“The Open Boat” is a short story of resistance, suffering and redemption. The story focuses on four interesting sailors on a journey to survival. They do their best to overcome the adversities of water and violent storm. Crane focuses on the constant struggle of man's immobility to control his own life. “The Open Boat” is a nonfiction fiction that some call it. It is generally considered just fiction, but many lean towards its non-fictional quality. Crane wrote the story based on his real-life experience of a shipwreck he tragically suffered. The Commodore, this is the name of the ship, was a victim of the waves and Crane was one of its friends. He wrote 2 articles based on this tragedy, but “The Open Boat” became the best way for him to make people visualize his struggle. The correspondent is the imaginary form of the writer himself. Crane focused not so much on the correspondent as on the oiler. Billy Higgins is the only character from the tale who is named in the story. The oiler is named after Crane's memory of the sailor's death. “The Open Boat” itself brings all these thoughts and facts into one setting. “The Open Boat” has forms of analysis through patterns of characterizations, shipwrecks, and autobiographical information. “The Open Boat” uses characterization to analyze the forms of survival that come from the characters in the realistic fictional tale. The oiler, the correspondent, the captain and the cook satisfy the different personalities dealing with the shipwreck. According to Joseph, the characterization of the story introduces four characters who nature has dealt a bad fate in a devastating shipwreck. The correspondent, the captain, the cook and the escaped oiler are the main ones...... in the center of the card......10. Literary resources from Gale. Network. January 14, 2014.Hodgins, Nikki. "Character Annotation."pagepanthers.wikispaces.com. Np, nd Web. 19 February 2014. .LaFrance, Marston. "'The question he liked.'." A reading by Stephen Crane. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. 192-242. Rpt. in Criticism of short stories. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. vol. 129. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literary resources from Gale. Network. January 14, 2014.Metzger, Charles R. "Realistic Devices in Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat'." The Midwest Quarterly 4.1 (October 1962): 47-54. Rpt. in Criticism of short stories. Ed. Giuseppe Palmisano. vol. 70. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literary resources from Gale. Network. 14 January 2014. "The open boat". Criticism of short stories. Ed. Giuseppe Palmisano. vol. 70. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literary resources from Gale. Network. January 14. 2014.