In the short story "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the overall theme of the story. The story centers on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oilman who is the only named character in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in the stormy sea just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship sank. Although they eventually see the shore, the waves are so large that it is too dangerous to try to bring the boat ashore. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not as large and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to get the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the undertow inevitably capsizes the boat and throws the men into the cold sea. As they approach land a great wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat capsizes and the four men have to swim to shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore to help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, the captain and the correspondent safely reach the shore and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the tanker has drowned after being crushed beneath the waves by a huge wave. (255-270) The main theme of “The Open Boat” deals with a character's seemingly insignificant struggle against the indifference of nature. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, a creative point of view, and a mix of irony. Crane draws his readers into the story with tone, placing the reader in the same frame of reference as the characters. In "The Open Boat", the initial focus... on the center of the paper... point of view and irony. Crane uses these techniques to guide the reader through the struggles, both internal and external, of man's great effort against nature. The tone sets the suspense of the story by building impending doom on the crew. The point of view of the story allows the reader to gradually understand and expect nature's indifference towards people's lives. The reality of nature is expressed through the use of different types of irony. The universe is represented by the power of the ocean, and the small boat in this ocean symbolizes man in this gigantic universe. The pristine power of the ocean is completely indifferent to the little boat, just as our great universe could not care less about man. Works Cited Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton's introduction to the shortest tenth edition of literature. New York: Norton, 2010.