In Stephen Crane's naturalist story, 'The Open Boat' the repetition of the term "sacred cheese" invokes the idea of seeming powerless and caught in a trap.
Sacred Cheese refers to the food that a hungry man sees and something or other prevents it to have that food. Similarly when the narrator's ship is destroyed, upon seeing the land in front of him he is in despair that he cannot reach that land. Therefore, there is something preventing them to save themselves from death.
