Talk:The Open Boat

The Open Boat is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 5, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 17, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed
March 29, 2010	Peer review	Reviewed
April 14, 2010	Featured article candidate	Promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 22, 2010. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Stephen Crane (pictured) based the 1898 short story "The Open Boat" upon his personal experience of having survived a shipwreck off the coast of Florida?
Current status: Featured article

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Publication History

I suggest that you describe the publication history after the 1890s, or at least note that it was widely anthologized. Also, shouldn't there be more on the academic discussion and criticism of this story? -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's quite a bit out there, but I believe I've covered most important areas now. María (habla conmigo) 02:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary

It says there are seven sections, but the summary only describes six: first, next four and last. What's the seventh? I suggest expanding the plot summary a little to describe more about the characters, or about how they feel when they see people on the beach, etc. -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done and done. Thanks! María (habla conmigo) 02:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Scartol

Another fine article, Maria. Huzzah! Here are some questions and comments, to be addressed when you have time.

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 Do we need the middle phrase? Isn't it obvious from the title?

Good point; cut. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The ship sailed from Jacksonville, Florida, with 27 or 28 men and a cargo of supplies and ammunition for the Cuban rebels. I don't suppose it's germane to the discussion of the story, but do we know who supplied the ammo and supplies?

Not really, I'm afraid. The whole prelude to the Spanish American War is a rather shady affair in its own right, come to think of it. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the quote at the start of "Plot summary" needs some context? Probably not -- it's an obvious setup for the tale. But it feels stranded there without any commentary. But maybe that's like a deep symbolic part of the whole, reflecting Crane's experiences themselves! DUDE!

Dude, that was, like, totally my intention! Seriously, though, I'm not sure context is needed, aside from perhaps noting that this is the opening to the story? I kind of like it by itself. :) María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The four have survived a shipwreck, which occurred before the beginning of the story, and are drifting at sea in a small dinghy. The tenses feel like they're shifting here -- they "have survived", indicating the past participle, but then we have the simple past with "occurred". I don't know if this needs remedy (perhaps my brain is just addled), but it feels sketchy. I wonder if we even need that middle phrase?

Changed to: "The four are survivors of a shipwreck", and I'm not sure about the middle phrase. I want to make it clear that the shipwreck predates the story, but I agree it's somewhat wordy. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if we should link oiler for dumb people (like me) who aren't familiar with this task on a ship?

It was linked once in the lead, so I added another link in the "Background" section, where it next appears. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At the beginning of the seventh and last section... Is the seventh section the final one? (If so, could we just use "At the beginning of the last section"?) Or are we referring to two different sections? (If so, we should use the plural "sections".)

One section; changed to "beginning of the last section". María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that the quote from Red Badge ("Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy") points to nature being "fickle and ultimately disinterested in a man's troubles".. Couldn't it be read as: "Nature hates seeing tragedy, so she helps humans deal with it"? Is this OR? Or is there a critic we can cite?

Not exactly; I believe I meant to link it when Crane's connection between nature and the feminine, but I tried to make it more universal. Fixed. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, this material is now being questioned as OR, which is a shame but I no longer have the materials to cite it properly. Removed for now. María (habla conmigo) 12:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The social and metaphysical conflicts born from man's isolation are also important themes throughout the story... I don't know that the examples which follow can be classified as social conflicts. Perhaps we should drop that word?

Dropped. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That Billie does not survive the ordeal, however, can be seen as an antithesis to Darwinism in that the only person to not survive was in fact the strongest. Should we use "fittest" at the end there? Maybe he's not the fittest, in other ways -- but then Darwin doesn't necessarily say "strongest".. I dunno.

He's described as being the strongest, physically, among the men. Added that necessary descriptor. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While others believe the literary reference to be mainly ironic and not sympathetic, and only of minor interest, Stone for one argued... This sentence points to the difficulty I have with putting critical commentary in the past tense. The first verb ("believe") is in present tense, and that clashes with the past-tense form of "argued". Of course the alternative is to say that "others believed", which is weird; or we could put all the critical commentary throughout the article in the present tense (which I hesitate to suggest). Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

I much prefer critics' words (which were written/said in the past) to be referred to as occurring in the past -- opinions change, after all. :) Changed to "While the literary reference may be considered ..." María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd to point out that the story is included in collections of Crane's work. Did he write so much that some stories would be left out of a book called Stephen Crane: An Omnibus?

Oh, yes, he wrote tons and tons. An Omnibus was one of the early "Best Of"s as far as Crane collections went, which is why I included that one in particular. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bridges is quoted thusly: Crane "has indelibly fixed the experience on your mind". But I'm not used to hearing about things being fixed on one's mind; usually I've seen "in". Is this a typo by any chance? Or am I just unfamiliar with this turn of phrase?

Yup, the original is "on". Weird, right? María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could we get a phrase about who Harry Esty Dounce is, for those fools who don't know (like me)?

I had no idea who he was, either, but he apparently wrote a very sad and sweet essay called "Some Nonsense About a Dog", that I think Crane would have appreciated had he read it. He was such a fan of dogs, especially mongrels. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could we have years for the later critical applause?

This might take some digging; will work on it. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do we need the word "Note" in note #40? I should think it obvious that the commentary there is a note.

Good point; removed. María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is filled with silly and improper examples of lolcats grammar. Please fix them.

Lol wut? María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats again on a superb piece. Scartol • Tok 16:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so very much, Scartol, yet again! María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Online editions

I moved all the external links to the online editions of the text into the External Links section, otherwise it's confusing when there are external links in the References section to one version of the text, and external links elsewhere in the article to other versions of the text. Also, Google Books is a poor choice for online texts, except as last resort. GB is not a library, they make no promise that a book available today will be available tomorrow, it has been a problem as books come and go on Google mysteriously - it's also a for-profit business. Internet Archive is a non-profit library archive and more stable. GB and IA are of comparable size of public domain works. Green Cardamom (talk) 22:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's all good and well, but the link to Google Books has been included because said link was used as a reference. This is not ambiguous or confusing, as it's included in a footnote -- not the article itself. WP:EL has not been breached in any way; the link points directly to where the information was found, which is correct per WP:CITE. If Google were to remove the edition tomorrow, then the EL can simply be deleted as a deadlink. Until then, it should be treated as the reference it is. María (habla conmigo) 22:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. In that case I would recommend not using GB as your reference since they have been unreliable in keeping books in Full access. If, for example, GB or one of its partners decides to remove full-view access for any reason, they will (and have). There is also the problem of overseas like in the UK being unable to view books on GB.[1] Then there are the notorious quality control problems. GB is an all-around terrible source, a place of last resort. This is a Featured Article, we have better more reliable sources to use. Green Cardamom (talk) 00:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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