor agreed. But the captain laughed in a way that expressed humor and tragedy all in one. He asked: “Do you think we’ve got much of a chance now, boys?”
This made the others stop talking. To express any hope at this time they felt to be childish and stupid. But they also did not want to suggest there was no hope. So they were silent.
“Oh, well,” said the captain, “We’ll get ashore all right.”
But there was something in his voice that made them think, as the sailor said: “Yes, if this wind holds!”
Seagulls flew near and far. Sometimes the birds sat down on the sea in groups, near brown seaweed that rolled on the waves. The anger of the sea was no more to them than it was to a group of chickens a thousand miles away on land. Often the seagulls came very close and stared at the men with black bead-like eyes. The men shouted angrily at them, telling them to be gone.
The sailor and the reporter kept rowing with the thin wooden oars. Sometimes they sat together, each using an oar. Sometimes one would pull on both oars while the other rested. Brown pieces of seaweed appeared from time to time. They were like islands, bits of earth that did not move. They showed the men in the boat that it was slowly making progress toward land.
(MUSIC)
SHEP O’NEAL: Hours passed. Then, as the boat was carried to the top of a great wave, the captain looked across the water.
He said that he saw the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. The cook also said he saw it. The reporter searched the western sky.
“See it?” said the captain.
“No,” said the reporter slowly, “I don’t see anything.”
“Look again,” said the captain. He pointed. “It’s exactly in that direction.”
This time the reporter saw a small thing on the edge of the moving horizon. It was exactly like the point of a pin.
“Think we’ll make it, captain?” he asked.
“If this wind holds and the boat doesn’t flood, we can’t do much else,” said the captain.
(MUSIC)
SHEP O’NEAL: It would be difficult to describe the brotherhood of men that was here established on the sea. Each man felt it warmed him. They were a captain, a sailor, a cook and a reporter. And they were friends. The reporter knew even at the time that this friendship was the best experience of his life.
All obeyed the captain. He was a good leader. He always spoke in a low voice and calmly.
“I wish we had a sail,” he said, “to give you two boys a chance to rest.” So they used his coat and one of the oars to make a sail and the boat moved much more quickly.
The lighthouse had been slowly growing larger. At last, from the top of each wave the men in the boat could see land. Slowly, the land seemed to rise from the sea. Soon, the men could see two lines, one black and one white.
They knew that the black line was formed by trees, and the white line was the sand. At last, the captain saw a house on the shore. And the lighthouse became even larger.
“The keeper of the lighthouse should be able to see us now,” said the captain. “He’ll notify the life-saving people.”
Slowly and beautifully, the land rose from the sea. The wind came again. Finally, the men heard a new sound – the sound of waves breaking and crashing on the shore.
“We’ll never be able to make the lighthouse now,” said the captain. “Swing her head a little more north, Billie.”
“A little more north, sir,” said the sailor.
The men watched the shore grow larger. They became hopeful. In an hour, perhaps, they would be on land. The men struggled to keep the boat from turning over.
They were used to balancing in the boat. Now they rode this wild horse of a boat like circus men. The water poured over them.
The reporter thought he was now wet to the skin. But he felt in the top pocket of his coat and found eight cigars. Four were wet, but four were still dry. One of the men found some dry matches. Each man lit a cigar. The four men sailed in their boat with the belief of a rescue shining in their eyes. They smoked their big cigars and took a drink of water.
(MUSIC) BARBARA KLEIN:
You have been listening to the first part of the American short story, “The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane. This program was adapted for Special English by Shelley Gollust and produced by Lawan Davis. Your storyteller was Shep O’Neal.
Join us again next week when we tell you the second and last part of the story. You can read and listen to other AMERICAN STORIES on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Barbara Klein.
 Rebecca Lin 2010 Spring In USA |
戲雨飛鷹,
謝謝你的回複，很高興和你交流。
原來這一係列的IDs都是你呀，謝謝你告訴我，“遲鈍和木納”應該是非我莫屬也。
Wish you all the best,
Rebecca
你可能沒完全明白我的話，我說的＂我的遲鈍和木納＂是因為：我隻知道貝卡就是高雅的貝卡，以為每周偶爾出現一兩次送來溫暖的風（songs／poems）。不知道，那個天天伴隨著我的我最喜歡最敬佩最心疼的purple lady就是您。marygo，jumponce，huhuya，hulahu等一係列我的id都曾想為可愛的purple－lady寫點心裏的話謝謝她。。。當我終於知道原來rebacca一直天天默默地我們奉獻祝願鼓勵。。你不知道我是多麽地驚訝多麽地感動。。。
我必須忙去了。。。保重貝卡！
btw, 你給我的那些鼓勵我很珍惜，我都保留在我的blog裏麵，謝謝。還有那首prayer，我視如最最美好的禮物，它在我低落的時候曾給過我很多的安寧和鼓勵，謝謝。
戲雨飛鷹，
今天清晨來到我的博客，讀到你給我的一係列留言，淚水都打濕了我的眼睛。你對我的欣賞，讓我感動；你給我的溢美之詞，讓我受之有愧。因為，我遠沒有你說得那麽好，我是一個非常情緒化的女人。I am grateful for my husband and my kids. They love me for who I am. And I love them with my heart and soul. I am really blessed to have them.
感謝你和大家對美壇的參與和支持，你的雙語詩歌，是如此的美妙;你撰寫過的文章，給我啟迪; 你分享過的英語學習資料等，也非常實用。“眾人拾柴火焰高”，因為你們，美壇才是如此的美好。我總是這樣認為，獨樂樂不如眾樂樂，所以我很樂意和美壇的網友們分享我喜歡的歌曲和詩歌等。
Last but not least, 祝賀你的女兒繪畫作品獲獎，並祝你和你的家人永遠幸福快樂。
Have a nice day and great Spring,
Rebecca Lin
04/07/2010 In USA
你的文字有一種穿透人心的力量，喚醒人心靈深處的美好；如絹絹流水，在人幹涸的心田上流淌；如三月的陽光，將人的心融化。。。令人如醉如癡。。。
感謝你為美壇的慷慨無私的奉獻。因為你，美語壇是如此得美麗：）。。本來一直以為rebacca隻會每周為我們送歌送詩的。原諒我的遲鈍和木納。
同時，祝你，你先生，和你可愛的孩子們，幸福美滿！
（原諒我把信息放到這篇文章之下。因為if放到以前的文章下，怕你miss掉：）
感動與你的文字，感歎於你的人生經理。敬佩你的為人。。。
你活得很真實有品位，這也是最最打動我心靈深處的一個方麵。
先說到這。。。
戲雨飛鷹，
謝謝你。過獎了，不敢當，我有許多的缺點和不足。
I respect you, admire you.
you are such a wonderful woman. i adore you, my dear!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Open Boat" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of having survived a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned. Crane's personal account of the shipwreck and the men's survival, titled "Stephen Crane's Own Story", was first published a few days after his rescue.
Crane adapted his report into narrative form, and the short story "The Open Boat" was published later that year in Scribner's Magazine. The story is told from the point of view of an anonymous correspondent, Crane's fictional doppelgänger, and the action closely resembles the author's experiences after the shipwreck. A volume titled The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure, containing the story and several others, was published in the United States in 1898; an English edition, entitled The Open Boat and Other Stories was published simultaneously. Praised as innovative by contemporary critics, the story, which is considered an exemplary work of literary Naturalism, is now one of the most frequently discussed works in Crane's canon. It is notable for its use of imagery, irony, symbolism, and exploration of various themes including survival, solidarity, and the conflict between man and nature. H. G. Wells considered "The Open Boat" to be "beyond all question, the crown of all [Crane's] work".
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.
The eighth surviving child of highly devout parents, Crane was raised in several New Jersey towns and Port Jervis, New York. He began writing at the age of 4 and had published several articles by the age of 16. Having little interest in university studies, he left school in 1891 and began work as a reporter and writer. Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, which critics generally consider the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim for his 1895 Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without any battle experience.
In 1897, he accepted an offer to cover the Spanish-American War as a war correspondent. As he waited in Jacksonville, Florida for passage to Cuba, he met Cora Taylor, the madam of a brothel with whom he would have a lasting relationship. While en route to Cuba, Crane's ship sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him marooned for several days in a small dinghy. His ordeal was later described in his well-known short story, "The Open Boat". Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium at the age of 28.
At the time of his death, Crane had become an important figure in American literature. He was nearly forgotten, however, until two decades later when critics revived interest in his life and work. Stylistically, Crane's writing is characterized by deive vividness and intensity, as well as distinctive dialects and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crisis and social isolation. Although recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage, which has become an American classic, Crane is also known for his unconventional poetry and heralded for short stories such as "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky". His writing made a deep impression on 20th century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists.