I Saw a Man Pursuing The Horizon By Stephen Crane: The Pursuit Of The Unattainable

The Power of Dreamer's Ambitious in I Saw A Man Pursuing The Horizon

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. “It is futile,” I said, “You can never —” “You lie,” he cried, And ran on. “I saw a man pursuing the horizon” is a poem crafted by the American poet, Stephen Crane. It’s a brief poem about a man pursuing the horizon relentlessly. The speaker in the poem is watching the man run round and round, and then “accosts” him and states that his objective is in vain.

The pursuer does not believe the man and continues to chase his dreams. The poem seems to represent the importance of the human ambition of someone who is willing to chase his dreams no matter how arduous or impossible the challenge. One analytical view of the poem could be that the speaker/watcher, the “ I,” who is viewing the person pursuing the horizon is quite pessimistic because, unlike the runner, he has no vision or is scared of new times or change.

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The Message in Stephen Crane's Poem

Why is he “disturbed”? Maybe the speaker recalls his own shortcomings and fears. Also the speaker could represent a person or culture not wanting someone else to achieve his or her dreams, so the speaker tries to stop or “accost” the person pursuing the horizon. People need to be pursuers and not the pessimists. When people are dreamers and become pursuers, the world becomes a more just and a happier place.

There are many examples of people chasing their aspirations in everyday life. The dreams can be great like those of a bilateral amputee running in the Olympics. He does this to prove he isn’t defined by his disabilities and can compete on the world stage, nonetheless. He will not sit in a wheelchair and watch the world go by. He will chase the horizon. Another example of a man chasing the horizon would be Jackie Robinson, the first African-American baseball player in the Major Leagues. He was accosted by others after games and even by his own teammates who warned him that it was futile for him to try to play in a segregated America in a white man's league.

Reaching the Horizon: Pursuing Dreams

In spite of his pursuers, Robinson speeds on toward the horizon, exposing the “lie. ” Another example of chasing the horizon would be young women in Bangladesh who compete in surfing. These women can be ridiculed and even persecuted for breaking ancient Muslim law which bans women from participating in sports as men do. Ambitious people won’t let anyone get in their way to reach a goal, whatever it may be. These three examples are similar to the man in the poem trying to reach the horizon. The speaker told him “It is futile,” “You can never-“ but he cut him off and kept on running which develops Stephen Crane's theme that mankind should always pursue their dreams, no matter what pessimists say. The poem ends with these last two abrupt lines: “You lie,” he cried, And ran on. Stephen Crane sends the readers out to pursue their ambitions and dreams regardless of the cynical voices around them.