As we all can remember, in March of 2011 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rumbled earth and was felt halfway across the world. Aftershocks riddled the Japanese people and consistently continued some time after the initial earthquake. Thought to be one of the worst natural disasters in Japans history, its people were to be devastated far worse with the events following the earthquake.
Soon after the earthquake a giant tsunami raced across Japan swallowing up cities and destroying huge amounts of land. Thousands of lives we lost and the country was completely devastated. Not too long after the earthquake and the tsunami had settled, the world learns a nuclear reactor located near a coast had been severely damaged and was now leaking radioactive material into the earth, and into the sea. All around the world people asked, how could this happen, how could something so destructive happen to a country like this; and even worse, how could God let this happen.
Stephen Crane's response would be rather unaccommodating and bleak. According to Crane this type of disaster is part of the universe. The powers at hand have to remorse, no sympathy for these people or for anyone, it simply is. The universe continues on its path regardless of its inhabitants or the effects of nature. Secondly, to answer how could God of let this happen? How would he allow the sea to remorselessly swallow up thousands of his people and stand by to let it all happen? Crane would beg to ask the question. Was it really thousands of people who were swept away and lost forever? Or is it God who was swept away carelessly by man, pushed aside for other matters more important. Crane would present God as indifferent and unbiased. The things that happened that day and for days to come was the universe working as it has for millions of years. We think we are supreme beings and kings of our domain, when in all reality we are nothing more than a mark in time as the universe continues to turn.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Splinter of hope in “A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar”
“A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar” is a deterministic story that provides the reader with less description, yet much more powerful imagery. Crane uses words that create an emphasis on the rhythm but also through sound. Crane illustrates to us a lonely passenger on a voyage through the sea. An “assassin” if you would, with “A weary slow sway of a lost hand” (Crane). The man, much like mice, silently submits to the overbearing sea.
He is alone with nothing around him but the endless crests and the never ending green of the ocean water. He has no choice, nor and will to make one if he were given the opportunity. Crane also creates a vivid image of the waves crashing around the man. “The incessant raise and swing of the sea” (Crane) gives the illusion of massive waves moving to and from. As if they were being pulled into the heavens and dropped back down, crashing into the earth. He suggests that the man might be saved, by turning the oceans into spray and giving the man a gesture of pity. But this does not happen; once again suggesting the coldness of God.
The poem gives the reader a sense of darkness and despair. The vivid words move from line to line as you can image the beaten man floating adrift in the unforgiving ocean. The poem provides the reader with a much more visual experience. You aren’t left to think there is hope for the characters. “A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar” adheres to the classic naturalistic style of writing and gives focus to an indifferent universe.
Indifferent Universe is a literary style used to show unrelenting mother earth and its unconcerned attitude towards humans. It gives the reader an image of a bleak situation where regardless of the characters actions the unforgiving universe will continue to move on unaffected. It makes you think about how small you really are, in a sea of people and things where there is so much going on.
He is alone with nothing around him but the endless crests and the never ending green of the ocean water. He has no choice, nor and will to make one if he were given the opportunity. Crane also creates a vivid image of the waves crashing around the man. “The incessant raise and swing of the sea” (Crane) gives the illusion of massive waves moving to and from. As if they were being pulled into the heavens and dropped back down, crashing into the earth. He suggests that the man might be saved, by turning the oceans into spray and giving the man a gesture of pity. But this does not happen; once again suggesting the coldness of God.
The poem gives the reader a sense of darkness and despair. The vivid words move from line to line as you can image the beaten man floating adrift in the unforgiving ocean. The poem provides the reader with a much more visual experience. You aren’t left to think there is hope for the characters. “A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar” adheres to the classic naturalistic style of writing and gives focus to an indifferent universe.
Indifferent Universe is a literary style used to show unrelenting mother earth and its unconcerned attitude towards humans. It gives the reader an image of a bleak situation where regardless of the characters actions the unforgiving universe will continue to move on unaffected. It makes you think about how small you really are, in a sea of people and things where there is so much going on.
Darkness Moves Forward
Stephen Crane wrote several works in the literary style naturalism, a movement that emerged in France in the middle of the nineteenth century and worked its way to America. Naturalistic works portray humans as helpless victims of natural and outside forces. These forces consistently affect characters in some negative way, such as in Crane's "A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar". We are provided with the image of a helpless man bobbing back and fourth on a splinter of wood in a vast ocean, hopeless. Naturalism is closely allied to realism, whereas naturalistic fiction and poetry tend to have a dreary and pessimistic tone.
Crane was considered to be one of the greatest naturalistic writers. Some consider him as the father of naturalism in the Americas and credit him with the genres success. While some of Cranes work cannot be described as strictly naturalistic in style, some of his most famous works stick true to the basic elements. "Crane's artistry lies in his ability to convey a personal vision based on his own 'quality of personal honesty.' In doing so, he pioneered the way for a modern form of fiction which superceded the genteel Realism of the late nineteenth-century American literature." (Poupard)
Crane was considered to be one of the greatest naturalistic writers. Some consider him as the father of naturalism in the Americas and credit him with the genres success. While some of Cranes work cannot be described as strictly naturalistic in style, some of his most famous works stick true to the basic elements. "Crane's artistry lies in his ability to convey a personal vision based on his own 'quality of personal honesty.' In doing so, he pioneered the way for a modern form of fiction which superceded the genteel Realism of the late nineteenth-century American literature." (Poupard)
Works Cited
Baym, Nina, Robert S. Levine, and Arnold Krupat. "Stephen Crane." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. C. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. 954-56. Print.
Crane, Stephen, and Robert Wooster Stallman. An Omnibus. New-York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952. Print.
Poupard, Dennis, ed. Twentieth-century Literary Criticism Vol. 17: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, and Other Creative Writers Who Died between 1900 and 1960, from the First Published Critical Appraisals. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1984. Print.
Rose of Thorns
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was born November 1,1871 in Newark, New Jersey. He died June 5, 1900, at the age of twenty eight of tuberculosis. He lived a hard life consistently faced with challenges to overcome.
Stephen Crane's naturalistic style of writing is what originally attracted me to his stories. His pessimistic and brutal style of writing is something very much I can relate to myself. Under a rough and crude exterior lies a man of elegant intelligence and poetic essence. His understanding of war, even though never actually participating in one, led him to create some of his greatest works such as "The Red Badge of Courage."
Crane's interest in ideas presented by Charles Darwin had a huge influence on his writing and style. Crane creates a dark and dreary tone in many of his writings and does an exceptional job on illustrating the futile attempts of man to control his own destiny. His characters are consistently ordinary men, with no exceptional qualities, faced with problems every one of us might be confronted with. This is why, in my opinion, Crane has had such a long lasting impression on the world of literature. Every single person that reads his work can relate, every character seems to reflect someone we know, every situation we can see our self facing the same challenges and struggling alongside the characters.
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