| by Stefanie Bates Eye In January 1897, Stephen Crane was shipwrecked and lost at sea on a 10-foot lifeboat for 30 hours. Once rescued, he produced three separate accounts of the same event. "Stephen Crane's Own Story," which functions as a journalistic piece, was published in the New York Press a few days after he was rescued. "The Open Boat," written several weeks later, has been hailed as literature and anthologized as a short story in countless collections of American fiction. The third, little-known work is another short story entitled "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure," which was published a few months after "The Open Boat." As one of Crane's most important works, "The Open Boat" has received a great amount of critical attention not only for its contribution to the field of literature, but also with regard to its autobiographical content. Surprisingly, there has been a great deal of controversy over the factuality of this work. Is "The Open Boat" a work of fiction or a true account? Because the story is so steeped in fact and was published on the heels of "Own Story," the debate has become monumental; responses range from assertions that his experience served as only a "germ" of an idea for the story to statements that "The Open Boat" is no more or less fictional than the newspaper account. Who is right: those who say "fact" or those who say "fiction"? Among scholars, the consensus seems to be that, while "The Open Boat" is based in fact and served as an outlet for Crane's creative impulses, it is a work of fiction, one that has had great impact on the study of American literature and, in particular, the short story. Given the recent emphasis on and critical attention to the genre of literary nonfiction, however, looking back at "The Open Boat" through the lens of this emerging category of narrative may give scholars reason to pause. What, specifically, were Crane's intentions in writing this story? Did he intend to write fiction or nonfiction? Examining the factual content, the narrative style, and the literary value of this work in contrast with "Own Story" and "Flanagan" calls into question our current treatment of "The Open Boat" as a work of fiction. In the light of a new genre, we must consider the possibility that, no matter the category in which it was published, Crane's story is entirely factual with no element of fiction whatsoever. In fact, had "The Open Boat" been published in 1965 rather than in 1897, it would have certainly qualified as literary nonfiction. As it happened, however, Crane had only two basic genres from which to choose: the journalistic form of nonfiction or the more literary form of fiction. How might we now view this work if his choices had been more broad? I argue that "The Open Boat" is actually a work of literary nonfiction, that Crane chose nonfiction disguised as fiction as the ideal medium through which he could tell a true story in a literary way, a story of his own experience that embodied the very concepts he spent his writing career contemplating: nature and fate, life and death, brotherhood and the strength of man. What is literary nonfiction and how does it function separately from its predecessors? According to Michael Pearson, "until recently the genre of literary nonfiction went undefined" (29). This type of writing has been evolving for quite some time; we see traces of it in memoir and autobiography. But it wasn't until the 1965 publication of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood that the form took root and began to attract great numbers of writers, readers, critics, and scholars. Since then, it has become increasingly popular with the American reading public because its "timeliness [gives] the form a special edge, a way of confronting a rapidly changing and confusing reality" (Pearson 27). The modern audience seems to be intrigued with its literary approach to controversial political, social, and cultural issues that are often subjective and ambiguous. Ronald Weber explains that | |
with the new nonfiction, the audience received information but received it
entertainingly, with familiar literary trimmings. It received an up-to-date
factual fiction that abandoned the dreariness of day-to-day journalism yet
did not fly off in the strange and complex ways of Barth, Borges,
Barthelme, and other fabulists. (Weber 36) | | Yet even now, some 30 years after its semi-official birthdate, scholars do not agree on specific criteria for a work of literary nonfiction. There does not seem to be "absolute agreement among scholars concerning the nature, limits, and effects" of the genre, and, consequently, the parameters remain vague (Pearson 29). In the face of such uncertainty, however, we can still safely stipulate that this form of writing, which by its very nature encompasses journalistic fact and literary style, must be completely accurate and must employ some of the traditional literary devices. And while opinions about the particular elements required for such narrative vary, there does seem to be a consensus that literary nonfiction must achieve much more than simply being informative; it must also, in the face of its insistence upon complete accuracy, be "essentially a work of the imagination, a reshaping of a voluminous body of fact" (Landa xxxix). Literary nonfiction is often seen as an elevated form of journalism; so, since "The Open Boat" has already been credited with being literary, why bother with this type of exploration? Why confront the issue of its classification when it is already safely ensconced under the honorary, albeit quite subjective, category of "literature"? As Phyllis Frus states, | |
Not only do the separate categories into which we put short stories and
journalism--usually fiction and nonfiction, or literature and
"other"--affect the way we perceive them, but these perceived differences
affect our evaluation of each. (127) | | Our expectations of a certain genre color the way we experience the work. Journalism has a standard, fiction has a standard; and while the standard for literary nonfiction is still being shaped, it is essential that we consider "The Open Boat" in the proper light in order to reap the fullest benefit from the work. Literary nonfiction is a blending of skills, of reporting precision and literary imagination, not with respect to the creation of events but rather to the ways in which those events--intact and unaltered--are conveyed. The dynamic between text and reader inherently changes depending on the preconceptions and expectations that are brought to the reading experience, and those expectations are largely based on what is known or assumed about the writer's purpose and intention. In this case, we need to know if Crane's story, which we readily accept is based in fact, is truly a work of fiction or an account of fact. In his lifetime, Crane proved both his skill as a journalist and his artistry as a fiction writer. This examination of his short story masterpiece sheds light on yet another facet of his creative genius. The overwhelming majority of acclaimed literary nonfiction writers worked as journalists at some time in their professions. The time each spent in this field "forced [them] to become ... precise observer[s], nurtured in [them] a great respect for fact, and taught [them] lessons about style that would shape [their] greatest literary creations" (Fishkin 4). Stephen Crane was one of these journalists. As the youngest son in a family of several journalists, Crane began his career in journalism more by default than by choice, following in his family's footsteps. From the beginning, as Bernard Weinstein notes, Crane proved to be "far from an orthodox journalist ... never completely at home in the newspaper world ..." (6). He was quite successful and wrote for a number of major newspapers, but he had an unconventional attitude about the ways in which he considered his subjects and the ways in which he presented them in his writing. Weinstein adds that Crane was "far too subtle and ironic, too subjective, for a newspaper representing even liberal traditions" (7). In a notorious article that he wrote for the Tribune in 1892, Crane described a parade of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics in a manner that outwardly seemed to belittle his subjects. He had intended to shed favorable light on these working class men by contrasting their slovenly appearance and impeccable work ethic to members of the leisure class who were, in Crane's opinion, exactly the converse. His style and approach, however, were misunderstood; his "subtle and ironic" tone caught the public off guard and ignited an irate response. Consequently, Crane was forced to give up his job, and | |
here began the pattern of confrontation that would continue throughout his
newspaper career, encouraging the development of themes, the style, and
many of the incidents found in his major writings. (Weinstein 4) | | For the remainder of his career, Crane often expressed a distaste for the bureaucracy of journalism, but his love of truth compelled him to keep writing. Despite Crane's renown as an American writer, knowledge about his personal philosophies is vague; therefore, according to critic Edwin H. Cady, much of what scholars profess to "know" about Stephen Crane is conjectural and unreliable (Cady i). It seems logical to conclude, though, given what we do understand about his journalism and his feelings about the newspaper world, that Crane would have easily been attracted to the style of fiction and the artistic freedom it provided, just as many other American journalists were--Twain, Hemingway, Dreiser, among others. An examination of "Stephen Crane's Own Story," the news piece that gives the newspaper account of the ship Commodore's sinking, clearly reveals a journalist frustrated with the limits of his profession. Rarely do we find a news piece so inundated with the spurts of literary quality and engaging narrative style as exist in "Own Story." Crane employs many of the devices traditionally found in literature to support powerful images. For example, he uses poetic language, simile, and foreshadowing when he describes "three long blasts of her whistle, which even to this time impressed me with their sadness ... somehow, they sounded as wails" (Crane, "Own Story" 1). This passage evokes emotion and reflects Crane's voice; but, because the writer is confined by the purpose of conveying information, it cannot go much further beyond the scope of journalism. The literary elements are certainly artistic; however, the work as a whole falls short of being truly literary because of the imposed limitations of journalism. In writing "Own Story," Crane was forced to treat his work more as a craft than as an art, and, while his creative impulses are clearly present, this piece of writing does not embody that which we traditionally deem literary. Frus, in an article that compares the literary attributes of "The Open Boat" and "Own Story," deconstructs the ways in which we unwittingly subjugate journalism in the hierarchy of literature. She asserts that "journalism and fiction may be more similar than we usually assume," and, while her argument is made with regard to journalism, her thesis may easily be appropriated to make a case that emphasizes how naturally literary nonfiction allows for a melding of journalistic and fiction writing skills (Frus 126). In the case of "The Open Boat" and any other work of literary nonfiction written before the early 1960s, "factual" and "literary" no longer have to be mutually exclusive qualities. Before literary nonfiction began to gain recognition as a genre in its own right, it was not actually the writers who catered to this perceived distinction, but, rather, it seems to have been the entrepreneurial segment of the publishing industry that forced these ideologies onto the artists' work. The artists themselves quite often recognized the overlap. Hemingway, in fact, often used "the very same material for both news accounts and short stories ... [and] took pieces he first filed with magazines and newspapers and published them with virtually no change in his own books as short stories" (Hemingway xi). Clearly, the line between fact and fiction has a history of being blurred. This biographical evidence supports the possibility that Crane, feeling both stifled by journalism and compelled to explore the philosophical implications of his shipwreck experience, was intentionally seeking a creative approach to his true story. Turning to textual issues only provides further support. As we have already discussed, "Own Story" was written specifically for publication in a newspaper a mere few days after Crane's rescue. The news piece tells the story of the shipwreck but stops short of relaying Crane's experience in the lifeboat. "The Open Boat" picks up where "Own Story" leaves off and carries the reader through the rescue itself. Additionally, in August of 1897, he published a highly fictionalized story, "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure," which was also clearly inspired by his experience at sea. This narrative is about the captain and crew of the Foundling, which, like the Commodore, sinks in a squall, but only after it has successfully completed a filibustering expedition and fought off a Spanish gunboat. This short story is acknowledged to be Crane's attempt to capitalize on his real-life experience (Wertheim 281-82) and does not even remotely succeed in approaching the artistry of "The Open Boat." The fact that Crane wrote one account that is clearly journalistic, one account that is clearly invented, and one account that is decidedly neither broadens the possibilities for "The Open Boat" to be indeed other than fiction. At the conclusion of "Own Story," as he closes the narrative and conspicuously leaves out the account of his perilous experience in the lifeboat, Crane explains, "The history of life in an open boat for thirty hours would no doubt be instructive for the young, but none is to be told here and now. For my part I would prefer to tell the story at once" (Crane, "Own Story" 1). This comment dearly shows his premeditated intention to continue the story as a "history" and as "instruct[ion] for the young," both terms implying the accuracy of the information he will convey in the continuation, which is ultimately "The Open Boat." He wants, even yearns, to tell of his experience immediately, but Crane "knew enough not to put too much into a story for the papers; knew enough not to waste what he had to say, or wanted to say, on that most uncomprehending of all readers, the reader of the newspaper" (Hagemann 67). Crane's past experiences had taught him to be cynical about the limitations of journalism and apprehensive about the abilities of readers to comprehend the depth and significance of his reflections. In keeping with his habit of mentioning his intentions within his writing, Crane includes a disclaimer at the end of "Flanagan" that says, "The expedition of the Foundling will never be historic" ("Flanagan" 377). In the context of the story, this statement most likely refers to the ethical and legal dilemmas of recognizing in any way the success or heroics of a captain leading an illegal gun-running expedition. Yet, in the context of comparing "Flanagan" to "The Open Boat" and "Own Story," the juxtaposition of these works and the delineation of their relationships to "history" (fiction versus nonfiction) underscores Crane's personal distinction among his three accounts of this event. It seems presumptuous and somewhat unreasonable to question his intentions in writing any of the three. This insight into Crane's thoughts and plans to write of his experience is reinforced by "The Open Boat's" subtitle, which identifies it as "A Tale Intended to be after file Fact: Being the Experience of Four Men from the Sunk Steamer Commodore." The wording of this phrase has generated some controversy and division among Crane scholars. Edwin Cady says that "`After the Fact' here may as well be in pursuit of the truth of experience as of the mere exact occurrence ... and in Crane it is much more likely to be" (151). Again, the two concepts he juxtaposes--the essence of the truth of the experience versus the facts of the truth of the occurrence--need not be exclusive of one another; Crane could have quite easily been seeking both. Additionally, the careful placement of the word "Fact" after the word "Tale" and the inclusion of the reference to what he "Intended" succeed, as J. C. Levenson stipulates, in illustrating "that the main intent of this subtitle is obviously to say that the author has tried to be accurate, to give an account in accordance with what really happened" (Spofford 316). William K. Spofford, who argues against Levenson's statement, asserts that the themes, motifs, and images that exist and work so beautifully in "The Open Boat" had been formulated long before the Commodore sunk, and because of this, he concludes that "his recounting of the thirty hours in an open boat merely provided the vehicle for these materials to come together" (Spofford 316). We could invert Spofford's argument, however, simply by assuming that the pre-existence of his themes makes it even more plausible that he wanted to tell a factual story in a literary way. Just as Capote spent years searching for the perfect subject to use in a work of literary nonfiction, Crane probably realized the literary opportunity of the situation shortly after it began. If he was prone to ponder the relationship between man and nature, why is it unrealistic to think he would do so when stranded in a lifeboat at the mercy of the very nature he so often contemplated? In Spofford's defense, however, the assumption that Crane's themes necessarily qualify this work as fiction is not an unreasonable mistake. "The Open Boat" was written at a time when the literary world was focused on producing work that reflected the realist or naturalist agendas of the time. Naturalism is a recurrent mode in literature that is based on the thesis that | |
a human being exists entirely in the order of nature and does not have a
soul or any mode of participating in a religious or spiritual world beyond
nature; and therefore, that such a being is merely a higher-order animal
whose character and behavior are entirely determined by two kinds of
forces, heredity and environment. (Abrams 175) | | In fact, Stephen Crane is recognized by the literary community as a prominent American naturalistic writer, and "The Open Boat" is considered "one of the best ... documents in the American room of the naturalistic school" (Adams 421). The characters in "The Open Boat" are quite obviously dealing with the kind of forces in which naturalists believe; they face the indifference of nature and the opposition between hope and fear as they struggle for survival on the angry, open sea. Crane describes nature, which functions nearly as a character in this story, as "not ... cruel ... nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent" ("Open Boat" 355). The entire action of the narrative reveals the correspondent's contemplation and resigned acceptance of his (humankind's) insignificance and isolation in the face of an environment that simply does not care (Adams 422). Given that these ideological issues permeated the literature of the time, the presumption that any narrative that encompassed these concerns had to be fiction is not completely absurd, but it is a bit short-sighted. Many studies have been done to address the authenticity of Crane's claims regarding the ship's sinking, the actions of the survivors, the path of the lifeboat, and the rescue of the four men. In 1987, Newsweek ran an article that recounted the discovery of the wreck of the Commodore. The article is "fascinating confirmation of descriptions from `The Open Boat'; for example, precisely as Crane said, from the wreck sight, `The lighthouse of Mosquito Inlet stuck up above the horizon like the point of a pen'" (Dooley 151). There has also been extensive probing of the facts of the shipwreck: who was to blame, who got into the lifeboat first or last, who said what to whom and why. All of these studies have indicated that Crane does not stray from fact with respect to these types of issues. And perhaps most significantly, Crane's recorded correspondence shows that while he was still recovering physically from his shipwreck experience, he also "occupied himself with the revision of `The Open Boat,' consulting with Captain Murphy to assure that his recollection of their experience in the dinghy was accurate" (263). Certainly, this effort indicates that Crane was markedly concerned with relaying the event not according to how it might work best with a fictional agenda, but as it actually happened, as fact. Frus allows that "The Open Boat" is | |
not more fictional or invented than Stephen Crane's "Own Story" [and that]
both narratives follow the historical sequence of events surrounding the
Commodore disaster as verified in contemporary newspaper reports, the
ship's log and other shipping records, and accounts by witnesses. | | She even goes so far as to say that "neither story invents facts or characters" (Frus 128). Yet, throughout her article, she continues to refer to "The Open Boat" as a "short story." Other critics assert that the facts are barely changed or that they exist with "very little alteration" (Wertheim 261), but no one ventures to propose which specific facts have been compromised. These examples of scholarly insistence upon categorizing "The Open Boat" as fiction even while acknowledging that the story itself is factual serve as further support for Frus's claim that the various narrative genres we scrutinize have been reified by our hardened perceptions of them (133). We must not allow our habits to shape our perceptions, but rather we should give "The Open Boat" the consideration it deserves as a meritorious work of nonfiction that embodies a timeless literary achievement. Having dissected Crane's journalistic and fictional work on his Commodore experience and having probed into the social and ideological issues that affect the way we read any work, let us turn now to textual questions within the body of "The Open Boat" itself. In addition to its commitment to fact, literary nonfiction should, according to Pearson, "give the reader the feeling of being inside a given character's mind" (31). Given the necessity for every aspect of a literary nonfiction work to be factual, the difficulty lies in assuring that any insight into a character's thoughts is justified and explained by addressing how the author professes to know what someone else is thinking. Although this seems, at first, problematic in considering "The Open Boat" as a possible example of the genre, a close look at every instance of omniscience reveals that Crane does indeed justify and qualify his knowledge each time. Rather than telling the story from the first-person point of view, Crane removes himself as author from the action and uses third-person. This approach allows him to embody two perspectives: that of the correspondent while he is in the boat, his reality being shaken by that which he experiences; and that of the correspondent removed from the immediacy of the situation, when he is able to interpret his experience retrospectively. The character of the correspondent indisputably represents Crane's presence in the lifeboat, however, and as we carefully dissect the story, line by line, we quickly realize that Crane limits himself to these two perspectives: it is only the correspondent's mind about which Crane alleges to have intimate knowledge. The other characters--the captain, the cook, and the oiler--are all described in terms of their actions, their physical appearances, and their conversations, all of which may be interpreted in some manner by the correspondent. In section one, as Crane describes their plight, he mentions what each man is doing as they struggle to survive. The cook is bailing; the offer is steering. With each of these characters, Crane is careful to keep the detail to the visual, and he does not in any way profess to know what they are thinking. With the correspondent, however, he delves immediately into his mind while maintaining the specific narrative action of his description. The correspondent is "pulling at the other oar, watching the waves and wondering why he was there" ("Open Boat" 340; italics added). Because the correspondent is Crane, he can tell us of his thoughts without violating the factual parameters of the genre. As he discusses the final character, the captain, he seems to tell of his thoughts, but, in fact, he tells us what a captain would be thinking after seeing his ship go down, not what this particular captain is thinking. Note his careful wording: "The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her ... and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn ..." ("Open Boat" 340). Only by describing his facial expressions, which can be observed, and by comparing the captain's mind to that of any ship's captain, does Crane presume to tell us what this character is thinking in the privacy of his own thoughts. He adheres to this method throughout the work. Because the many philosophical themes and epistemological agendas of the story are intangible, however, Crane cannot use physical description or actions to discuss them. But consider his treatment of one major theme: "the subtle brotherhood of men" ("Open Boat" 340). By mentioning the men's friendship, the atmosphere of congeniality and fraternity, the captain's calm voice and the comfort the other's took in it, Crane fully explains how he draws the conclusion that although "no one said that it was so," the sense of unity was felt by all. Having already presented the urgency of their life-and-death situation (which further alludes to the significant naturalistic underpinnings of the narrative), Crane--through his subtle description of the subtle brotherhood of men--allows us to place ourselves both in the boat and in the men's minds. In a sense, he allows us, too, to become "interpreters." In arguing that journalism should be considered literary, Frus claims that journalism should be viewed as "an interpretation of events" rather than as "the transcription of reality" (126). In response, we should both acknowledge and remember that an individual's conception of reality is wholly subjective and unique from one person to the next. In addition, interpretation, or perspective, is a significant part of any writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, journalism or narrative. The line between "interpretation" and "reality" is as blurred as the one between "fact" and "fiction." The passage in section six in which the correspondent suddenly brings to mind a few lines of verse that lament the plight of "A soldier of the Legion" has raised a significant number of textual questions. Critics have long pondered the purpose and/or symbolism of the poem's inclusion within the narrative. Oddly, the four lines from Caroline Norton's Bingen on the Rhine are misquoted, and there is some evidence that Crane actually wanted it printed as a misquotation. Fredson Bowers believes that Crane "exercised some supervision over the Heinemann edition [of "The Open Boat"] ... and provided printer's copy himself." In addition, the editors of two publishing houses and of McClure's Magazine, all of which printed early copies of "The Open Boat," assumed he deliberately misquoted it (Jackson 78-79). The poem, as it exists in "The Open Boat," is not significantly different; it is only a matter of a few missing and rearranged words. In the story, the correspondent recalls the poem from his childhood. Consequently, if we assume that the correspondent represents Crane on the lifeboat, it makes sense that he would record the poem as he remembered it rather than as it is written. If he had included the verse for pure literary impact--symbolism, metaphor, imagery--then certainly he would have put the corrected text in the published work; but since he was recording the events on the lifeboat with strict attention to the facts of those events, he was obligated to transcribe the poem as he had actually recalled it. Proponents of the fiction thesis might still point out the "choral response" in section five as being highly problematic if "The Open Boat" is to be considered as literary nonfiction. Fate is admonished, | |
If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to
be drowned, why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I
allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here
merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred
cheese of life? It is preposterous. ("Open Boat" 346)
| And certainly it would be preposterous to presume that four men had identical thoughts about "the seven mad gods who rule the sea" and "the sacred cheese of life." Yet, looking closely again at the exact wording, we can see that Crane intentionally avoids presuming knowledge of the others' thoughts. He carefully prefaces this pseudo-choral response with a description of the men's rage and the words: "perchance they might be formulated thus ..." (346; italics added). At the end of the passage, he emphasizes the probability, rather than the validity, of the thought by surmising that "afterward the man might have had the impulse to shake his fist at the clouds" (346; italics added). Throughout the text, there is not a single instance of insight that is unjustified, unqualified, or unexplained. The extraordinary caution Crane uses with this aspect of the story is indicative of his commitment to convey only the facts. After closely examining "The Open Boat" both by itself and as compared with both "Stephen Crane's Own Story" and "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure," we can quite clearly make a plausible case for the assertion that while published as fiction, it is solidly based in fact. Cady has said that "`The Open Boat' has too often been appreciated for biographical or tendentious reasons and too seldom for its authentic artistic power" (151). While one aspect does not necessarily outweigh the other with respect to critical attention and acclaim, there has certainly been a long-term, ongoing debate about the issue of fact in the story. The resolution to this dilemma lies in our ability to alter our perceptions, to look at an old, comfortable member of the literary canon in a new, challenging light. Literary nonfiction provides us with the opportunity to embrace a new concept of literature and to appreciate the artistic brilliance that journalism, shaped and molded to a creative body of narrative, has to offer the hierarchy. Crane himself said, "A man is born into the world with his own pair of eyes and he is not at all responsible for his vision. He is merely responsible for the quality of his personal honesty" (Weinstein 6). Stephen Crane, when faced with a real life situation that embodied the naturalistic fears and concerns of an entire era, took the opportunity to speak from his experience, to convey not an invention, not a creation, but rather the truth, both of the experience and of the occurrence. It is our responsibility to accept the integrity of his vision as consistent with nonfictional truth-telling and consider "The Open Boat" as an early--perhaps one of the first--examples of literary nonfiction. WORKS CITED Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th ed. Forth Worth: Harcourt, 1993.
Adams, Richard P. "Naturalistic Fiction: `The Open Boat'." Tulane Studies in English 4 (1954): 137-46. Rpt. in Stephen Crane's Career: Perspectives and Evaluations. Ed.
Thomas A. Gullason. New York: New York UP, 1972. 421-29.
Cady, Edwin H. Stephen Crane. New York: Twayne, 1962.
Crane, Stephen. "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure." Gullason 364-77. --. "The Open Boat." Gullason 339-59. --. "Stephen Crane's Own Story". New York Press 7 January 1897: 1.
Dooley, Patrick K. Stephen Crane: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Scholarship. New York: Hall, 1992. Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. From Fact to Fiction: Journalism and Imaginative Writing in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Frus, Phyllis. "Two Tales `Intended to be After the Fact': "Stephen Crane's Own Story" and "The Open Boat"." Literary Nonfiction. Ed. Chris Anderson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989. 125-51. Gullason, Thomas A., ed. The Complete Short Stories & Sketches of Stephen Crane. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963. Hagemann, E. R. "`Sadder than the End': Another Look at `The Open Boat.'" Stephen Crane: Centenary Essays. Ed. Joseph Katz. DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1972. 66-85. Hemingway, Ernest. By-Line: Ernest Hemingway. Ed. William White. New York: Scribner's, 1967. Jackson, David H. "Textual Questions Raised by Crane's `Soldier of the Legion.'" American Literature 55 (1983): 77-80. Landa, Louis. Introduction. A Journal of the Plague Year. By Daniel Defoe. London: Oxford UP, 1969. Spofford, William K. "Stephen Crane's `The Open Boat': Fact or Fiction?" American Literary Realism 12 (1979): 316-21. Pearson, Michael. John McPhee. New York: Twayne, 1996. Weber, Ronald. The Literature of Fact: Literary Nonfiction in American Writing. Athens: Ohio UP, 1980. Weinstein, Bernard. "Stephen Crane: Journalist." Stephen Crane: Centenary Essays. Ed. Joseph Katz. DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1972. 3-34. Wertheim, Stanley and Paul Sorrentino, eds. The Correspondence of Stephen Crane. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. STEFANIE BATES EYE completed her MA with distinction from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She has taught composition, American literature, and business writing. She is consulting as a professional writer for an organization that facilitates domestic and international adoption. |
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