Novelist Ray Bradbury once said, “I used to take my stories home to girls and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction to reading a story to a girl instead of touching her?” (“Ray Bradbury Quotes”). While speaking from a comedic perspective, Bradbury gets it: Stories are powerful. They have the power to create an alternate reality. Unfortunately, they are often underestimated compared to the typical novel because they have less content, less quantity or less detail. The length of a story does not determine the quality of the message or the style of the language. is determined by the reader's reaction. To attract attention, the writer must include the essential elements of the story, such as setting, characters and theme encompasses these three elements from a chillingly realistic perspective when given the facts that drive this historical fiction Say No to Plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, the historical facts regarding the location and context of this story not only give context to its setting, but also create a disturbingly authentic reality. The reader must first understand that this story is based on a true incident in the life and career of Stephen Crane. As a war reporter, Crane traveled to locations around the world to report war-related events and incidents. In the specific case of both this historical account and this short story, Crane is supposed to be traveling to Cuba to report an arms trafficking event to rebels in Cuba right before the start of the Spanish-American War in 1898 ("Fact and Fiction"). However, he gets distracted by a shipwreck. Considering the amount of context provided in the story itself, this information is priceless. The narrator only hints at the actual physical context of the story when discussing the conditions of the water. He says, “The January water was frozen, and he [the correspondent] immediately thought it was colder than he had expected to find it off the coast of Florida” (356). After reading and analyzing such a long story, the reader can often overlook this simple detail. However, understanding this simple detail brings reality to this situation. First of all, this story is real. Florida is a real place that exists on the maps our children learn about in fifth grade. Florida is the real place from which Crane set out to purposely travel to Cuba and unknowingly spend 30 hours on a dinghy (“Fact and Fiction”). Deep water swimming is a serious matter, and if poorly prepared, deep water swimming is a deadly matter. In a newspaper article reporting the sinking of their ship, Crane states: "The Commodore's whistle [their ship] had been set free, and if ever there was a voice of despair and death, it was in the voice of this whistle." ("Fact and Fiction", pp. 43). Here, Crane discusses a real reality from the first-person point of view. This reality of this fact creates a new sense of urgency in the narrative. Urgency often leads to panic, and panic often ends in disaster. These historical facts only contribute to the reality of this situation: four men stranded in the middle of the ocean, fighting for their lives. These four characters, fighting for life and linked by a “subtle brotherhood,” have real counterparts in the story, counterparts who also offer an element of frightening relevance to this story (345). In reality, the correspondent represents Crane, the cook exemplifies the Commodore's actual cook, the captain.