POWERLESSNESS AND HUMAN INSIGNIFICANCE IN STEPHEN CRANE’S THE OPEN BOAT: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

This paper has discussed the role of Stephen Crane in The Open Boat in helping people feel insignificant and powerless through the application of a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach. The research using the three dimensional model of Fairclough examines textual, discursive and social practices to bring out the vulnerability, dependence on chance and shared human experience that are created through use of narrative strategies, lexico-grammatical choices and stylistic devices.  The analysis shows that Crane does locate the men in the boat as passive observers of nature pointing at the human frailty and little agency but also anticipates cooperation as the required answer to an uncreative universe. The research also determines the presence of ideological meanings in the story, which is the interaction of existential vulnerability, social solidarity, and the overall naturalistic worldview. The study can benefit methodologically and substantially by combining CDA and the traditional literary analysis in that the language actively creates perceptions of human insignificance and social interdependence. The results highlight the importance of discourse-analytic methods in literary analysis to explain how narrative produces ideology, relations of power and subjectivity of people.