The Correspondent

Character Analysis

The correspondent may or may not also be the narrator. (He is.)

He also may or may not be Stephen Crane himself. (He is.)

So, is there any difference between the three? (Yes.)

This story is based on something that actually happened to Stephen Crane when he was a war correspondent. So we're probably safe to imagine Mr. Crane's face on the correspondent's body.

The story is told in limited omniscient third-person; the narrator only has access to correspondent's inner thoughts. While the narrator can get all telekinetic and read the correspondent's mind, with the other characters, he just makes assumptions based on their body language and things like that. You can read more about this in the Narrator Point of View section.

The correspondent acts as our eyes and ears in the boat, and perhaps more importantly, he is the one asking the big philosophical questions that turn this from a simple adventure story into a profound meditation on the nature of existence.

Don't believe us? Check out this passage, from page 1:

 The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he was there. (1.5)

The other three guys are there in the boat, dealing with their situation the best they can, and the correspondent is already deep inside his own head, wondering about Fate and Destiny and all that juicy stuff.

It's the correspondent's introspective nature that leads us to some of the most profound moments in the story, like when he remembers the poem about the soldier dying near Algiers. In the same way that the correspondent is the one thinking about the sense of brotherhood connecting the men in the boat, he's also the one thinking about how this specific experience he is having is connected to all moments of human suffering throughout history. That's what makes this story pack a real punch.

You could say the ending is where the correspondent decides to bridge the gap and become the narrator—he describes the men as feeling like they could be "interpreters," and convey what they've learned to the rest of the world  (7.39). For Crane, his means of interpretation is writing this story.

We might think of the correspondent as three different layers of Stephen Crane. Homeboy has a formative experience on a lifeboat, spends some time reflecting on his experience, and turns it into an allegorical story about life and the universe.

 If only it were so easy.