As he expressed in The Open Boat, Stephen Crane wrote often about the indifference of nature to man’s fate. He also believed that if there were a God, he was there to simply set things in motion and then sit back to watch the results. This idea is clearly stated in his poem “The Black Riders” VI and XXIV. (1) He describes how God has built a boat in a masterful way. He has skillfully fashioned all of the parts and acted as if he would take the rudder to guide the ship but then abandons it to the sea. It gets even worse. Not only is nature uncaring but at the end of this part of the poem, nature is laughing at man and his weakness. He writes that there are “many in the sky Who laughed at this thing”. Even the gods find humor in man’s struggle with nature. In XXIV of the poem, a man is seen running after the horizon as if he could catch it. When he is told that his efforts are futile he refuses to believe it and continues to run. In her discussion of Crane’s use of naturalism in his writings, Donna Campbell, also points out that Crane often wrote about man’s fight against an uncaring nature. (2) Mark Canada writes that the naturalists including Crane tend to write “fiction and poetry” that is “dreary in tone”. This is certainly true of this poem. Crane tells us that there is no caring God to help us when we are in danger. We have no one to pray to when things go bad. God like nature is indifferent to our problems. As all naturalists believed, man is on his own against nature but in this poem, Crane takes it to an even more ominous level, where nature laughs at man’s pitiful efforts.
1. The Norton Anthology, Seventh Edition, Volume C, 1865-1914, pgs 1016 and 1017
2. Campbell, Donna M. "Naturalism in American Literature. " Literary Movements. Dept. of English , Washington
3. Canada Canada 's America
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