A black man lies inert on the…
1899 CE
A hurricane has shredded the sails, snapped off the mast, and snatched away the rudder.
Unlike the boys in Breezing Up or the fisherman in Fog Warning, this man is powerless to control his vessel.
He is at the mercy of the elements.
Sharks circle the boat, a waterspout hovers in the distance, and a boat on the distant horizon passes by unseeing and unseen.
As in Stephen Crane's comparable short story, The Open Boat, nature is seen as not caring whether a man lives or dies.
Images
Winslow Homer: The Gulf Stream (1899); oil on canvas 71.4 cm (28.1 ″) x 124.8 cm (49.1 ″) Metropolitan Museum of Art
Regions
Northern North America
View →Subregions
