Stephen Crane's short story, "The Open Boat", recounts the experiences of four men who survive a shipwreck and find themselves in float on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. On the surface, the story paints a picture of the dangers of getting lost at sea and how four men can come together in a time of distress and rely on each other for strength and companionship. However, the story also addresses the theme of determinism, or the idea that there are forces acting on an individual, that these forces are beyond the individual's control, and that these forces impact and shape the lives of those on which they are practiced. . Throughout the story, these four men must come to terms with their own mortality and, more importantly, their own insignificance. Crane uses nature in many forms to reflect the concept of determinism; he presents nature in the form of the sea and the weather, and he also presents nature in the form of the bodies of tired and hungry men. The four survivors on this small boat struggle against these forces acting on them as they fight for survival. In "The Open Boat," Crane pits man against nature, but it is a fight in which at least one of the competitors, nature, does not actively participate, and in showing this, Crane is capable of demonstrating the evolution of the perceptions of the men on the boat. The boat processes its predicament and eventually realizes that there is no one to fight or blame and that nature, in all its manifestations, does not care whether they live or die . Above all, these men must face the obstacle of simply being mortals needing the basics crucial to human survival, such as food, water, and rest. In order to deal with other p...... middle of paper ...... very little separates these men from imminent death and what stands between them exists and acts outside their domain of influence. It is not their strength, hard work, or perseverance that will defy nature and allow them to live. On the contrary, it is the strength of the man-made boat that must resist the forces that oppose it. Their fate is in the figurative hands of nature and men, and everything they do in the lifeboat will bring them closer to life or death. But they have no way of knowing which decisions will take them where, so they must rely on the deterministic factors of life to lead them to safety rather than their demise, but first they must lose direction of their importance and reconcile. with the fact that their survival is in no way considered by nature and the other forces that work in their lives.