How or in what passages do you see the Naturalist worldview reflected in "The Open Boat" - the idea that the fate of human beings is a product (not

How or in what passages do you see the Naturalist worldview reflected in "The Open Boat" - the idea that the fate of human beings is a product (not of free will or of God's will) but rather of heredity, environment, and chance?

I thought this story was fairly interesting and exciting. I love the ocean and I love tales about sailors and ships lost at sea. In this story its hard to figure out exactly what these sailors believed in. Multiple times through out the story, the captain talks about the 7 gods of the sea. So clearly he does not believe in 1 God. He might not believe in anything really. He may have not believed in the 7 gods because he put know faith in them or anything.He relied on himself and his crew to figure out ways to get to shore. The captain says the same phrase multiple times throughout the story,

"If I am going to be drowned -- if I am going to be drowned -- if I am

going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods, who rule the

sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?...

I never really understood why he says this 4-5 times during the story. but to me it seems like he may have had some kind of belief or a hope that these sea gods would give him a promising future but towards the end of the story he realizes that is just bogus and he feels like he was portrayed by them. They just happen to get got up in currents that took them to shore and happen to have people come rescue them once they were close to land.

This is a response to number 1 from my classmate, I have to make a statement to his response.