Journal 20: Dying better than being alone

Quote:
“Presently it seemed that even the captain dozed, and the correspondent thought that he was the one man afloat on all the oceans. The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end” (Crane, 1010)

Summary:
From the reading “The Open Boat” by Crane, these are the correspondent’s thoughts after the night comes and he is the one in charge of rowing the boat. He starts thinking that he is alone, even though his other three companions are next to him sleeping.

Response:

Again, Crane is portraying human nature, where people are afraid to be alone. In this case, the correspondent feels that even if his friends are all sleeping together in this tiny boat, he is alone. He fears this loneliness, he fears it more than death, because he doesn’t want to be sad, and being alone is sad, and sadness is like death. This is made clear by the last line where he says the wind that that came through the waves, was sadder than the end, with which he is referring to death.

Also, I think the correspondent is scared of being alone; he is worried about having to stand alone by himself, which means there is nothing else that can distract him from looking at himself and finding his true nature. I guess this is also true about human beings, we don’t like silence, and quietness, because it feels like we are death, that there is no one out there to help us, and we have to stand on our own. This is when reality hits us hard, because we realize we are indeed alone and there is nothing we can do about it. In this case, the correspondent wishes there were somebody else with him, because he doesn’t want to confront this reality that seems to accentuate with the silence and the night. Thus, he feels like the only man in the middle of the ocean, and even if he doesn’t want to, he can connect his loneliness to the ocean, to the nature, and he reflect his loneliness to the voice of the wind, which is “sadder than the end’.