熊芮悦
贵州省龙里中学 551200
Stephen Crane is a famous American novelist, whose the most influential novel is the open boat.Based on his own experience, it describes that individuals’ courage and brave in facing dangers and that how people see nature.Now. it is worthy discussing about living meaning from two aspects.
In some changes of his thinking about naturalism. We can see that he thinks man are characteristic of barbarous and even beast-like in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, However, he began to be confident of man's capability of self-realization in The Red Badge of Courage. Showing his humanistic tendency and trusting in man's virtues in his marked “The Open Boat”. From the gradual maturity in American naturalism, he explained heroinism again, helping those ordinary and even humble man can understand their own weak and small better in Maggie:A girl of the streets,then he captured much the hero’s physic in the war,only pursuing peaceful and quiet life in The Red Badge of Courage, and at last he always explored issues about how to survive surrounding cruel nature and how to have enough courage to overcome their fears so as to realize self value in the open boat. So from these changes , we can understand the author’ s ideas about meaningfulness of living are more and more deeper.In the other words,he emphasized heredity and environment are the forces determining man’s destiny under what life was ironic and even tragic.More importantly, he believed that we live in a universe of vast and indifferent natural forces, but choosing positively in the bad environment. "There is a house of refuge...and as soon as they see us they'll come off in their boat and pick us up". The four men were optimistic after they saw the lighthouse, their destiny was not to die, and somehow another power would help them combat the forces of nature and bring them to safety. They viewed the sea as an obstacle that they could eventually overcome it. So in fighting every times, they rely on their own strength,courage,wisdom and efforts and attaining the final victory. it is imperative that people should be confident of the human power in facing the uncertain universe.
In the unbearable lightness of being.As he put“None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea.”(01), “When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples” we can see that the power of nature is indifferent to people and their plight. maybe sometimes, we cannot grasp the environment,situation and even our current status, so we chose giving up and began to fear everything. In fact, he wanted to tell us that we need to choose balance whether outside dangers or inner fears. Despite the material society or the beautiful nature is so cruel, we should be conscious of our choices rather than forget we can human beings but not animals. In other words, if we are afraid of the uncertain environment, we may become lose ourselves,that is, unbearable lightness of being. Hence, we must grasp existing principles and make our life balance in order to have better life.
Whether the universe or the inner is so absurd and uncertain, we should be confident of human power in this world. It is sure that we can conquer everything because we are unique.So just believing in yourself and existing significance has been found forever in man’s hands.