Mystery Of Heroism

Stephen Crane’s attitude towards war is bitter and gloomy in both the story “A Mystery Of Heroism” and the poem “War is kind”. He presents this using intimate imagery, as if he has been in/through a war himself. He mostly uses lyrical expressions in his story “A mystery of heroism”; whereas he is very sardonic in his poem “War is kind”. Either way his tone in both his works is very gloomy through the vivid imagery he uses.
In his story “ A Mystery Of Heroism” Crane portrayed Fred Collins being a hero, however he also emphasizes on how Collins is being pressured into doing the act of “heroism”, “Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. ‘Well, if yeh want a drink so bad, why don't yeh go git it?’...’Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't …show more content…
The moral from both his story and poem ask an important question: Whether or not war is truly worth the deaths and destructions it causes. Crane pleads the families not to be sad, repeating: “Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind”, “Do not weep babe for war is kind” and “Mother…/do not weep.” trying to console them yet he forthrightly gives a vivid image of the deaths in the war: “your lover threw wild hands toward the sky”, “your father tumbled…/gulped and died” and “shroud of your son.”. Crane uses this detailed imagery and honesty because he wants to show how glorious war isn’t, and expose it for what it really is rather than people oftentimes thinking of it as glory and honor for patriotism.
Therefore, Crane builds different attitudes on different levels of his story “A Mystery Of Heroism” and his poem “War is kind”. Yet he is very forthright in both his works. Crane sees no optimism in war. He uses lyrical imageries for his works but he uses more of a sarcastic tone for his poem as he’s trying to prove there is no glory in war. His irony in his story represents how there no is no winning in a war, either way both sides are losing, its just the matter of who surrenders