What does the boat represent in the short story? why?

The boat in Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat"
represents man's attempt to overcome nature.

Crane was a
Naturalistic writer. The Naturalists were authors who looked at their texts as
observations made from a scientific perspective. They, the authors, were simply
observers and did not "interfere" with the action of the
story.

That being said, nature was the most powerful entity
on earth. Nature had all of the power, man had none. Whenever man and nature would come
together in an external conflict, nature would always
win.

Therefore, the boat (what "protected" the men from
nature (the ocean)) represented man's attempt at rising over nature. The boat was the
only thing which was protecting the men from being in the water (an element of
nature).