What distinguishing features help you keep them straight as the narrative proceeds? What facts are provided later about each of the men? In which of the men do you become most interested as the story develops?

What probably strikes most readers of The Open Boat is not so much the differences among the men in the boat as their similarities. All of them, whatever they may be thinking, outwardly display the same matter-of-fact attitude though they know they are facing disaster. The cook is even described as "cheerful," while the captain calmly directs the others in spite of his being injured and probably in severe pain. The oiler and the correspondent alternate rowing without complaint and are thus doing most of the work. The oiler says he hates doing the work but does not rebel against it. All of the men are governed by a sense of injustice in the whole situation, but since they are powerless to do anything about it, the correspondent and the oiler continue to row, the captain calmly gives orders, and the cook bails the water from the boat bottom. The men, as Crane notes, have a special camaraderie now that they are facing death. And all of them are described as summing up their plight with the thought, "If I am going to lose my life to the sea—why was I allowed to come this far to see sand and trees?" Yet no one speaks this aloud. So beneath the outward calm each of the men is actually seething—against nature, or fate, or against the men they see on the shore waving a black flag but apparently doing nothing to summon help or to send out a rescue boat.
Each of the men's thoughts and behavior function as a metaphor for the way human beings in general deal with ordinary living. Though most of us are not facing imminent death at any given moment, the conditions of life are difficult for everyone, but most of us keep plugging away calmly. In this story Crane is depicting what he possibly regards as the ideal human attitude. It may sound banal, but in The Open Boat (as in his other works) he gives a sharp, vivid portrait of courage in the face of adversity.