a quase prometer que é a última referência

"From the outset the attention of the men is riveted on the colors of the threatening sea, which are grey and white. Grey is the sign of desolation and despair, and is often reflected on their faces. White is used to signify the destructive power of the sea. Like hell itself, it seems capable of torment by both fire and ice. Water swarms "like white flames" into the boat. At the same time it feels icy and looks like "tumbling snow". This comparison is comically transformed, however, near the end of the story. As the correspondent isswimmingto the shore hanging on to a piece of life-preserver, he sometimes whirls "down the incline of a wave as if he were on a hand-sled." Black and red are also used as omens of disaster to the men. Yet their hopes are sustained during the night by someone lighting a watchfire on the beach. It makes a "roseate reflection" against the black. At dawn "carmine and gold" is painted on the waters, and sunlight flames "on the tips of the waves."

This is conventional color symbolism.

e um (...) ao contrário:

"Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" is not a naturalistic story, although it has often been labelled as such. The protagonist, in the interpretation of his own experience in the boat, transcends the limits of naturalistic philisophy and makes the kind of affirmation that has become familiar to us from the work of Albert Camus and other existentialist writers. No story of Crane more profoundly embodies within its structure, style, and symbolism the meaning of that experience. Several critics have examined these techniques, but they have done so without fully relating tehm to the story's meaning. It is the intention of this essay to show how Crane brings his protagonist to the realization of the absurdity of the experience and thence to his realization of the human condition."

ambas as citações do ensaio "The Open Boat, Stephen Crane" de Peter Buitenhuis de 1959, publicado na Modern Fiction Studies.

o que me leva a pensar nas duas coisas que não gosto: de contar as mesmas histórias com palavras diferentes sublinhando umas quantas iguais, as quais é suposto estar a analisar; a tentativa de arrumar os textos em correntes movimentos tendências. mas no meio disto há frases de que gosto realmente, já batidas embora, como "the realization of the absurdity of the experience and thence to his realization of the human condition."