John Steinbeck, Lifeboat

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The movie, “Lifeboat”, begins shortly after a merchant marine ship is sunk somewhere in the Atlantic by a German U-boat. Then, before finally being sunk itself by an Allied aircraft, the U-boat continues to shell the lifeboats which are filled with the ships’ survivors. The damage is total, creating a setting where the surrounding waters are filled with bodies and debris. As the camera zooms in on one remaining lifeboat, viewers see an elegantly dressed woman writer, Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead), who sits alone in the fog, filming the destruction with a hand-held camera as if she were the director of a documentary. As she films, Kovac, the engineer of the merchant marine vessel (John Hodiak), swims up to the boat and climbs aboard, and soon another man – Sparks, the…

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Citation: Meyer, Michael J.. "Lifeboat". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 April 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12866, accessed 19 March 2024.]

12866 Lifeboat 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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